“Jobs, investment and new technology will flow from Nissui’s investment in seafood enterprise Sealord and Sealord’s quota will be 100% owned by Te Ohu Kai Moana “ Shane Jones press release 4/12 /2000
Twenty years later
“Sealord is using Russian crew for their deep water vessels over New Zealanders because of a lack of “trained and qualified fishers in New Zealand”.
CEO Sealord Doug Paulin 1 News 22 Oct 2020
So.. why haven’t young New Zealanders been trained to do this work over the last 20 years?
As I understand it 235 Russian and Ukranian fishermen have come from high covid areas and are in isolation with 18 positive cases at last count.
Brilliant.
What a great deal Shane.
This government needs to put the lid on this kind of nonsense by ensuring young New Zealanders are trained in such jobs .
And mainstream media need to do some background work on deals like this one. What was promised and what was delivered.
PS Check out Sealords commercial – Maori faces and voice over and not a Russian fisherman in sight
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Bloody disgusting particularly when we have how many NEETS in our country. We need to start being more proactive with our next generation to ensure they can move into the many occupations people keep saying no one wants to do. The other common comment is people saying too many kiwis are lazy and some may well be lazy and lack a work ethic but what have we done about it. And what can we do to improve this situation. Bringing in too much foreign labour is putting us all at risk and our health and medical resources are being diverted to Covid. This creates further inequalities as far too many NZers are not receiving decent medical care and treatment and in a timely manner, this is not good enough. We also need to start giving people a chance. We like to talk it up about us NZers being fair minded people but I think we are not walking our talk. We need to address our unconscious bias in this country it is holding us back and we need to stop relying too much on foreign labour as it is hurting us.
Bryan – thanks for exposing the Sealord brown-wash along with a gold plated reason for Shane Jones to be kept away from Government.
“So.. why haven’t young New Zealanders been trained to do this work over the last 20 years?”
– Outsourcing labour improves efficiencies and maximises profits
– A boat full of Russian or Ukrainian crew creates a kind of cultural homogeneity and fosters shared understandings, which is also good for efficiencies and profits
– Outsourcing labour the past 20 years has hollowed out the local skill base (although there is talk that most of the work on these boats is on the factory floor)
– Labour regulations around outsourcing crew may be less stringent than if employing ‘locals’ (again good for efficiencies and profitability)
– Deepsea fishing requires crew to be offshore for 3 to 4 months and ‘locals’ are not interested in that
– Locals are a lazy lot and wouldn’t pass the drug tests anyway
Take your pick based on your own position.
Order in terms of credability.
Add more if you see fit.
Why ? Because it’s cheaper for the fishing companies to fly in offshore crews, than invest in training local apprentices, and that this is govt approved strategy is made clear by the donging of rich bosses with knighthoods every now and then. Problem is, there’s been no passionate advocates for our young hguys, maybe the odd bloke they need to get off the couch, and the mean man intoning that they are all useless druggies anyway.
When the traditional paid apprenticeships were sloughed off, and the training pathways offered on the job by, the railways, postal system, broadcasting, hospital wards etc were squashed, this provided another stream of revenue for the government, from those least able to afford it. By getting student loans – Hi there WINZ ! – kids could pay a polytechnic to train as a nurse, or technician or electrician or hairdresser and so on, and govt get dosh. Remember paid training for teachers’ college students ?
But training as a deep sea fisherman at the local polytechnic, would present certain practical difficulties, so easier to just whip in people from poorer countries and contribute to their economies. Government requiring apprentice fisher schemes as part of the licensing shouldn’t present insurmountable problems, but who wants to bite the hand that feeds them?
Ten or so years ago I worked as a consultant for the Open Polytech’s survey of student courses. It was dispiriting to find employers, who said that the OP qualification was simply not good enough for their requirements. I felt sorry for students getting loans, and engaging in distance learning – which is quite hard – and then gaining a qualification which mightn’t always lead to where they hoped it would.
On the job training for specific industries and professions provides both sides with realistic expectations of what’s involved – and a skilled local work force. Folks off the dole. The rationality of this may have escaped govt policy wonks, but I gather that the Ardern govt is bringing back some apprenticeships again.
