Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill amend the Maritime Transport Act 1994 in order to protect maritime safety and to protect the marine environment. Amendments to the Maritime Transport Act will provide for local regulation of maritime activities, enable the implementation of four international maritime conventions, and make other miscellaneous changes to improve the clarity, effectiveness, and enforceability of provisions in the Act.

The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill transfers local regulation of maritime activity from the Local Government Act 1974 to the Maritime Transport Act 1994. The bill clarifies the maritime functions and powers of regional councils and harbour masters to regulate maritime safety and maritime-related activities in their regions and to manage port, harbour, and navigation safety. This consolidates local and national regulations of maritime activity into one statute. The bill introduces new measures that specify the maritime safety responsibilities of port operators and the related powers of the Director of Maritime New Zealand to intervene in the interests of maritime safety. These measures will support and complement the voluntary New Zealand Port and Harbour Marine Safety Code 2004.

The bill also updates arrangements for setting council fees and charges for maritime-related purposes and for local enforcement of maritime rules.

The bill also enables New Zealand to bring four international maritime conventions into full force: the 1996 Protocol to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976, the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage 2001, the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances Other than Oil 1973, and the Manila amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1978. The bill gives effect to the actual text of the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976 as amended by the protocol to the convention of 1996. This simplifies the way that the legislation currently implements the limitation of liability regime. But, more significant, the amendments enable New Zealand to accede to the 1996 protocol, which approximately doubles the liability limit for maritime claims under the existing legislation. It also provides for future increases in the limitation limit to be given effect by an Order in Council. This will make it a simple process to implement the 51 percent increase in the liability limit that will become available to contracting States in June 2015.

The bill will expressly implement the requirement for ships to have bunker oil insurance in accordance with the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage. Shipowners will be required to have sufficient insurance to meet their potential liability under the increased limitation limits of the 1996 Protocol to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.

The bill amends the Maritime Transport Act to enable emergency intervention powers in respect of ships to be exercised in the event of incidents involving harmful substances other than oil. This will give effect to the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances other than Oil.

The Manila amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers include regulation of alcohol consumption by merchant seafarers. Seafarers carrying out safety, security, and marine environment protection duties will be subject to blood-alcohol limits of 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood or 250 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. This testing regime is based on the testing regime for motor vehicle drivers under the Land Transport Act of 1998.

The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill transfers the regulation of a dumping and certain discharges related to the exclusive economic zone activities from Maritime New Zealand to the Environmental Protection Authority. In addition, the bill creates a new non-notified discretionary category to provide the Environmental Protection Authority with similar options to those currently available under the Maritime Transport Act for considering discharge and dumping activities. The new classification will also provide an appropriate level of oversight and discretion by the Environmental Protection Authority for activities that take place over a short period of time or are routine but still necessitate full regulatory discretion.

These bills will provide an updated and improved framework for maritime safety and marine environmental protection. They will also allow for commercial activity within the exclusive economic zone to be carefully managed, while ensuring that the regulation is proportionate to the scale and environmental effects of such activities. I commend these bills to the House.

Labour will be supporting the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill portion of this marine legislation, and we will be opposing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill portion of this marine legislation. If I could start with the bill that we do support, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, the question would really have to be why it has taken the Government so long to pass this legislation.

When the Rena disaster occurred 2 years ago, New Zealand taxpayers were lumped with enormous costs and the risk of even more had the negotiations with the companies involved not been successful, because we had not ratified the international bunker convention. In 2008 the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee recommended to the Government that it ratify that convention as soon as possible, and it has taken until now, in 2013, for the Government to do anything about that. So due to this Government’s failure to ratify that convention, when the Rena crashed on the reef of Tauranga, it was liable to pay only $11.3 million of the total clean-up costs, which were more than $50 million, and it was New Zealand taxpayers who ended up picking up the rest of that tab. Had we ratified that convention, the total cap that we could have claimed back would have been lifted.

The Crown was able to secure $27.6 million through negotiation with the companies, but it should not have had to take months and months of negotiating to come to an outcome that would be achieved absolutely by right had that convention been signed. The cap would have been lifted and that $27 million would have been absolutely unquestionably provided so that New Zealand taxpayers would not have to fund that. The Government recently was saying that it was a good outcome and that we got what we would have got anyway. Well, it took a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of stress, particularly for those business owners around Tauranga, which did not need to happen and should not have happened.

We are pleased this legislation is finally passing, but I have to say that we have passed a whole lot of really dire legislation that this should have been ahead of. We have passed a lot of legislation that is not nearly as important as this Maritime Transport Amendment Bill.

The Minister Maurice Williamson, in his third reading speech, mentioned that this legislation sets a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 for ships, and my question to the Minister would be why not for cars as well, then? Why is the Government so absolutely adamant in its refusal to reduce the drink-driving limit from 0.08 to 0.05—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Anybody who drives their cars on the ocean will be caught.

The Minister says that it is because people do not drive cars on the ocean—people do not drive cars on the ocean. Well, that is one of the more lucid reasons I have heard for why the National Party is not supporting my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill. Anyone who saw Seven Sharp last night—for those people who were not watching Minister Simon Bridges imploding on Campbell Live—saw that there was actually a really good item on Seven Sharp where a couple of staff members from Television New Zealand drank enough to get them to 0.05 and then to 0.08—[Interruption] This is in the bill. We changed the blood-alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Not for cars.

