MANA MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 October 2011
Mana calls for an end to 'Flag of Convenience' vessels on New Zealand coasts
Mana is calling for Government intervention and regulation of the coastal shipping industry to exclude Flag of
Convenience registered vessels operating on the coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Mana spokesperson John Minto says the Rena disaster shows that ships registered in countries with lax employment and
maritime safety laws should not be allowed to conduct coastal shipping in New Zealand.
"The Rena is registered in the West African capital-of-corruption Liberia to increase profits to the ship owners by
avoiding New Zealand regulations.
"We have already seen how foreign owned and crewed fishing vessels operating in New Zealand ignore basic health, safety
and employment laws and now the Rena disaster has brought the problems off the sea and, literally, onto the shores of
Aotearoa.
"We support the campaign of the Maritime Union of New Zealand to reintroduce cabotage regulations to ensure ships
undertaking coastal shipping are owned and crewed by residents of New Zealand.
"There would be much less likelihood of such a disaster with local owned and locally crewed ships with decent health and
safety standards and decent rates of pay and employment conditions.”
Mr Minto said the Prime Minister's slow-motion handling of this crisis has created an unprecedented eco-catastrophe and
now MANA supporters are on the coast of Tauranga to help with the clean up."
"It should never have come to this. Flag of Convenience vessels are disasters waiting to happen.
“Why do we have ships on our coasts that Maritime New Zealand inspections say do not have the proper charts for
navigation? Because the National Government of the 1990s deregulated our coastal shipping and the Labour Government of
the 2000s did not heed the advice of the Maritime Union, even after all the exposures of sweatshop work practices on
these ships in our waters.
“Current Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood has told the media ‘Our view is that the unregulated nature of
Flag of Convenience global shipping will be shown to be the underlying cause of what has happened. We have vessels on
the New Zealand coast that are not up to scratch.’ Mana agrees.”
Mr Minto said MANA would make it a high priority to re-establish locally owned, locally crewed shipping in New Zealand
waters, so an accident like the Rena has much less chance of happening in the future.