” and that this is govt approved strategy is made clear by the (d)onging of rich bosses with knighthoods every now and then”.. Are you for real? Do you have no understanding of what a historical timeline is? Does it make sense to blame the current government for the actions of mainly Tory governments? Only to the politically, and intellectually bankrupt supporters of what has become a sad joke on NZ, in the Nationalist party.. You note the slight change in name.. That’s because the tories misappropriated a name that has nothing to do with what their aims, and philosophies are, so it qualifies as misleading advertising… Only the deluded and bereft of social conscience would still support what now amounts to the local branch of the Chinese business lobby.. Do you begin to understand just how tedious the tory halfwit drivel has become to the rest of us? Dunkin’ Garnish is now a vegan because he said stupid, and half witted things, and trapped himself with his own hubris.. Hamish Price is on the run and hiding from the backlash to his cowadice… What makes you think that people are interested in listening to people who can’t even get their stories straight, and remotely relevant to reality any more? Tories need to wake up to the facts. they are irrelevant, and people now see just how dishonest their utterances are in relation to what really counts…
Stefan, If you reread what I wrote, I most certainly did not say that THIS government donged fishing bosses with knighthoods.
I wrote, “That this is govt approved strategy…” with “this” referencing the flying in of off-shore crews, instead of training local apprenticeships.
Nowhere do I blame the current government for knighting fisher kings – even if it did happen to be a previous Labour govt which introduced the tyranny of neoliberalism to New Zealand, which I kindly left unmentioned.
Those aware of historical time lines know that another Labour govt actually abolished the knight and dame hoods.
It was one of the first actions of wee John Key’s govt to bring them back again and start popping them onto his pals. Incredibly, he then offered to restore them to those who’d missed out under a Labour govt’s substitute civic awards, and they came running
to get them, just like kids to a circus – except for Jim Bolger. The wheel turned it’s full circle when Key and English collected knighthoods for themselves, like players in some insane comedy.
You are attacking me for things which I neither said nor think, and when I stated the opposite.
How about showing where I blame the current govt for previous governments’ actions instead of just accusing me of it ?
Why a freshly created underclass was allowed to be a byproduct of neo liberalism in NZ remains one of the least explored features of Roger’n’Ruth’s legacy.
I get the capitalist’s reasoning for precarious jobs, bums on seats education, always having several hundred thousand migrant labourers sloshing about the country, basically to put downward pressure on wages and any working class fight back.
Successive Govt. responses have been hands off instead of retraining as is common in Scandinavian countries.
Since when have politicians been honest, or the mainstream media reported the truth?
“If you don’t read a newspaper you are uninformed, and if you do read one you are misinformed”
-Mark Twain (over a century ago, and he got well and truly shafted for telling the truth about Teddy Roosevelt’s dirty little wars).
On coming to power Shane Jones talked about how he was going to get the cousins off the couch and into the hills to plant a billion trees . That seemed to go the same way as the fishing jobs with overseas workers being hired. It would be interesting to see how many jobs were created by the development fund. Labour seemed happy to not question the spending .
I worker with many Maori in hospitality and given the oppetunity they were great workers and so do not understand went the companies say they will not do the work. Hospitality is not easy it is hard work with antisocial hours and low pay so I do not think they have tried very hard.
Trev – I think we only have Bill English’s word for companies allegedly saying that our young guys are lazy and so on – from memory, I think English said that employers all over New Zealand told him they were useless – hence the govt having to bring in cheaper cheaper cheaper off-shore workers. And I don’t think Bill specified Maori – don’t forget that he was probably preparing for his debut as Samoan chief to Auckland school kids in the run up to the next election, and would need to keep things neat, as it were.
There’s also a few righty trolls on TDB that excrete this nonsense as well. Must be the same part of the brain that’s missing.
Shane Jones said a lot of things but saying is one thing and doing is another perhaps that explains why he is now gone.
Like the fishing industry, horticulture and tourism are the preferred choice for exploitive employers.
Creatively worded job ads scare off any interest from kiwi workers with talk of remote, dangerous and difficult conditions in exchange for minimum pay and rights allowing an easy option for workers from developing countries and desperate tourists.
State sanctioned slave labour as I see it.
Don’t forget construction and aged care in you list of exploitative industries… only in the aged care industry, they tend to exploit the aged rather than the workers.
Sealord donated big sums to the Nasty Natz and in particular during Brash’s tenure. When kiwis won’t work for shit wages and lousy contracts the Russians and Ukrainians will. I boycotted their products being sold in the duoply of Foodies and Progressive supermarkets who also are legally able to exploit their workers and the public.
A $9.5 million house is being built in Christchurch. Shaped like the letter Z, swimming pool and tennis court. When completed, it’s going to be one of the biggest and priciest properties in town. The owner? A director at Foodstuffs South Island and owner of Pak ‘n Save Wainoni, one of Christchurch’s poorest areas.