—for ships. What we are saying is that if it applies to ships, it should also apply to cars. What was clear was that even at 0.05 they were still significantly impaired. When they were doing a driving simulation, I think one of them killed a deer at 0.05 and then at 0.08 a pedestrian.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Ships, not cars.

We are just saying that if it is good enough for ships, then it should be good enough for cars. It is completely lacking in any rational explanation as to why it should apply to ships but not apply to cars, especially when you see the death rate on our roads that alcohol causes. We are pleased to see this Maritime Transport Amendment Bill finally passing, but, again, I say that it should have happened a lot sooner.

The bit I want to focus on is the changes to the exclusive economic zone legislation. This is just yet another greasing of the wheels for industry from a Government that has no plan for regional New Zealand other than oil and gas exploration. That is all it has. That is all it has. So what it has done is consistently embark on a programme of weakening environmental protections, of locking the public out from having any say in what is occurring off their coastlines, and of arrogantly ignoring some very, very valid concerns that the public hold around the dangers associated with deep-sea oil drilling. Some of the depths that we are talking about now in New Zealand are not depths that have been seen around the world. I think that those communities have a right to have a say, through a process of issuing the marine consent under the exclusive economic zone legislation, about the concerns, to have those concerns acknowledged, and to have the Environmental Protection Authority actually have to consider them.

What you have now is out to 12 nautical miles—that is our territorial waters—that is where the Resource Management Act applies. The public do get to have their say through a submission process. The Government is trying to take that away, but, fortunately, it does not have the numbers to do that at the moment. We have a Resource Management Act process that is well tested. There are 20 years of case law behind it. There are appeals to the Environment Court on substance, not just on process, and there is a submission process where affected communities can have their say about what is going on. We think the Resource Management Act is a good piece of legislation, notwithstanding the changes that the Government wants to make to it.

Once you get to 12 nautical miles, we head into our exclusive economic zone. New Zealand does not actually have the right to exploit any of the resources there unless there is a regulatory regime in place, and that is what the exclusive economic zone legislation that passed late last year does. But, unfortunately, unlike the Resource Management Act, there is no ability for appeals to the Environment Court. There is very ambiguous language that has not been tested in the courts. We asked why we could not just pick up the well-tested language of the Resource Management Act, as an indication that we expected that with two regimes operating side by side in our ocean where the line that divides them is jurisdictional only, it would make sense to use similar language and similar processes so that the companies that currently deal with regional councils and our territorial borders in Taranaki know that, basically, the same standards are going to apply in the exclusive economic zone. I note that when the Taranaki Regional Council submitted on that bill, it said that, actually, it would be helpful to have more guidelines.

What we have is an incredibly laissez-faire piece of legislation, a very permissive piece of legislation, on our exclusive economic zone.

💬 David Bennett: But you’re going to vote for it, though.

We voted against it the whole way through, Mr Bennett, actually, because, unlike you, we read the legislation. I think it is counter-intuitive to what most New Zealanders would expect. I think most New Zealanders would expect that, actually, the deeper you go out, the more rigorous the regulation. In fact, what we have in New Zealand is that the deeper you go out, the more permissive the regulation.

💬 Andrew Little: It makes no sense.

From our perspective, that simply does not make sense, and it does not provide the environmental protections and those bottom lines that New Zealanders want to know are there if this activity is going to go ahead in our exclusive economic zone.

Depth is not the only factor. There is whether the area is seismically active. There is the geology of the area. There is the size of the actual reserve that might be discovered. There are a whole lot of things that need to be factored in. What we need is robust risk analysis in our exclusive economic zone, and this bill does not provide it. When a number of these concerns were raised at the select committee, the Minister of Energy and Resources at the time, Phil Heatley, spoke to the people in Kaikōura who were very concerned that there is a very deep trench, about 100 kilometres off the coast of Kaikōura, where exploration work is going to start this summer. They were very, very concerned about the permissive nature of the exclusive economic zone regulations. They were very concerned about the Environmental Protection Authority’s capability to actually issue these marine consents. This is an organisation that does not have any internal investigative capability, so it is going to have to go out to look for it. What did Minister Heatley say to the people of Kaikōura? He said: “Don’t worry. You’ll get to have your say during the submissions process for the marine consents. You will get to have your say during the submissions process for the marine consents.”

💬 David Bennett: Talk about the real bill.

David Bennett really does not even understand what is in this bill. This is actually in the bill, Mr Bennett, that you are about to vote for. You are taking away—taking away—the right of people in this country to have a say over exploratory drilling by the creation of this new discretionary non-notified category. Mr Bennett, Phil Heatley promised the people of New Zealand that exploratory drilling would be notified, and this legislation creates the very category that is going to take away that right. Now you have an Environmental Protection Authority process where it is not going to have the benefit of the submissions that come from individuals, from NGOs, and from independent technical experts who take an interest in this thing. It will no longer have that. It has no internal investigative capability. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), which is the organisation that the Environmental Protection Authority will go to to do it, has been contracted to the oil industry. I do not know whether NIWA, in that contractual arrangement, is actually also able to provide advice to the Environmental Protection Authority. It may well be that it cannot. The very organisation that is expert in this country has already been contracted to the oil industry because the Government cut its funding and told it that it had to go out and get those commercial contracts. Where is this information going to come from that the Environmental Protection Authority is going to be making incredibly important decisions on?

