Covid-19: foreign fishing crews are not worth the risk – expert

This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.

A fishing expert wonders if the economic benefit New Zealand receives from having crew abroad here is worth the risk they pose due to Covid-19.

The Health Ministry was continuing to investigate how two health workers managed to contract the virus from infected foreign fishermen at the Sudima Hotel, triggering the first community outbreak in Christchurch in four months.

Just over one in 10 of the mostly Russian crew tested positive for the virus.

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Until how it spread from them to the two health workers was established, the second charter flight from Moscow carrying another 200 sailors, due to arrive on November 2, was on hold.

But fishing expert Dr. Glenn Simmons said they should all be sent home.

They didn’t put enough money into the economy to justify the risk we were taking, illustrated by the two healthcare workers who took the virus home after caring for 31 of the infected sailors, he said.

“We send money abroad for the actual chartering of these vessels and their wages are normally sent back to their country of origin. The species they are collecting are sent abroad semi-processed and re-processed into value-added products offshore, And I don’t get that value either. “

The seven foreign-owned deep-sea trawlers were chartered by three New Zealand companies, Sealord, Independent and Maruha Nichiro.

Sealord CEO Doug Paulin said that while the low-value species they caught were not processed in this country, New Zealand had other downstream benefits from having them here.

“Stowage, provedoring, engineering services, cold rooms, freight forwarders, transport companies, the port company”.

Paulin said that between them the seven ships generated $ 725 million in revenue each year and supported the jobs of 425 locals ashore.

Over time, Sealord had gone from having all ships manned by foreigners to only two of nine manned this way.

Paulin said that by the end of next year they would only use one of them.

“It really comes down to affordability for us, because it takes a long time to build. It’s like a two-year project to build a new deep sea fishing boat. And we are very lucky that we have shareholders that are very supportive of us, who were happy. to invest in the replacement of our fleet “.

Glenn Simmons, whose investigation led to a ministerial investigation into conditions aboard foreign charter vessels, said the benefits were vastly exaggerated and that many of these local jobs would continue to exist with or without the foreign chartered vessels.

He said that Sealord had had enough time to phase out its use.

“Sealord really needs to come up with a workable strategy and start following it. And to say that after 20 years we don’t have a plan is really unacceptable and I certainly don’t see it as a problem for the New Zealand government or people.

Two hundred and thirty fishing crews left the Sudima facility on Saturday, bound for boats docked in Christchurch and Nelson, with five remaining and close contact required to isolate further.

No decision has been made on when the second sailors’ charter flight from Moscow could start arriving here.

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said that the foreign deep-sea fishing crew contributed significantly to New Zealand’s economy.

By granting the fishing sector permission to bring them in, he said the government was prioritizing this kind of aid to industries that were also making an effort to attract New Zealanders.

This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.