Marine Risk Assessor, John Riding has said Rena from Monrovia was a well-built vessel – It was not a “ship of shame”. But what happened was more than a shame, it was a disaster.
Is the disaster a result of the “loss of balance” Dame Anne Salmond spoke about in her DomPost opinion piece on Thursday? “In the pursuit of profit, everything in the world – the earth itself, other species, knowledge and, indeed, other people – has been turned into a ‘resource’ to be exploited, often without care or conscience,” she says.
In his encyclical ‘Charity in Truth’ Pope Benedict argues that “Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development.”
Rena it is owned by one company, chartered by another and possibly operated by at third, registered under a flag of convenience and crewed by poorly paid seamen; the Captain and Mate are under arrest. Is man or profit at centre of this affair?
Joe Fleetwood of the Maritime Union asks “If we allowed trucks on New Zealand roads that were licensed in Liberia or some other semi-functioning failed state, and driven by unregulated overseas drivers, there would be an outcry. Yet that is what we allow on the New Zealand coast and now we are paying the price.”
Source
- mybroadband: Pope in Spain
- Stuff.co.nz: Our small country needs a change of heart
- Voxy.co.nz: Responsibility for Rena lies with the Govt – Union
- Image: Auckland Scoop