As we saw on Campbell Live last night and as we have been pointing out consistently, we do not have the capability to respond if something goes wrong in the deep sea. We have three vessels. They are 8 metres long each. One is in Northland, one is in Auckland, and one is in Picton. When they are going at top speed, at full capacity, they go at 12 kilometres an hour. The idea that they are going to be able to get out to the trench off the Kaikōura coast is absolutely not true, and we will be—

I am sorry but the member’s time has expired.

That was a very poor speech from that member, Moana Mackey. She has a very limited understanding of the legislation arising from the Marine Legislation Bill, and it really shows why the people in the area that she purports to represent do not vote for her. They know that she does not understand the issues that are important for the people in her area. There were many things that were said in that speech that were just not true. It is not something this Parliament needs. We need concise general debate, and we do not get it from that member very often.

But this is a good piece of legislation. It covers a few major areas that needed some reform. Those reforms were done in a very good way through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and I would like to commend the members of the select committee for their work in that area. I think we got some pretty good work from all members. I think the Green Party members were quite happy with some of the discharge rules that were changed, to be taken into it.

💬 Moana Mackey: That’s because you added the EEZ stuff after the select committee.

That member should be quiet for a little while and she might learn something.

This is good legislation. It is something on which we have worked hard with regional councils as well because they have an important role in this area. It is something that is not easy. It is setting up structures and procedures, but they are necessary and are in the best interests of our marine environment, our transport sector, and the wider economic gains that can be made from all those sectors coming together.

We look forward to the legislation passing today, and thank you very much to all those who were part of the process. Thank you.

I rise to speak to these two bills, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, that previously made up the Marine Legislation Bill. Labour wants to make it clear that although we support the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, which has come from what was originally Part 1 of the Marine Legislation Bill, we are opposed to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, which falls out of Part 2 of the original bill. My colleague Moana Mackey has gone into considerable detail about why Labour is opposing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, so I aim to discuss some of the matters involved in the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill.

The purpose of the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill is essentially to implement a number of international treaties that, really, the Government has taken an awfully long time to sign up to. This goes all the way back to 2008, prior to the 2008 election. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee during that term of Parliament recommended to the Government that it implement the various conventions that this bill implements. The select committee took its time to consider the implications of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage and the changes to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. All the hard work had really been done by that select committee. It made its proposals to the Government, and the then Labour Government was ready to accept those proposals and implement them in legislation.

We then had an election, the Government changed, and it fell to the National Party to carry on the work that had already been carried out.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Five long years.

Sadly, the National Government failed to implement the recommendations of the select committee, and sat on this legislation for not quite 5 long years but long enough, in fact, for the Rena disaster to occur before this legislation was implemented. Had the Government been up to the task, had the Government been on to it, and had it been prepared to prioritise the safety of our waters around our shoreline—it required nothing more than to follow up on work previously done—then New Zealand, the New Zealand Government, and the New Zealand taxpayers would not have been liable for the millions of dollars of costs associated with the Rena disaster. In fact, the costs to the Crown were over $50 million.

💬 Carol Beaumont: How much?

$50 million. Had this legislation been implemented before the Rena disaster, then the Crown would have been liable to pay around about $11.3 million. That is still a significant sum, but it is considerably less than the $50 million that it has cost us. That cost was absolutely avoidable. It was nothing more than negligence and, frankly, laziness on the part of the Government that meant that this legislation was not implemented in time. After months of negotiation, the Crown was actually able to get a reduction in those costs. They did end up being less than $50 million. But, again, the real cost that the Government should have borne was significantly less.

It is good news that this legislation is being passed, but a bit behind the time. But we know that in the future, should another disaster like the Rena occur—and of course we hope that it will not and we hope that the Government has actually taken the steps to help ensure that a disaster like the Rena is not able to occur again or is less likely to occur again—then taxpayers will not have to carry the burden. It will fall where it ought to, which is with the shipping company that owned the vessel—a foreign company. Once again, it is not unusual for this Government to be doing things that take the burden of cost off large foreign multinationals and place it on the New Zealand taxpayer. I am not for a second saying that it did it deliberately this time. There are plenty of other examples where it did do it deliberately, but it was not deliberate this time. It was just basically laziness and negligence on behalf of the Government.

This bill actually does something else that is incredibly positive. It sets the blood-alcohol limit for seafarers in charge of a marine-going vessel at 0.05. Why does it do that? Well, again, this is about signing up to international conventions. This is about following international best practice. I want to congratulate the Government on promoting legislation that sets a blood-alcohol limit of 0.05, because we know that that is the medical definition of intoxication. Once somebody has a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 or higher, they are not capable of good decision-making, they are not capable of operating a marine-going vessel or any form of machinery, and they are not capable of operating a vehicle on the road.

