Mackey Moana: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7896. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 As my colleague Damien O’Connor has said we will be supporting this bill the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It is perhaps long overdue. Often in this House we find ourselves passing legislation in the wake of a tragedy or an unfortunate event and of course this bill was brought about because of the loss of six lives on a South Korean foreign charter vessel in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. That is a tragedy that I am sure everyone in this House regrets and it is a shame that far too often we are dealing with issues after the event instead of perhaps—with the benefit of hindsight—realising that some of these tragedies could have been avoided. 
Certainly there is no question that there has been a spotlight on the activities and the practices aboard foreign charter vessels for a long time. In recent years in particular it has become a particular kind of focus of investigative journalism and I think all New Zealanders will be shocked to have seen many of the stories the photos and the documentary evidence coming off these vessels of violence of physical and sexual abuse of slave labour—things that are absolutely unthinkable in New Zealand but have unfortunately been occurring under our laws and have been occurring on our watch. 
So we do welcome this legislation. We hope that it will be the beginning of a new era in terms of the treatment of those workers who are on board these foreign charter vessels and hopefully we will not see those tragedies like the one that we saw with the South Korean vessel that had the loss of six lives. 
This bill is an important step forward and the Government is to be praised for the step it has taken which was to its credit beyond what the inquiry actually called for. The Government has decided to go further and require that these vessels be flagged in New Zealand waters which means that they will be subject to all New Zealand laws including those of health and safety whereas before they were subject only to the Minimum Wage Act and to food safety legislation and then for everything else they were subject to the laws of the country in which they had registered or flagged their vessel. 
New Zealand again unfortunately—this is not a world-leading kind of movement. We are one of the few countries in the developed world that actually has not taken this step already. I think only Namibia and Brazil still allow foreign charter vessels to be flagged in other countries so this really brings New Zealand into line with where the rest of the world has already moved to. 
One of the questions I would ask the Minister for Primary Production is that I assume that this will also bring our foreign charter vessels into New Zealand taxation laws so that these vessels will not only be subject to health and safety legislation the employment legislation and the environmental legislation of New Zealand but also be required to pay the same taxes that New Zealand fishing vessels pay—for example the carbon charge that is on fuel under the emissions trading scheme. I know it has been difficult for New Zealand vessels that they have been subject to that particular charge but the foreign charter vessels that they are in direct competition with have not been subject to that same taxation excise tax GST and the many other taxes that we have. So I am assuming that this legislation in requiring vessels to be flagged in New Zealand waters will also bring those foreign charter vessels under New Zealand taxation legislation which provides a level playing field with our own operators in New Zealand of course. 
I want to pick up on a point that my colleague Damien O’Connor made because I think it is a really critical one and that is that you can pass all the legislation in the world but it will not make a blind bit of difference if it is not able to be enforced. And we know how difficult it is to enforce legislation in parts of New Zealand it is easy to get to and parts of New Zealand it is easy to monitor so when we are talking about hundreds of kilometres out in our exclusive economic zone I think what we are going to want to hear from the Government at select committee is how it is going to be enforcing New Zealand laws aboard these ships. If we do not get an answer to that question then passing this bill will not do anything. 
It is that enforcement aspect that will determine whether or not this legislation is successful and it is not good enough to kind of say we will see how it goes or that we already have current Department of Labour processes in place. We are dealing with a very very different environment and a very very different set of circumstances when we are talking about fishing vessels in the exclusive economic zone than when we are talking about young workers at McDonald’s for example and ensuring that they are getting paid the minimum wage and that their health and safety and their rights are being looked after. So that issue of enforcement and of how we are going to monitor and ensure that this legislation is being adhered to and is being followed is going to be the critical point I think at select committee for members of the Labour Party. 
We also have concerns around the ability of the New Zealand fishing vessels to compete with these foreign charter vessels and I know that one of the concerns has been the issue around when fishermen are out there fishing their quota and suddenly for example there is a native bird caught in the set line and often the fishery can be shut down. This happens not infrequently and it is a real frustration for local fishermen. They come to you and say that every single time this happens it is not them doing it. They get shut out their fishery gets shut down they lose income and they lose the ability to fish their quota because someone out there has not shown the environment the respect it deserves and has not shown the wildlife the respect it deserves—something that our fishing fleet in New Zealand does do; to its credit it does that. It takes its commitment to protecting the wildlife and the environment that it is working in very very seriously and in fact the entire ecology of the system because it is reliant on it for its very income. 
So those fishermen’s frustration is that in their experience it is always foreign charter vessels that are capturing these birds that are causing these incidents and that are causing the fishery to be shut down and there is nothing that they can do about it. They do everything right and then they get punished for the actions of others who are not subject to the same laws and who are not subject to the same conditions as they are. And I really hope that this piece of legislation will start us down a track to rectifying that and to ensuring that the ability of New Zealand fishing operators to carry out their activities does not continue to be hampered by the actions of a few who do not take the protection of New Zealand’s wildlife and the protection of our marine environment seriously. 
Hopefully we will be able to hear from the New Zealand operators as to whether or not they believe that this legislation goes far enough in ensuring that a level playing field and a fair situation are created for what is left of our domestic fishing fleet. And unfortunately there is not a lot left of it. I think we are seeing the results of what I know the Ministry of Fisheries thinks is a really great thing—that we now just have a lot of really big quota owners instead of a whole lot of little ones. 
But I think the flip side of that has been what we have seen with these foreign charter vessels which is that instead of having the families who have done the fishing who have had that quota who have passed it on from generation to generation who care about the environment and who understand and respect the lifestyle we have gone to this very corporate model with unfortunately operators who do not show that same level of respect. And it might be efficient for the Ministry of Fisheries to have a few really big quota holders but I think we have seen the environmental damage of that and we have seen the impact on the workers in that industry which would indicate that perhaps that change is not nearly as efficient or positive as perhaps the Ministry of Fisheries would lead us to believe. 
We think that there is a missed opportunity in this legislation and we will be pursuing that at select committee. We think that there is actually an opportunity here to encourage maximum participation of New Zealand fishing operators within the industry by moving towards a minimum of 50 percent New Zealand crew on any vessel fishing within New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. We think part of the solution to this problem has to be building up the capability within our own domestic fishing industry and we do not think that there is anything wrong with a Government saying that we want to see a minimum of 50 percent New Zealand crew on these vessels. 
I will tell you what else that would do. It would go a long way towards ensuring that that monitoring and enforcement function that I discussed earlier is actually carried out. Having those eyes on board is something that perhaps removes part of that problem that we discussed earlier around how we make sure that this legislation is actually enforced. So we will be pursuing that at select committee because we think we have a real opportunity here—a real opportunity—to support New Zealand’s local fishing industry and to make the implementation of this bill easier. 
The only other point I would raise is that we think the 4-year transition period is far too long. We think this could be in place within a year or—if not—two. Four years provides a big window of opportunity for more abuse to happen for more tragedy to occur and we want to see that time frame whilst being realistic— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member.