Transcript
LIZ MITCHELL: Well it seems like there have been a lot, there was Charlie Lasisi - he was from Papua New Guinea, Larry Gavin he's the one who completely disappeared. Wesley Talia - some people were out in a canoe, they say a body wrapped in the same clothing as the ship clothing he was on. And they recognised him. It's unclear if that was an accurate identification of him, but he disappeared, and there was no report, no body returned to the family. All of these men were not returned to the family so none of them got a proper burial. Then there was Keith Davis, who was my colleague, he disappeared in 2015. So you know, these tuna commissions, there's just not a lot of control of the vessels and transparency of the information. One of the things I have been raising is observer harassment. I think I've found maybe four agencies who report it out of all of the observer programmes. Those reports apparently come annually but they're very difficult to find. They're buried and the names are not obvious. It's not like 'observer harassment report or something like that'.
TIM GLASGOW: What's the nature of the work they are doing? What would they typically be doing on these vessels?
LM: They are collecting baseline data - biological data on the catch. So some of the species the fishermen don't report and they don't typically have time to collect all of the information to study a healthy population, which is length, sex length of the fish, age structure. They collect information on interaction with protected species. You know the fishermen are obviously keeping track of the profitable species and the profitable sized species within their target, they don't actually care about the coral. The observer is keeping track of the total impact of fisheries.
TG: How long are they on a vessel for?
LM: It varries on the smaller vessel it will be 2-3 weeks on on larger vessel they're away for months, some of the PI observers are away for 6 months. The conditions are harsh.
TG: And they only go individually, so only one goes at a time?
LM: Not always, there were two observers on the vessel where James disappeared.
TG: So you've heard these observers come back and experience harassment and maybe intimidation, what form does that take?
LM: It varies, sometimes it is outright assault. There's often subtle intimidation. I've heard of, and experiences myself when the captain will pretend to be friends with my boss, or our boss and has an influence over whether or not I keep my job. The whole range of harassment, throwing things and yelling at the observer down at the dock.
TG: When this sort of behaviour by these crews is reported by the observer what sort of response have they been getting, you know, have they tried to out any frameworks in place to try and prevent this or perhaps protect them?
LM: No, I mean I've heard from the WCPFC 'take the bribe and we'll deal with it later'. With conditions like that and different professional standards between the agencies. In the Pacific it is very hard to understand, at least for me, I mean you have different agencies, you have the WCPFC and you have the parties to the Nauru agreement, individual states and they all have a different role to play - the FFA, all these different agreements. So what happens is they end up pointing the finger to each other is anything goes wrong. But we tried to introduce and observer bill f rights back in 2000 and we worked on it, and worked on it. And in 2013 tried to apply it internationally and we haven't had any response from any of the agencies.
TG: What types of things were those?
LM; A living wage and a contract, you now very basic worker rights. Work in a safe environment, to have support from your employer. To work independent of the fishing vessel, we have heard that some observers are dependent on the vessel for travel and all that sort of things. I've actually been in that situation and it's a no brainer, if you're monitoring your boss, basically and if they're in charge of you financial stability, it causes problems if you notice a violation.