It would be an excellent thing for New Zealand to adopt a 0.05 limit not just for seafarers but also for drivers on the road, because we know that drink-driving is one of the key causes of serious road crashes in New Zealand. The evidence is incredibly strong. It does not matter what piece of evidence you look at, the evidence supports what this bill does, which is to reduce the alcohol limit for seafarers from 0.08 down to 0.05. If we look at the number of incidents that making this change will impact, it is around about 20 incidents a year. So it is helpful, but it pales in comparison with the impact that we could have if we applied the 0.05 limit included in this bill across a range of other activities, including drink-driving. Around a couple of hundred people die on the road every year. That itself is strong evidence of why we should support the 0.05 limit in this bill. A limit of 0.08 for adults allows seafarers, drivers, or anybody else for that matter to have around about six standard drinks in an hour. In fact, I saw a report just last night where someone consumed eight beers in around about an hour and a half, and they were still below the level of 0.08. I think we would all agree that nobody should be in charge of a marine vessel when they have consumed eight beers. That is why we are so much in support of this initiative to reduce the limit.

The other thing for seafarers is—because I know that seafarers have downtime on the ship; there is not necessarily a lot to do, and heading to the bar is one of the favoured activities—because they know they are coming on to watch shortly they aim to get to about 0.079 and to come in just under the limit. Once they get over 0.05, they will find it very difficult to judge exactly how intoxicated they are. Often, seafarers, like drivers, will find that they are actually well over the limit because they have lost their ability to judge how intoxicated they are. Lowering the limit for seafarers will ensure not only that we eliminate those seafarers who are between 0.05 and 0.08 but also that we reduce the number of seafarers who are extremely intoxicated when they are in charge of a marine vessel. So we on this side of the House congratulate the Government on promoting legislation that does that. We believe that 0.05 is the correct limit for anybody who is operating a vehicle or machinery that has the potential to cause harm to themselves or to other people, should their intoxication end up causing an incident of any kind.

So with that I just want to reiterate that Labour is in support of the changes to the maritime transport legislation, but we will oppose the changes to the exclusive economic zone legislation.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support the two bills, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, formerly known as the Marine Legislation Bill. What we are seeing here is that 2 years on from the Rena disaster, the Government is finally getting round to signing up to two of the international treaties that we should have signed up to an awful long time ago in order to protect the taxpayer. What we saw when that container ship hit the Astrolabe Reef was that New Zealand taxpayers were unprotected. Sure, we saw that the environment was unprotected, and we saw how Maritime New Zealand had to scramble like a headless chook to deal with that oil spill. We saw two and a half jumbo jets full of oil spill response equipment fly into the country. We saw how woefully unprepared we were. We saw those three skimmers, more akin to dinghies, which were raised in question time today. We saw how Maritime New Zealand was not prepared to deal with the public when it came to oil spills. What we saw was New Zealand volunteers doing what they do best. Even though the Government was not going to act and was sitting in a corner not knowing what to do, Kiwis just did it themselves. They went out on the beaches and they picked up those oil blobs.

So it is good that 2 years on we are finally getting round to something we should have done a long time ago. Signing up to these international conventions allows us to effectively double the amount we can claim in order to protect the taxpayer when big ships have problems spilling oil. Obviously, there is a liability limit regime internationally, and when the Rena hit the reef, what we found was that we could get a maximum of only $12 million. We can increase that now to almost $24 million - plus, which is good, and it might even increase in the future.

What we know is that taxpayers had to come to the party to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to deal with that oil spill. I think that everyone in this House and every New Zealander could agree that the taxpayer should not have to pick up the tab when corporations damage our beautiful environment. Corporations, rightfully, should pay when they cause a mess or when they cause a spill. They should pay to clean it up. But that is not what we saw. What we saw was the Oil Pollution Fund massively depleted. In fact, we saw it drop from $12 million to only $3.4 million. I understand that it is even less than that at the moment.

The taxpayer is threatened by an accident happening. Of course, what we know with marine activities in New Zealand is that accidents can happen. Obviously, they can be avoidable. We can put steps in place to avoid accidents occurring, but they do happen, and, frankly, we are unprepared if we were to see another big spill of oil entering our environment.

This Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill effectively does three things. It amends the Maritime Transport Act, it amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012, and it accedes to these international treaties. There were some improvements in the legislation, which the Greens have welcomed, but you have got to admit what an absolute shambles it is that the Government is having to amend the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act only a year after it was passed. At the time, both the Labour Party and the Green Party strongly criticised the Government for its process over that Act. I believe that it was quite simply an “Easy Drilling Act”. That is what it was designed to do. That is what it was drafted to achieve, and that is what the oil industry was asking for. I think it is an absolute shambles that we are having to amend that legislation, which was passed only recently, so soon in this House.

What we are seeing are amendments to the discharge and dumping regime under the exclusive economic zone. It is good to be improving that. There is now a guarantee that fracking at sea will be included. So we welcome those changes.

It is an absolute shambles. Sadly, what we saw through the Committee stage of this bill is the new consent category accepted by this Parliament. The Government has introduced a new consent category that it had not drafted into law last year. The new category, non-notified discretionary, is quite simply a clause that gives us no say. We know that exploratory drilling is the riskiest phase of oil production. We know that it was exploratory drilling that caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which made the Rena look like a puddle of oil. There were 300 tonnes spilt from the Rena versus 600,000 tonnes for the Gulf of Mexico spill. Yet what we see from the Government is that on the riskiest phase—the phase that has caused the largest environmental catastrophe to result from oil drilling—we will have no say. Yet, incredibly, you get the Minister Simon Bridges on television, out of his depth, arguing aggressively that Kiwis should not get a say. On two hands, he says that the Government is doing something that is so popular that all Kiwis are demanding it and that there is huge, widespread support for it, even though he cannot think of even a single person in the town of Kaikōura who supports the Government’s plan.