My blood boils when I think of the families who anxiously push half-empty trolleys through that store, selecting items that are a few cents cheaper and a little less nutritious, so they can squeeze more out of their wages to feed their families for another week, while helping to fund that Fendalton swimming pool and import its Italian tiles.
The duopoly in New Zealand supermarkets must end and the Ardern government can instruct the Commerce Commission to investigate. There should be more competition in this lucrative market, better regulation of prices, and more options for small suppliers to access mainstream markets
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/123193640/govt-needs-to-target-our-soaring-cost-of-living
Sealord donated big sums to the Nasty Natz and in particular during Brash’s tenure. When kiwis won’t work for shit wages and lousy contracts the Russians and Ukrainians will. I boycotted their products being sold in the duoply of Foodies and Progressive supermarkets who also are legally able to exploit their workers and the public.
A $9.5 million house is being built in Christchurch. Shaped like the letter Z, swimming pool and tennis court. When completed, it’s going to be one of the biggest and priciest properties in town. The owner? A director at Foodstuffs South Island and owner of Pak ‘n Save Wainoni, one of Christchurch’s poorest areas.
My blood boils when I think of the families who anxiously push half-empty trolleys through that store, selecting items that are a few cents cheaper and a little less nutritious, so they can squeeze more out of their wages to feed their families for another week, while helping to fund that Fendalton swimming pool and import its Italian tiles.
The duopoly in New Zealand supermarkets must end and the Ardern government can instruct the Commerce Commission to investigate. There should be more competition in this lucrative market, better regulation of prices, and more options for small suppliers to access mainstream markets
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/123193640/govt-needs-to-target-our-soaring-cost-of-living
The off shore recruits for the fishing cartels are bonded workers who will do as they are told and not complain about the lack of conditions, safety nor charges against their wages. Slave labour that young Kiwis would rightfully complain about.
But they won’t get a chance while bonded labour is allowed.
I’m a retired marine engineer. This industry has been pulling fast ones like this for decades.
1. The deck officers guild and the engineers’ association would negotiate a salary rate; say $80,000 for a chief engineer or ship’s master.
2. The shipping companies would advertise jobs at well below the agreed rate.
3. We would not take the jobs and would head overseas to companies like Maersk and Jardines who appreciated the skills of Kiwi and Aussie mariners.
4. The companies would then go to government and say “We can’t get staff!”
5. Government would then allow the companies to bring in Indians who were happy to work for much less AND get an eventual free pass to New Zealand residency.
So.. why haven’t young New Zealanders been trained to do this work over the last 20 years?… easily answered question, they don’t like being kept like slaves and our government wants to encourage more slave like conditions for NZ vessels to compete while the consumers pay a small fortune for the price of fish in our country, caught by slaves, processed in China….
Slave fishing in NZ waters exposed
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/5431221/Slave-fishing-in-NZ-waters-exposed
NZ investigators expose slavery and human trafficking at sea
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1805/S00153/nz-investigators-expose-slavery-and-human-trafficking-at-sea.htm
Talley’s pays reparations to decapitated crewman’s family after safety failure
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/80905946/talleys-pays-reparations-to-decapitated-crewmans-family-after-safety-failure
The fishing industry is but one of the many industries in our country exploiting foreign labour. And also we have other sectors like education, cooks and chefs, shop Managers all claiming we haven’t got any one here that can do these jobs, bullshit. And what about all the foreigners working in public health and other government agencies like Oranga Tamariki.
+1 covid is pa. “all the foreigners working in public health and other government agencies like Oranga Tamariki”…. increasingly vulnerable people’s welfare is being left to cheaper unsupervised people through third party agencies in many cases, staff new to the country, often with comprehension issues in English and cultural issues in terms of not understanding the cultures in NZ (Maori, Pacific, Pakeha), NZ liberal views can be at odds with sexist norms in other nations, and combined, break down NZ’s welfare system.
A Filipino nurse told we she didn’t understand why in NZ nurses were striking for staffing ratio’s when in the Phillipines it’s 1 nurse per 100 patients in many cases. She was an excellent nurse, but going forward standards will drop just by cultural differences aka ideals about nursing ratios.
India, China and the Phillipines are not known for their welfare standards in government agencies…. there is more at stake here, than “is a person competent”… and then if they are not competent, more issues…
we just had a migrant but NZ trained doctor go to prison for murdering a young girl, to disguise his drinking on the job, lying and sexual and behavioural inappropriateness with young vulnerable people. How did he get through NZ’s supposedly strict and limited training for doctors, when there are so many medical students fighting for the chance to train to become a doctor here and was able to get off his poor conduct easily by lying on other occasions?
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