Fenton Darien: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):I am going to take a short call on this Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just want to put on record my support for the bill and the fact that it is being debated in its Committee stage the day before the House is due to rise and also my hope that this bill will have its third reading tomorrow. As the previous member Steffan Browning said there have been a lot of calls from people in the community people involved in this industry and people involved in this disgraceful episode in New Zealand’s history to have this bill passed through Parliament.What I want to do in my call is try to take us back to what this is really about. It is about the situation the history that we have in recent years of crew who came to work in New Zealand’s waters on foreign-crewed vessels. I came in touch with some of the crew from the Shin Ji. They came mainly from the Tegal region in central Java which is one of the most impoverished areas of Indonesia with high unemployment and low pay and so on so you can imagine that when they were recruited to come and work in New Zealand they thought this was going to make a real difference for them and for their lives and their families’ lives. But they had to provide condition precedent guarantees and securities to the manning agency including a cash bond of up to US$300 which is a lot of money in that region. They were also required to hand over birth certificates family identity documents and education certificates just to get the job. On signing their contract with the manning agent they signed an agreement that said that they would be completely submissive and obedient as established by the third party—in other words the manning agent in charge of the foreign-crewed vessel.As I mentioned I came in touch with the Shin Ji crew in 2011 but the first time there was a situation with the Shin Ji crew was in 2009 when there was a crew that walked off the job when the vessel arrived in New Zealand. Eleven Indonesian crew fled the vessel handing themselves into the police. They spent the night as vagrants in the custody of Auckland police. The next day the Maritime Union officials transferred the crew to the Auckland International Seafarers Centre. The men resolutely refused to return to their vessel alleging ill treatment by its Korean officers—things like weekly saltwater showers no hot water and no pay for 4 months. So that was in 2009. Two years later in 2011 other Shin Ji crew members refused to work. They arrived in Auckland walked off the ship and refused to work despite being threatened that they would be sent home and not get paid.They cited abusive working and living conditions the non-payment of wages excessive working shifts as well as sexual abuse. Earlier that year the boatswain drowned while clearing a blockage in the eel tank aboard the vessel. Half the crew were traumatised by this death and returned home breaking their contracts. The remaining seven crew were required to do the work of 14. They were forced to work long shifts—16-hour days—and shifts up to 30 hours in length were common. One crew member reported that during the last 21 months they never had a day off only time off at night after work finished. They often worked from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. the next day or from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. Some of them could not stay awake for so long so they worked until they fell asleep.Food was inadequate in quality and quantity. Usually halfway through a voyage the food was rationed. Meals included stale bread and rotting fish bait from which crew were forced to select the best pieces of bait to eat and were not allowed to cook in the pantry. The pantry was locked. They were often abused for taking too long to eat a meal and sometimes had to forgo meals. There was a lack of proper protective clothing especially boots and gloves for use in the minus 18 degrees Celsius freezer hold. Crew commonly received frostbite and freezer burns to feet legs and hands resulting in walking impediments. They asked the captain for better boots and gloves but their requests were ignored. Mistakes led to one officer hitting crew around the head in a harsh punishment and on and on it went.The stories came through the inquiry that the Government set up on the situation of crews working on foreign-crewed vessels. I think one of the things that still disturbs me is that many of those crew were sent home and actually I thought quite harshly treated by the Government around immigration and so on. Many were not allowed to stay and pursue their wage claims. There are hundreds of millions of dollars still owed to many of those crews. They were forced to go home. We did not treat them that well. They have gone back to a situation where they are impoverished once more. Their so-called First World experiences of working in New Zealand in a First World job have been appalling. They came to New Zealand with high hopes and left abused destitute and gutted. Some of them talked about the rapes and the physical assault the abuse—appalling treatment. This happened in our waters. That is why this bill must pass through its Committee stage tonight and have its third reading tomorrow. This happened in our country in our waters. When people describe it as slavery they are accurate.I give credit to the Government for the inquiry. I give credit to the Government for the fact that we have legislation. I am disturbed that it has taken this long to get us to this stage. I say to the Minister for Primary Industries that I really hope that you will do everything you can to persuade the Māori Party to pass this through its third reading tomorrow so that we can get this disgraceful and appalling incident off our books. Once having done that we can go back and help those crew who still have not been paid who are living in awful situations back in their country and who cannot get jobs. This is a disgraceful incident and it is really incumbent on this Parliament to see it through to get it passed and to get it fixed before Parliament rises. Thank you.