So the Government says that on one hand there is massive support for deep-sea drilling, yet on the other hand it says that no one in the country is going to get a say. I find that contradictory, I find it ridiculous, and I think that when you look through the veneer, what you see is that this Government is deeply scared of what New Zealanders think about oil drilling. New Zealanders want to protect their beaches. To be able to build a sandcastle with your children and put out the cray pot with your kids—that is a Kiwi right. Being able to trade with whale-watching, as they do in Kaikōura, and to have a thriving aquaculture fisheries tourism industry—this is what our country trades on, and we are seeing this Government put it at risk and not give Kiwis a say. That is why this legislation amending the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act is a total shambles. It is unfair, it is secretive, and it is taking away the Kiwi right to have a say when potential activity threatens your environment.

Despite that, though, what we are seeing are some positive moves in the legislation formerly known as the Marine Legislation Bill. We want to see the environment protected. We want to see the taxpayer protected. These points are just one little step we could do to protect the taxpayer. A year ago, on the anniversary of the grounding of the Rena, I presented a 10-point checklist that the Government could do, with positive, common-sense solutions to protect the taxpayer. What we should be doing is increasing the Resource Management Act maximum corporate penalties, because $600,000 is a joke when you see the cost to the taxpayer from the Rena. We need to be building up Maritime New Zealand’s Oil Pollution Fund. We need to be building up its budget, and I proposed a good solution for that, which is to use the petrol levies paid by boaties. That would give Maritime New Zealand an extra $20 million - odd. I think it is fair that boaties should pay for protecting the waters, because that boatie money is essentially just going towards new motorways under National. What we should be doing is doing things that business and unions support, like having a rapid response, multipurpose vessel to protect our waters. Those three skimmers are not enough. We need to be building up the expertise in Maritime New Zealand. But, ultimately, what we have to do is not risk our environment from a catastrophic oil spill.

What New Zealanders want, what people in Kaikōura want, is a guarantee from the industry and the Government that we will not see a spill. The Government and the industry cannot give that guarantee. Also, the Government and the industry cannot guarantee that they could respond to a big spill. I find it deeply shocking that this Government has nominated only 5,500 tonnes as its oil spill response capability. The Gulf of Mexico spill was 600,000 tonnes. This Government says that it has no sub-sea oil response capability. This Government says that our capping stack technology to deal with a deep-sea blowout is there, it is available, but the only problem is that it is in London. We see a massive percentage of the oil spill response equipment stored in Singapore.

What we need to be doing is putting in place common-sense steps to protect the taxpayer from accidents when they occur, but the most effective thing we could do to make sure that oil does not hit our beaches and that oil drilling does not ruin that Kiwi tradition of being able to play on a beach with your kids and catch a fish safely—the best way to assure that; the only guarantee the Government can give—is if we stop deep-sea drilling. So although we are supporting this legislation, we are going to keep fighting the Government’s deep-sea “drill it, mine it, frack it” agenda in this House, on the streets, and online. We are going to keep mobilising. We are going to send a strong message to those companies, as we did with Petrobras and as we saw with the Canadian frackers Apache. We are going to send those companies the message that they are not welcome in New Zealand.

New Zealand’s future, New Zealand’s jobs, and New Zealand’s prosperity are going to come from clean energy, and it is clean energy where more net international capital investment is going. It is clean energy that China, Europe, and America are calling out for. Clean energy is our future. There are going to be more jobs, more taxes that stay in New Zealand, and more long-term prosperity. When I talk about wanting a richer New Zealand, we are not going to see it from hoping that someone finds something at the bottom of the sea and does not leave too much of a mess and that we can clip the ticket as those profits are exported. A richer New Zealand will come from our strengths. It will come from our innovation. It will come from looking to the future. The future is clean energy. That is where the Green Party focus is going to be, and that is where a Green Government is going to provide leadership and attention.

So although we are supporting this legislation, we are presenting a vision of oil-free beaches, a sustainable economy, and a richer New Zealand. Kia ora.

It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on the third readings of this legislation, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. I will be brief because I think this legislation is, in fact, so good that it does not really need the embellishment of saying too much about it.

The legislation underlines one of National’s consistent purposes and missions. It shows a close analysis of the underlying, fundamental structures of the industry that is under examination. It has provided a close dialogue with industry leaders, Government experts, and the invested members of the public. It shows a strategic adjustment that will increase the communication, efficiency, and accessibility of, in this case, the marine sector.

We have just heard all the apprehensions and fears that are embodied in the Green view of this particular piece of legislation. I would, on the contrary, like to commend this legislation to the House in recognition that marine regulations and mariners carry our country’s wealth. They carry our exports to market and bring our imports in through seaports using the regulations that are legislated for in this House. That is 49 million tonnes of product coming through our ports—49 million tonnes a year—at a value of $75 billion. Good marine legislation has always been critical and crucial to New Zealand. It is crucial to New Zealand and will always be crucial to New Zealand. I commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the legislation before us, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. We will be supporting this legislation through its third reading. The New Zealand First Party does see merit in many aspects of the legislation, but, as other speakers have said today, we are somewhat disappointed that it has taken this amount of time to come to this point of the third reading. One does wonder whether if this had been enacted a number of years ago, if the safeguards and the penalties and the legislative requirements laid down in this legislation had been in place before the Rena disaster took place, we would still be looking at a wreck on the reef off Tauranga.

