Tirikatene Rino: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7903. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to make a contribution at this first reading of the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As my colleagues have expressed in their contributions we support this bill. We do welcome it. It is a long time coming. We know that it has been brought about through some unfortunate circumstances in particular the terrible tales of exploitation exploitative employment practices and tragedies that have occurred on the high seas with foreign charter vessels such as the  
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 around about 2 years ago. There was the Ministerial Inquiry into Foreign Charter Vessels which followed that tragedy. It is very good to see that of all the recommendations expressed in this bill the Government has gone further than what the ministerial inquiry recommended. There was a bit of a toss-up between whether it would continue with bareboat charters or go to complete reflagging of vessels. Following consideration by the ministry and its recommendations the ministry advised and the Minister for Primary Industries has taken on board that all foreign charter vessels operating within New Zealand waters will be reflagged come 2016. 
That is an issue that I would like to take up because following the ministerial inquiry conducting its work—and it heard submissions up and down the country and heard many submissions right across the industry—the panel said in its conclusion: “[We have] concluded that urgent corrective action is required in the way New Zealand regulates the activities of foreign charter vessels in its exclusive economic zone.” Well urgent corrective action—waiting for another 3 to 4 years for this reflagging to be implemented is not that urgent. We know that some leading figures in the fishing industry have made calls for bringing that requirement forward to say 2 years a 2-year time frame. But alas the Government has decided that it wants a 4-year lead-in so that companies can prepare and can alter their commercial or contractual charter arrangements or indeed find a new catching capacity so they can bring in new foreign charter vessels under the new regime. So it will take a while before the full force of this legislation is going to be felt but at least it is a good step forward that these measures are being put in place. 
I guess we have heard and from looking at the submissions you know everyone in the fishing industry loves to fish obviously. Fishermen love to fish. They love to catch lots of fish and obviously they want to catch them profitably and make a good return on their invested capital whether it is in their vessels or on their property rights with their quota and annual catch entitlements. I know that there were calls from the Maori investment in fisheries—and obviously Maori are significant stakeholders in the fishing industry through Te Ohu Kaimoana and Aotearoa Fisheries and all of the assets that are owned within those companies like Sealord’s 50 percent shareholding and also the property rights that are held by iwi directly through their allocated shares by the Maori fisheries settlement. I know that there has been concern expressed from those elements of the Maori fisheries sector that they did not want to see the introduction of too much of a compliance regime for foreign charter vessels because of the potential increased costs that it will impose on the industry and the resulting loss in value of their property rights. In terms of the iwi groups around the country many of them have actually had quite good business relationships with foreign charter vessel companies by virtue of the fact that they could run at a lower cost than other industry players—other domestic industry players that is—because they were exploiting their labour. It was operating in a false economy. But on the flip side of that the resource rentals or the returns that could be paid to the iwi quota owners were a lot higher than what say the prevailing market will be—we shall see—with the more consistent regime that will apply through this piece of legislation. 
So not everyone will be happy but there is a 4-year lead-in time so no fishing boat owner will want to have their boat tied up. Wherever they are around the world there is a lot of excess fishing capacity and I suspect it will not be too hard for existing companies or charter operators to find new commercial arrangements or indeed to just tweak their current commercial arrangements with their foreign boat owners to ensure that they meet the grade and can operate to consistent levels right across the board. We do not want to see more of the horrific stories about abuse and exploitation that have occurred. 
I have been on one of those charter vessels. They are—and this one in particular was—usually very very big and very old over 50 years old at least and they have been through multiple owners. They are what we call old dungers in the industry—very sturdy but very unsafe. They are not cut out for big guys like me—6 foot 4. You have to sort of duck to get around like in any rabbit warren in these big old vessels. That is why they are crewed largely by small crew many of them sourced from Indonesia—good friends of our mate Mr Prosser over there we hope. But they are good hard-working crew and it is great to see that we can raise their standard so at least they can be on a consistent level with all New Zealand fishers. [ 
Interruption 
] Just continuing on—they draw crew from all around the world. 
I would just like to refer to the Government’s objectives in relation to foreign-owned flagged vessels which the Minister mentioned in his speech and one of those objectives is to “Ensure that acceptable and equitable New Zealand labour standards … are applied on all fishing vessels operating in New Zealand’s fisheries waters”. This legislation does achieve that albeit that it will not kick in for another 3 years’ time. But what that objective does not alas include is securing opportunities for Kiwi workers. So it is great that there will be fair and acceptable equitable labour standards but it would have been great if the Government had gone a step further and also made sure that in relation to the labour on those vessels the opportunities are there for Kiwi workers. Labour’s policy is to have a progressively built-in 50 percent requirement that if all the crew are on a consistent level under New Zealand law then we get a larger proportion of those workers up to 50 percent being Kiwis. That is what we want to see. I am sure that is what Maori want to see. Those Treaty rights that were recognised through the fisheries settlement were for Maori to get into the business and activity of fishing. So it would be great to see more Maori crew on those boats and getting fairly rewarded for a hard day’s work. 
I would also like to say that fishing is more than just food because now we are seeing our major companies diversifying into nutraceuticals and into fish oils. In fact there is a lot of extra value. A low-value fish can be turned into a high-value fish. We just need the research and development investment to go into those companies and hopefully Labour will give those incentives so it can turn that $1.5 million industry much higher. Kia ora tatou.