Good riddance

The border closure and resulting lack of foreign slave-workers is driving the fishing industry out of business:

One fishing company is effectively out of business while others are bracing for large financial hits as the deepwater New Zealand industry, unable to get skilled foreign workers into the country, have begun tying up vessels.

At least three New Zealand-flagged big autonomous trawler reefer (BATM) deepwater vessels associated with Canterbury-based Independent fisheries have been tied up at Lyttleton as it repatriated its Russian and Ukranian crew following the end of their visa periods.

Nelson-based fishing company Sealord is likely to follow suit by October 1 with its Ukrainian and Russian crews of Meridian and Profesor Aleksandrov heading home after working in New Zealand since November.

Good riddance: fishing is a criminal and environmentally destructive industry which ignores the law while corrupting our democracy. Its reliant on foreign workers because (like farming) it is an industry no-one wants to be a part of, with low pay and appalling conditions - basicly, you don't get to have a life, or a family, and the wages come nowhere near compensating for that. We shouldn't shed a single tear over it, and if we're lucky, these troubles will kill off some of the current players and allow them to be replaced by more ethical and sustainable competitors.