This legislation basically tidies up a lot of areas and moves things in the Maritime Transport Act across to the Environmental Protection Authority now that we have the exclusive economic zone—the 200-mile zone off our shores. So it does move legislation around to fall under different places of authority that are more appropriate for the administering of the zone. It moves some of these matters from the Local Government Act to the Maritime Transport Act in order for ports, harbours, and general maritime safety to be administered under the Maritime Transport Act, rather than that being the domain of local government in many areas where local government is perhaps not the appropriate authority to have the overall national authority over the legislation in relation to, particularly, maritime safety and ports.

It also doubles the penalties in other areas, which is a good thing. It is sending the very strong message in doubling those penalties that New Zealand is going to seek serious consequences for and compensation from those who would come with vessels, with ships, or with any other craft and potentially cause damage to our environment. It allows the Government to intervene, through various agencies, on the high seas in the case of harmful substances other than oil being discharged. Again, where there is a situation of leaks or discharges, or of a vessel carrying containers or a cargo that has potentially toxic substances that may come adrift, the Government has the legislation in place under these bills to intervene. The legislation will also increase the penalties on shipowners, and also on the ships themselves, in terms of bunker discharge. Again, that is a good thing, because there is a huge risk. Many of these vessels carry very large volumes of bunker oil, and, again, this country missed out on a great deal of compensation over the Rena disaster because this level of penalty was not in place.

In terms of moving over to the Environmental Protection Authority, which is now in place, there is merit in much of that, in that when it comes to areas such as the discharging of harmful substances such as radioactive waste, it prohibits the dumping of toxic or hazardous waste, and it restricts the dumping of any other sort of waste or the incineration at sea of waste or any other matter. That, therefore, does very much now come under the Environmental Protection Authority, under the exclusive economic zone. We are looking at something like the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, and our continental shelf goes out a great distance. Therefore, the Environmental Protection Authority will be charged with ensuring that any such hazardous waste will certainly be covered under this legislation.

It is, again, disappointing that we have to relook at the exclusive economic zone legislation. I sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee, which looked at it less than a year ago. It went through a very, very extensive submission process in terms of the importance of the 200-mile limit, from all sectors within New Zealand, from all over New Zealand. So it is somewhat disappointing again that the Government has dropped the ball on this in not picking up some of these aspects in the first place, when that very, very weighty piece of legislation was first brought through the House and through the select committee. However, it is better late than never. We do see that there are still areas here that must be well scrutinised. We are living in a situation now where there is great risk to our environment in terms of our harbours, our ports, and our shipping movements around the country, and in terms of general marine activities on such a large coastline. So it is important that this legislation is well monitored, and that those who are given the authority as a result of passing this legislation in this third reading do very much respond to what will be provided to them in terms of the tools and the tool box to ensure that New Zealand’s environment and coast are protected.

Also, in terms of maritime safety, there are many aspects in this bill that improve aspects in maritime safety, including offences where seafarers may be caught intoxicated when in charge of vessels on the coast. Again, that is a very, very dangerous situation, like any public transport situation. But in terms of a large vessel where there is found to be intoxication, they can be fined up to $10,000, or 12 months’ imprisonment. Again, it sends a strong message that it will not be tolerated—intoxicated seafarers being masters or, indeed, in charge of vessels. So New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation, and we commend it to the House.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a brief call on the legislation arising from the Marine Legislation Bill, which enjoys widespread support across the House. That is not surprising, because, of course, trade is our lifeblood, as has been so eloquently pointed out by my colleague Mr Auchinvole.

The Marine Legislation Bill was an omnibus bill that amended the Maritime Transport Act 1994 and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012. The significant amendments that the legislation arising from it makes revolve around changes to the oversight of port, harbour, and navigation safety; implementing international maritime conventions and protocols; changes relating to the making of maritime and marine protection rules; and transferring the regulation of the discharge and dumping of waste.

We as a Government are committed to building a more competitive and productive economy. This legislation highlights our commitment to creating strong and sensible legislation that works. It will provide more certainty around the laws involved, as well as improving safety enforcement practices and environmental protection. I commend the legislation to the House.

That was indeed a brief call from Dr Cam Calder. In fact, I do not recall ever having heard a speech from that member that had so few words in it. I was quite disappointed, actually, because his contributions to the House are usually very, very interesting.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Why don’t you see if you can beat him with even less?

That Minister is no longer the Minister of Transport, is he?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: No.

No, so I will not bother responding to that. It gives me great pleasure to speak in this third reading of the legislation arising from the Marine Legislation Bill. Before I get on to the substance of the legislation, I want to make just a brief comment in regard not to the member who just resumed his seat but to the National member who previously contributed to this debate, Chris Auchinvole, who in the recent parliamentary adjournment announced that he was not seeking re-election. I just want to take the earliest opportunity to say that he has made many substantial contributions in this House in a way that I think should inspire others and in a way that sticks to policy issues rather than individual personal attacks. I think he has made some very thoughtful contributions. He almost beat Maurice Williamson in his contribution on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. It was a bit neck and neck at one stage. His contribution will be missed by me and, I am sure, many others in the House.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Did you say we were neck and neck?

