Hughes Gareth: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7906. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak in support of the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. The Green Party supports this bill. It supports the intent of this bill. This is something we have been calling for for years even when Labour was defending the practice during the 2000s. For years we have been calling for an end to this abhorrent practice and it is a good day as our Parliament is finally getting around to this dealing with and hopefully addressing and stopping this abhorrent practice which has happened on our high seas for far too long and has impacted on far too many foreign workers in our name and for our profits in New Zealand. 
First up I want to acknowledge those people who put it on Parliament’s agenda who put it on the nation’s agenda and who put it on our conscience. We have got the likes of the Service and Food Workers Union. We have got the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 which ran a long campaign trying to highlight the injustices. We see in particular Darren Coulston whom I have met a number of times and who has tirelessly worked to raise this issue in the country’s consciousness. He has done a good job. 
This is an old issue—a very old issue. Listening to the Government members you would think it was something new that they have only just discovered happening in our waters but this exploitation has been happening for decades. I need not remind members that only in 1999 we had over 100 crew go to the New Zealand courts to the Court of Appeal yet it was the Department of Labour that sat on its hands and did not act. It is clear that this has gone on for too long. We have been skimping on wages we have been skimping on conditions and we have been skimping on costs but the New Zealand quota owners have been feasting on the profits and the sweat of these foreign workers. It is terrible that it has dragged on so long but it is good that we are finally addressing it. The history goes back to the “New Zealandisation” debates we had in the 1970s which were about how we go out and exploit—in the language of the time—the deep-sea resources that were being discovered mostly by foreign exploratory vessels. New Zealand did not have a deep-sea fishing fleet so the agreed plan at the time was that we would bring in some of the foreign capital expertise and vessels and we would use that foreign assistance to develop our own industry. 
But instead what we have done is get hooked on skimping on wages and conditions with the foreign charter vessels. We have had of course the terrible impacts that we have seen on those real human lives but also the country has missed out. There are around 2000 foreign workers I understand employed in the sector. These are 2000 jobs that Kiwis could be doing at a time when the unemployment rate is as bad as the last time the National Party was in Government. This is a big issue—7.3 percent or 2000 jobs is not something to be sniffed at. We have missed out on all that tax revenue and ACC contributions. The whole country has lost by the policy to date. It is good we are changing it but disappointing we are waiting for 4 years to finally implement the phase-out of foreign charter vessels. Hopefully this can bear and face some good scrutiny at the Primary Production Committee and hopefully it can be changed because as everyone agrees as we have heard from numerous Labour Party members 4 years is far too long. There is no justification. 
I am not sure whether any other members did but I researched my case and I submitted to the Ministerial Inquiry into Foreign Charter Vessels. In researching and talking to fishermen as preparation for that process what I learnt was that there were absolutely horrible conditions. We know that foreign workers were beaten on the ships and that they were forced to work for days but it was not just the working conditions; it was the ships themselves—absolute rust buckets and unsafe conditions. We saw the workers and heard that they were not being paid appropriate wages. Of course everyone who knows the law said they had to get paid the minimum wage but everyone knows that was not happening in part because of the agents and in part because of the process. We very clearly heard that it was akin to slavery what these Indonesians Malaysians and other people from developing nations went through. We have seen the dumping of fish and tragically we have seen the fatal consequences most prominently when that 31-year-old rust bucket the  
No. 1 In Sung 
 from Korea sank in the Ross Sea with 22 lives lost. 
It is disappointing that the Government is addressing only six of the 15 recommendations of that ministerial inquiry but we welcome this bill. We support the intent. We will be supporting it through the select committee process. We hope people will make submissions. 
 Ultimately what we are talking about is the future of our fisheries. Let us learn the lessons and learn from the mistakes of the last couple of decades. Let us focus on a sustainable brand-based fishery so we can maximise those economic opportunities. Let us get those premiums from the high-end export market which cares about issues such as Maui’s dolphin becoming extinct which cares about issues like slavery when we are catching our fish and which cares about the fact that as we saw in the news last night we are killing dozens of endangered sea lions 300 fur seals and around 70 common dolphins every year in our trawling fisheries. They care about the way we are fishing. So let us make the most of it let us learn the lessons and let us have sustainable fisheries. Kia ora.