The days of foreign skippers and officers running New Zealand ships could be numbered.
Photo: 123RF
Immigration officials want to remove clauses that allow them to work on vessels in this country, despite fears from ship owners that this could end up costing them a lot of money and delay shipments.
The push to remove senior maritime posts from the list of essential skills came from the Merchant Service Guild, which represented skippers, deck officers and engineers on New Zealand ships.
President Russell Petrie said 40 to 50 of his members were sitting at home, waiting for work, when foreign officers were on the bridge of ships working within New Zealand territorial waters.
"We have got 15 percent of our sea-going members unemployed, which is three times the national average across all industries," Captain Petrie said.
"That is definitely enough people to manage a large number of ships completely, so there is no need to bring in skills (from overseas) at the moment."
Despite that, skippers, deck officers and engineers were on a special list that allowed people with those skills to work in this country.
Official figures showed that in the year ended May, five captains, 32 engineers and 26 ships officers received special skill-based work visas.
Captain Petrie said that made it hard for his members to improve their own skills and win promotion.
"Because a lot of the shipping companies in New Zealand know they can simply find candidates from the worldwide labour pool there is no incentive for them to train for succession.
"That means there is simply not a pathway for anyone to shift within the industry and very little hope for new entrants."
Immigration officials at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment have taken these arguments on board and reached a preliminary view that skippers, officers and engineers should be removed from the skills list.
Kevin Judkins, a captain with 40 years' experience at sea who wrote a book on the Rena salvage operation, supported a change.
"The Auckland marine school pushes out about 30 trainees a year, that's in marine engineering and also the marine officer trade. Job opportunities are rather bleak, with the offshore industry drying up and trade in general. So there is a general downturn in shipping all around."
But the New Zealand Shipping Federation was lobbying hard against the plan, saying foreign employees often had skills that are hard to find locally.
"When people are recruiting for a ship they want the best person available and if that person is in New Zealand and a New Zealander, that is great, because that is the definitely the cheapest option," said spokeswoman Annabel Young.
"But sometimes you can't find the person in New Zealand in which case you need to recurit overseas.
"And usually recruiting for a ship is an urgent thing, because if a ship does not have its full complement of officers, that restricts its ability to sail."
Ms Young said any delay in getting local recruits could be very costly, because ships cost a huge amount of money and operated to very tight deadlines - so a delay based on recruitment could be financially devastating.
A final decision on this will be made towards the end of the year by the Minister of Immigration.