Pardon?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Did you say that Mr Auchinvole and I were neck and neck?

That is correct. The legislation that we are discussing, the Marine Legislation Bill, has been split into two bills. The first bill is the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the second one is the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. In regard to the first one, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, I am very pleased that Labour is able to support this bill. It is puzzling, though, to figure out why a bill that is so straightforward and in many respects without controversy, where, I think, perhaps the unanimous support of the House has been indicated and where it does such important things in terms of the protection not just of our maritime safety but also of our taxpayer base, has taken so long to get through. I am sure that if the Hon Maurice Williamson was still running this portfolio, it would have been well and truly done and dusted. I can remember in previous Parliaments the Hon Maurice Williamson ramming legislation through the House because it was so important to get it through in a hurry. We discussed Plimsoll lines during debate on that legislation a number of times. I remember the member the Hon Maurice Williamson waving white handkerchiefs from his position when he was taking the Committee stage of that debate, because he was so sick of hearing about Plimsoll lines. But, actually, he had a really strong understanding and commitment to the issues, and I think that is what is obviously missing in regard to the lack of leadership shown by the Hon Gerry Brownlee in steering this legislation through the House.

For goodness’ sake, it has taken years. In 2008, at the time of the election, this legislation, with a little bit of addition, was pretty well done and dusted by the last Labour-led Government. It was ready for introduction and progress through the House, and now, in October 2013, we finally see it getting to the last stage. It certainly could have and should have been passed some time ago. It is a bit of an indication, really, of the lack of management—not just the lack of vision but the lack of management—from this Government of the legislative process. Of course, that is reflected in the lack of support of our citizens and in the management of our country, as well.

The primary part of this legislation is in regard to the conventions that it ratifies—the conventions that were signed prior to the 2008 election. If the Government had got on with the legislative work that we are doing now, we would never have got into the difficulty that we got into with the Rena owners. The taxpayer base would have been protected, and I am sure that every National Party member would be happy going up and down the country saying that National is the party that is interested in protecting the taxpayer and ratepayer base of New Zealand. But in regard to this very simple piece of legislation, where there is no political opposition and lots of good reasons for supporting it, National left the taxpayer dangling. We ended up with a taxpayer bill of over $50 million as a result not of the Rena running aground but of the National Government not implementing this legislation, which would have given us the base for clear liability and for putting the cost where the liability occurred. Because this Government, the National Government, had not progressed this legislation, New Zealand taxpayers ended up with an unnecessary bill of $50 million. So thank goodness we are now at last getting this legislation passed. But in regard to the taxpayer debt on the Rena, it is too little and it is too late.

The Crown did, of course, negotiate more than the original liability, but that negotiation in itself cost a huge amount of money. We cannot just send in people who have got nothing better to do with their time to negotiate with the people who own these ships that have run aground and who are desperate to hold on to their money. We need skilled negotiators, and they cost the New Zealand public a lot of money.

I would have loved to hear an apology from one of the National members contributing to this debate—an apology to the New Zealand ratepayers for wasting $50 million of our money, which could have been much better spent on any number of activities that we know are in need within our own communities. But, no, instead, the Government had other, more important priorities—to, what, sell State assets, Mr Ross? It was something important like that. Or perhaps to stop the right of New Zealand families to take discrimination cases through the proper legal process in New Zealand if they are caring for family members. That is another thing that the Government gave urgency and priority to and put ahead on the legislative timetable, so this legislation has been languishing for the length of time it has. I would like to hear an apology from the Government to the taxpayers and ratepayers of New Zealand before the end of this debate. This legislation was actually ready to progress.

💬 David Bennett: Why didn’t you do something when you were a Cabinet Minister?

I cannot remember what Mr Bennett was doing in those days, but he was doing a lot more than he has done recently.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Five long years, Mr Bennett—5 long years.

Five years, and we are only getting to this legislation in October 2013. It was ready to progress. The member would have known that if he had done any homework, which does not seem likely from his minimal contribution. He would have known that.

In regard to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, it is very disappointing that once again we have legislation that has so much potential and yet delivers so little. The legislation amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. That legislation itself was so weak. It was very recently passed by this Parliament, and yet we have amendments to it already. This legislation was promoted as being the protection for the environment that was lacking in our legislative framework. I admit there is a gap there that needs filling, but this legislation does nothing at all to protect the environment.

We know that the Ministers who are driving this agenda are staunch defenders not of the environment, not of health and safety, and not of security of our pristine marine areas but just of the drilling companies. We heard the Hon Simon Bridges, in his contribution, yelling at John Campbell last night in an extraordinary performance where he just repeated over and over and over again the lines he had been given. That was not just dismissive of John Campbell—I suppose when you put yourself in a position like that as a journalist and an interviewer, you may expect pretty robust debate—but actually offensive to the people of Kaikōura, the people who for the first half of that programme expressed their high levels of anxiety and their lack of trust in the National Government, the Government that, actually, those very same people had voted for. The very people who voted for Colin King to be their member of Parliament are now saying that they do not trust the National Government. They will look at this legislation, and their fears will be realised.

