Ardern Shane: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Shane: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 15 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17285. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Following on from my colleague on the Primary Production Committee Damien O’Connor some of the points that were made are absolutely correct. The history of this bill or gestation period of this bill if you like is a long one. As I remember it Graham Kelly introduced a member’s bill so it actually was not a Labour Government bill. It was a member’s bill that Graham introduced as a member who was concerned about these issues. It has basically morphed from there. I am not exactly sure of the passage of that bill where it went or what happened but ultimately we are here today as a result of the concerns raised way back then. Successive Governments including the previous Government over its whole 9 years were not convinced that there was sufficient evidence of wrongdoing on these foreign charter vessels to introduce such legislation as we have now. But just recently a ministerial panel was set up based on the amount of anecdotal evidence that had come forward that clearly there was something that we needed to look at.If you think about the opportunity for New Zealand fisheries with our exports of high-quality protein from New Zealand I think probably as much as anything a reputation issue was starting to develop about what actually was being used or what sort of terms and conditions these people were working under in regard to the harvesting of what is a potentially strong and growing industry for New Zealand. It already is in the billions of dollars’ worth of exports. So the select committee was charged with a number of issues to look at. One of the biggest concerns we had I guess was if we were to force all foreign charter vessels to have a New Zealand flag what potential effects that could have on some of the smaller and developing fisheries in this regard. Many submitters had a concern that if we were to go where we have gone now it wouldpotentially close down some of these smaller industries. Obviously that was not in the best interest of New Zealand Inc. or what the committee was trying to achieve. So an enormous amount of consideration was actually put into that.Ultimately we arrived at a position where it has been concluded thatreflagging all of these foreign charter vessels is the only way to ensure that the people who work on these vessels will come under New Zealand terms and conditions in terms of employment.Reflagging will ensure that New Zealand observers will be able to be on these boats in sufficient numbers and on regular enough occasions to be sure that what is being put forward in various log books etc. is reasonably accurate and that they will be able to look at other things as well such as environmental pollution through oil spillage etc. It will also ensure the treatment of staff or the crew on these boats. As the previous member who has resumed his seat said these conditions are tough. This is a tough environment and a hard place in which to work. These observers would be able to have a look at and observe the conditions in which they work.There was a reasonable amount of evidence that recruitment agencies from overseas were recruiting people who were in unfortunate circumstances clicking the ticket if you like or taking from them substantial percentages of their pay—in fact some of them were not being paid at all for long periods—and leaving a lot of families and a lot of people destitute. Byreflagging and bringing these foreign charter vessels under New Zealand jurisdiction all of that behaviour now can be stamped out to the best that it is possible for that to happen.Some submitted that other countries had various other mechanisms that did not require the fullreflagging. In fact some submitted that in the case of a vessel that broke down or had some mechanical problems engineering problems or other such problems and would need to be replaced by another boat quickly to capture the migratory species that they were trying to capture under quota managementreflagging would be too much of an imposition on them and they would not be able to do it in time and therefore that fishery opportunity would be lost. The committee was not on balance convinced of that. We certainly spent a lot of time thinking about it and ultimately we have ended up where we have ended up.The Primary Production Committee agrees that the bill is necessary to ensure the health and safety requirements of all fishing vessels in New Zealand and importantly we also agree that the bill will ensure that the human rights of crew working on these vessels will be protected to a standard that is acceptable to maintain what we see as human decency and what we see as being in the best interests of New Zealand’s reputation. I look forward to the passage of the bill.