Tag Archives: Craig Boote
Hundreds of workers flown home to Pacific despite fishing firms’ pleas
Tongan, Samoan and ni-Vanuatu horticulture workers have been redeployed or flown home, to the disappointment of the country’s biggest fishing companies who had asked for help filling hundreds of jobs in their processing plants. Between 200 and 500 workers still had time left on their Recognised Seasonal Employer visas, at the end of fruit-picking season in Nelson and Marlborough. Sealord and Talley’ wrote to the immigration minister asking that workers be given the chance to transfer over to better-paid seafood jobs, to help address a big labour shortage at the start of New Zealand’s lucrative hoki season. >click to read< 09:32
Fish and chips may ‘double’ in price without fuel help
A major figure in New Zealand’s fishing industry warns more boats could be tied up and the price of fish and chips will double unless the sector gets the same fuel assistance given to others. Already Westfleet Seafoods’ 400 tonne trawler Tasman Viking has been tied up at Nelson’s port for a fortnight because of the spiraling cost of fuel. The company’s chief executive, Craig Boote, said that if the government did not play fair and apply fuel discounts to all New Zealand businesses the fishing industry could be on its knees in weeks. “Fuel is a huge component of our commercial operations and without a reduction the price of fish will unfortunately skyrocket,” he said. “The only other option is to tie boats up, which of course has a snowball effect, with onshore jobs in the factory, engineering and more, being negatively affected.” >click to read< 09:02