So, with reluctance, we are opposing a wasted opportunity to improve protection of our exclusive economic zone, and certainly supporting the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill.

As I have been listening to the speeches from the Opposition on the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, I have been reminded of Hemingway’s book The Old Man and the Sea and the marlin that just goes round and round and round. Although the rhetoric, particularly from the Labour Party, is not going to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, I suspect that some of the fiction from the leader, Mr Cunliffe, might.

This is good legislation. The Government will not apologise for any elements of it. We are proud of the legislation. Those of us on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee have worked hard, and I commend the legislation to the House.

The Hon Maryan Street—5 minutes.

Yes, it is a split call. The fact that none of the members opposite on the Government benches can muster more than 20 or 30 seconds to speak on the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, just as they could not on the one before—

💬 Carol Beaumont: Tragic.

—is absolutely tragic. It is something that demonstrates that they cannot justify their own legislation. They cannot justify why this House should be passing legislation of this kind. In the nearly 3 hours since question time, this has been their contribution. They want just to swing votes through on the numbers and never mind the justification.

I want to speak to the part of the former Marine Legislation Bill that is now the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. I wish it were. I wish it were about environmental effects. The trouble is that, once again, this bill amends very weak legislation around the exclusive economic zone that has done little to protect the environment. Although I acknowledge that there is work that needs to be done in that area, the work that this Government has done is not going to protect the environment. Given that the Government is now considering making oil and gas exploration non-notifiable under the Resource Management Act, and the fact that it has passed legislation banning protests at sea, in order to advance the oil and gas companies’ interests, it is absolutely clear that it has no interest in maintaining the environment. So the weakest possible legislation it can get away with, with its slim majority, is what it is putting up.

Not only was the legislation weak to start with but now we have a shambolic process. The Government, as with other pieces of legislation, brought this exclusive economic zone legislation to the House just a month ago, with 37 pages of amendments, and now we have the Government trying to amend something that it only recently addressed. It is hard to imagine just how a piece of legislation might be amended to be even less effective than it was before, but this shambolic approach to matters that are of not only interest but importance to the environment that our few little islands exist in shows that the Government has no regard for process, content, or anything that might protect New Zealand’s environmental interests ahead of the economic interests of offshore investors.

So Labour opposes the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, although we are supporting the other part of the legislation, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. The fact is that when we look at the legislation here apiece, whether it is the Crown minerals legislation, the Resource Management Act, or marine legislation, we can see that the Government is working to further the interests of the oil and gas industry or anybody who might be able to make a buck out of the environment without protecting it. So this legislation has to be seen in the context of other pieces of legislation, and this Government has to go down in history as the one that has protected the environment the least. Thank you.

I rise to take a call for the Greens on these two pieces of legislation, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. Our position is that we will be supporting this legislation. We do have some concerns, particularly about the amendments to the exclusive economic zone legislation; however, I will talk about that in a minute.

Our position is that we believe that this legislation does not really go far enough in protecting the waters in our economic zone or actually protecting New Zealand taxpayers from paying the full costs of potential spills. Other speakers have already talked about the Rena and how this legislation should have been in place earlier in order to protect the taxpayer from paying the full cost of that clean-up.

We do support legislation outlining the responsibilities of regulating maritime safety as a function of regional councils. Actually, it is heartening to see this Government finally supporting some type of powers for local authorities, given that it has not been terribly supportive around things like the Land Transport Management Act, the Auckland Housing Accord, the Local Government Act, or, in fact, the changes to the Resource Management Act, where local authorities have been shut out of decision making time and time again. However, it was very nice to read Minister Collins’ quote when she introduced the second reading of this bill. She said that “The bill enables regional councils to continue to regulate maritime safety and maritime-related activities in their regions and provides for a stronger regime for the management of port, harbour, and navigation safety.”

Certainly, where I live in the Hauraki Gulf the local authorities have been active in negotiating around maritime safety. In fact, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park forum, the Ports of Auckland, the shipping industry, and the Environmental Defence Society got together to develop protocols for the shipping industry around protecting the Bryde’s whales that live in the Hauraki Gulf and that frequently sleep very close to the surface of the water, particularly around the shipping lanes. Part of those protocols is that the ships will be slowing down to about 10 knots, which is a major step forward. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of advocate Dr Rochelle Constantine, who has been ceaselessly advocating for these mammals in the Hauraki Gulf for many years. We have finally managed to get some success there.

The Greens do, of course, agree with the provisions in respect of the drink-driving of ships and the limits there for ship captains, and we do also acknowledge the anomaly that we see with drink-driving on land, which has not actually come through at all. We support the penalties and prescriptions around the overloading of ships, bringing us into line with some of the international conventions. And, of course, we agree with acceding to the other international maritime conventions.

What we are not happy with are the amendments around our exclusive economic zone that allow for exploratory drilling as a non-notified discretionary activity, because we see that once more as another lack of democracy. That has been a common theme that this Government has pushed through in piece of legislation after piece of legislation. We note that that provision came through as an amendment through the Committee of the whole House, so it was not actually open to submission during the democratic process that we have that enables legislation in the first place. That really does mar some of the better provisions that have been pushed forward, like the restrictions around waste dumping. That was an amendment that came through from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We will be supporting this bill, but we do have some reservations.

I commend the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill to the House.

Maritime Transport Amendment Bill read a third time.