Browning Steffan: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7898. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This bill implements decisions on the regulation of foreign charter vessels following the allegations and then the recommendations of the ministerial inquiry that followed. It requires that all vessels are flagged as New Zealand ships from 1 May 2016. We think it should be a little bit quicker but the bill is a move in the right direction. It strengthens the chief executive’s power to consider a wide range of matters when consenting to foreign charter vessel applications. These matters extend from fisheries management matters to employment and vessel safety conditions. Bringing together those different aspects is very important and it is a very timely move. 
The bill extends the functions of observers—and I will talk about that a bit more—on foreign charter vessels to collect the information on employment and vessel safety conditions. It begins with a phase-out of foreign charter vessels in New Zealand waters which is a good thing. It unfortunately takes a few years as I have said to get to that point. There are some gaps in the bill and we will be looking forward to the select committee hopefully addressing some of those. The crew of foreign charter vessels their pay their health safety conditions all need to be lifted in terms of this bill. Although the breaches will be more readily reported this bill fails to address many of the issues raised in the inquiry. 
Migrant fishing crews working on foreign charter vessels fishing in New Zealand waters have been exploited over two decades. Research reveals human rights abuses forced labour exploitative and appalling conditions coupled with an absence of accountability despite legislation. The National Party’s links with the fishing industry should be looked at as well. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Oh come on! Look at the party next to you. 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: In response to the noise from the other side maybe I need to repeat that. The crews come to New Zealand with the goal of earning a decent income. Instead they become victims of forced labour by fishing companies associated with others in this House. If decisive action had been taken when accounts of fishing crew exploitation first emerged in the 1990s recent shocking incidents of abuse that have been in our media could have been avoided. 
Globally the fishing industry is home to some of the worst examples of abuse in the workplace and it is to our shame that New Zealand waters have been the scene of some of this abuse. Countries such as Indonesia provide a ready pool of impoverished migrant workers to our fishing industry. The nature of the employment itself—fishing vessels operating at sea for months on end with little if any regulatory oversight—means transparency and accountability is problematic. The New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment must also take responsibility for poor enforcement of our weak laws. In 1999 a case initiated by over 100 crews from three vessels went to the Court of Appeal and despite a series of investigations the Department of Labour undertook no prosecutions. The question has to be: who was it taking instruction from? 
The exploitation of foreign fishing crews has been a feature of the New Zealand deep-sea industry for decades unfortunately. New Zealand fishing companies began using foreign charter vessels in the late 1970s to help them develop the deep-water fisheries and many of them are crewed by migrant Asian workers particularly as I said Indonesians. In 2004 over 150 foreign crew abandoned their vessels leading to yet another investigation by the Department of Labour which reconfirmed the appalling exploitation of foreign workers. Subsequently a non-binding code of practice was introduced in 2006 and an auditing programme was introduced 2007 but of course the problems in this industry just continued. Codes of practice—yeah right. Things just carry on. 
Many crews in our waters come from impoverished regions of Indonesia and we will talk about that. These crews become victims of forced labour at the recruitment stage. They are misled into providing guarantees in securities to a staffing agency and may also have to pay a cash bond before they are allowed to sign their employment agreements. They are then required to hand over birth certificates family identity documents and education certificates to these agents. Many have flown to New Zealand with the cost of visa fees and transportation at an inflated level deducted from future wages. This happens after signing employment contracts that lock them into a form of slavery. Crew on these ships are required to sign blank time sheets. Work by New Zealand researchers has also found wage fraud. 
The dreadful treatment meted out to the crew of the  
Shin Ji  
is the most recent example of how these workers have fared in New Zealand waters. After months of exploitation these fishermen walked off the job seeking help from our authorities. What did we do? We kicked them out of the country. These crewmen feared returning home because of the agents who hired them. Their removal from New Zealand came despite the calls the Greens and Labour made that they be allowed to stay to assist the inquiry that investigated the slave labour conditions suffered by around 2000 mainly Asian men working on foreign charter vessels. A study by the University of Auckland business school found inhumane conditions and abuse on foreign charter vessels. These men had been hired by Indonesian agents for as little as two sixty a month. The money was to go into a bank account in Indonesia. According to some crew they were paid only 5000 for 22 months. I have to ask who was actually gaining from this in New Zealand. We really need to be looking at those people. 
Crew claimed that they were subject to sexual abuse with claims that the younger male crews nightly were made to massage the captain. Others claim to have been assaulted. Sixteen-hour days were expected and one man spoke of working 30 hours straight. Sick leave or rest days were unheard of. After fleeing the boat the crew stayed at a motel but ran out of money and food and had to appeal for help. They got some from unions but none from the people tasked with enforcing our regulations the Department of Labour and I question the people who benefit from their slave labour. Some I am aware of anecdotally ended up painting a house while they were being put up. It was somewhere to actually be until things were sorted out for them. 
Colin King 
: That was in Samoa wasn’t it? 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: No it might be wee bit closer to you than you realise. The story of foreign charter vessels in our waters exposes the failure of New Zealand’s elected representatives and Government officials to decisively root out forced labour over the last two decades. [ 
Interruption 
] Do not tempt me. In 1996 Parliament was told that we had closed our eyes at home to those abuses occurring under our noses. We cannot have a commercial fishing industry developed on the backs of Third World exploited labour. Little had changed by the time the abuses of the  
Shin Ji 
 were discovered. Fishing operators continued to ignore the law the Department of Labour continued to take a benign approach to enforcement and crews continued to be exploited and mistreated. 
The Green Party will be supporting this legislation because it does make some changes. However we consider for this industry to be cleaned up the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment must beef up its enforcement capabilities and it must act with a firm hand. We cannot allow these abuses to occur in our waters. 
Part 2 of the bill is a very important part too. It is fantastic that there is an increase in observers. However the increase in observers will not go far enough for protection in terms of labour or for the benefits we expect for the conservation of biodiversity and for managing fishing quota. There has been a minimum of one observer on all foreign chartered vessels. Two observers have been placed on vessels deemed to be of high risk to ensure 24-hour coverage. How the hang is that meant to work when factoring in shift changes breaks meals health issues etc? We definitely need more than two observers to ensure that there is a 24/7 coverage and that must be provided. That hopefully will be rectified through the select committee process. 
We have to look at what has been spent on observers on fishing boats and how that compares with each of the last 5 years. In this last period where this has come in spending on observers is actually lower in the 2011-12 period than in the previous year because no observer coverage was provided to inshore fisheries. We still need coverage there as well despite the fact— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.