The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
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LETTERS CONTINUED… who's depth of knowledge and intel about his subjects makes for compelling reading." Yes, we are the winners no arguments in this count, for it is your knowledge and drive that has created so many changes for the better for all of us. I doubt anyone could match you on this. Congratulations and thanks to both you and Vivienne. Gary (Gazza) Smith, Auckland PRIME MINISTER WRONG Dear Sir Re: The news snippet on page 48 of the July/August issue. Prime Minister John Key was quoted as: 'widows had received ACC payments seven times what they would receive in a year.' This is not correct. FCV crew working the bridge and engine room work six hours on six hours off which is 12 hours a day, the same as Korean crew. These are the minimum hours worked, and they may have to do overtime of two or more hours in their shifts off if there are fish. According to the evidence from police interviews given by a Korean bosun, the factory workers work two x six hours on: six on, six off and six on, totalling 18 hours per day. According to the winch driver's evidence he worked 22 hours, had three hours rest, then was woken to recommence work at midnight for the fatal haul that capsized the vessel. There is dispute over the timesheets as the vessel operator and New Zealand charter companies assert crew work about six hours per day. Crew say they work 16 hours a day on average. As an aside, to process the same volume of fish Kiwi crew work two teams of crew doing six hours on six hours off in a continuous operation, 24/7. Yet miraculously, Indonesian crew can process the same volume of fish Kiwis process in 24 hours, in six hours a day… go figure? This is simply impossible so we accept the NZ standard of a nominal 12 hours per day to illustrate. Therefore: under the minimum wage plus prescribed $2 premium ($14/hr) x a nominal 12 hours a day, after permitted deductions (say $1/hour) x days worked (they have no days off), crew should receive about NZ$57,000 per year. If the Prime Minister is asserting the widows received 7 x $57,000 from ACC then that is an error. However, the Department of Labour and Immigration NZ have presided over the rules of crew payment for six years, and under those rules this is what crew assert they are entitled to receive. In fact: the widows have never received their husband's entitlements under the New Zealand Minimum Wage Act and the Wages Protection Act. Even to this day, almost two years later, they are unpaid. One wonders what the Department of Labour are doing? It is a clear breach of the Wages Protection Act to not be paid on a timely basis. See the letter attached (following), from one of the widows. While the Coroner forbade reading all of this statement and publishing the letter in relation to the coronial enquiry, he recognised it was already in the public domain. I hope this clarifies the situation and you will fix it in your magazine. Daren Coulston, Crew representative The news item in our last magazine did not quote the Prime Minister, but this was indeed the information released, so your point is well made. Thanks for giving clarity. Ed… LEST WE FORGET To the Coroner's Inquest of Oyang 70. Thank you for the chance to speak to the Coroner's Inquest. It was a long 20 months since the heart-wrenching loss of our loved ones yet still we do not know what happened to cause their demise. 4 Professional Skipper September/October 2012 The New Zealand government has not told us anything. We trusted the New Zealand Government to keep our men safe because New Zealand is a safe country. We know fishing is hard work but we believed the fishing company would look after our men. Now we are without their income in our family. We must struggle every day and hold our dignity. Since we learned they should be paid New Zealand minimum wage it is worse because we never received the minimum wage even to this day. We are very grateful to our representatives and ACC who finally achieved some money for us after this time. We ask that the New Zealand Government and the fishing company do not forget us. Euis-Sri Muivati, Purwakarta PERSONAL VENDETTA? Dear Sir I see that, hot on the heels of the phase-out of FCVs, the Koreans are now planning to get into whaling (scientific, of course – yeah right!). Are these people bent on a personal vendetta against the marine environment? R Lea Clough, Ohoka BABY SNAPPER Dear Sir Would you like to comment on the NZ Herald photos of baby whole New Zealand snapper (very undersize) being sold in Chinese stores? What does this indicate about FCV's and why not ban them now? It might give the fisheries time to recover. Neville Cameron, Coromandel Good question Neville, I note the 'Herald' picked this up from Professional Skipper magazine. A question our fisheries compliance officers have investigated. It would appear that these snapper are from Japanese fish farms and creatively labelled Produce of New Zealand to add kudos and hopefully sales. Ed… GOVERNMENT VESSELS? Dear Sir My mate got boarded by fisheries the other day. He was on a non fishing charter but two of the guys from the group brought their rods and were trying their luck over lunchtime. A fisheries rubber duck came along side and boarded them. The skipper and my mate were up in the driving station in the cabin and didn't see them board the boat from the rear. When two fisheries officers came into the cabin and demanded to see their fishing log book! Their presence by the way overloaded the boat by two. Because my mate never does fishing charters he didn't have a log book to show them. Words were exchanged about the two guys fishing and they left. My comment to this is, wasn't the whole fisheries thing supposed to be a 'survey'... yeah right! As they left my mate noticed they had no Maritime NZ numbers up on their boat. When asked, the fisheries officer in charge said, "We don't need them!" So my mate went one further and asked to see the Skipper's ticket for the skipper on board the rubber duck, and the reply was "We don't need that either!" Seems to me something's wrong when we, the people in the industry, can get fined and even worse, go to jail, because of things we did or didn't do, when the 'policemen of the sea' MNZ officials, fishery officers, police and OSH for that matter, don't actually have to go through the same stringent qualifications and boat surveys as the rest of us.