Maritime Transport Amendment Bill

I move, That the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. It gives me great pleasure to introduce this bill to the House. The purpose of this bill is to promote maritime safety and marine environmental protection. This bill amends the Maritime Transport Act 1994, which provides the regulatory framework for the maritime transport sector. The bill will set out new international compensation arrangements for maritime incidents causing marine pollution and will manage the risks of alcohol- and drug-impairment in the commercial maritime sector. This bill will also improve the flexibility of empowering provisions for the making of rules under the Act and clarify existing provisions, address operational issues, and correct some minor anomalies.

Turning to the international maritime conventions, the bill will give effect in New Zealand law to the Supplementary Fund Protocol to the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, which the Government agreed to in December 2014. The original supplementary fund provided an inexpensive global compensation scheme to cover oil spill damage from tankers, providing up to $388 million in compensation in the event of a spill in our waters. By acceding to the protocol, we increase the compensation available to $1.432 billion.

The bill also addresses the limitation of liability for maritime claims. The grounding of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef highlighted the need to update and strengthen our liability limitation regime for maritime claims. That is why this bill provides for the implementation of reservations under the protocol of 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976. The reservations exclude liability limitation—that is, there will not be limitation of liability for wreck removal costs, cargo removal costs, or damage from hazardous and noxious cargo substances. This will provide more scope for cost recovery by public authorities, businesses, and the community in the event of another major maritime incident.

This is also a bill about what many have called “clear heads”. One of the most significant proposals in the bill addresses the risks associated with alcohol and drug use in the commercial maritime sector. A new Part 4B to the Act will more effectively manage these risks. Under these new measures, all commercial maritime operators will be required to have drug and alcohol management plans to manage the risks associated with drug and alcohol use. The management plans must provide for random drug and alcohol testing of staff who carry out safety-sensitive activities.

The Director of Maritime New Zealand will also have the power to undertake drug and alcohol testing in accordance with the testing requirements and operator management plans. This testing may also be done at any time, for any reason, and is not limited to random testing. In the event of a test result other than a negative result, an operator must stop a worker from undertaking safety-sensitive activities until he or she is again safe to do so. Operators will need to implement their drug and alcohol management plans by incorporating them into employment agreements. This is in line with the treatment of drug and alcohol testing under current employment law for employees and contracts for services for contractors.

New maritime rules will establish requirements concerning the content of, and procedural requirements for, drug and alcohol management plans, procedural requirements for random drug and alcohol testing, and other related matters. Existing offence penalty and cost recovery provisions in the Act will cover enforcement of, and funding for, the new drug and alcohol management requirements.

The bill also contains miscellaneous measures to improve the operation of existing provisions in the Act and to address minor anomalies by way of amendments. This includes amendments to improve the adaptability of maritime rules by allowing the Director of Maritime New Zealand to determine how requirements of the rules are met in response to developments in technology, international standards, and industry practice. It also includes changes to allow regional councils to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules, providing an incentive for councils to enforce the national rules directly rather than replicating them in local by-laws.

The bill will also improve access to shipping services to the Chatham Islands and other offshore islands by easing the restriction on the use of foreign-registered ships to carry freight between these places and mainland New Zealand. The bill will also enable territorial authorities to transfer responsibilities for harbour works to another public authority, and to transfer responsibilities for maritime activity to council-controlled organisations and port operators.

The proposals in this bill will improve safety outcomes in the maritime system. They will, I think, significantly improve the compensation regime for marine pollution incidents and ensure that this Act is good law, is very serviceable law into the foreseeable future. I commend this bill to the House.

Can I first of all start my contribution to the debate on this bill by taking the opportunity to extend my condolences to the family and friends of those who died and were injured in the earthquakes early on Monday morning, and to pay homage, really, to the great Kiwi spirit and resilience of our communities, which is once again being tested in the current environment. Are we not standing up. I see communities where people are seeing the best in each other, are helping each other out, and, despite the adversity of the times, we have a great community spirit, which I believe is the thing that is going to see people through. I know that the coming weeks and months are going to be very difficult. I think that at the beginning of the process there is a great deal to be done, there is a great deal to think about, and people have had a new experience in their lives. And then the daily grind begins. So we have all got that opportunity now to help each other through that period of time.

With this bill, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, it would be wonderful, would it not, if we were able to have the nimbleness in this Parliament to be addressing the things that we really need to address within our maritime transport system, which I think is exposed when we have these natural disasters and these emergencies that we must respond to. It would be wonderful if this bill could enhance our maritime transport sector, and in particular the coastal shipping part of our transport system, not only in order to help us through times like this, where it is really apparent that it is desperately needed to have a really robust coastal shipping strategy in place, but also for our day-to-day way of shifting both people and freight around our country.

If I were to be introducing the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill into this House, I think that it would be a great deal more aspirational than this one is. I will say, though, at the outset, that Labour is supporting this bill because it does have some useful measures in it. It certainly has some useful measures in it, but we believe that it misses the opportunity—the big opportunity staring us right in the face—to enhance and improve our coastal shipping services as part of a fully integrated transport system. It certainly does not bring that about.

In fact, I think I could hear it in Minister Simon Bridge’s voice when he presented his speech on this bill. Given the many complex issues that he is dealing with right now in his role as Minister of Transport—and I want to thank him for all of those efforts that he is making—to then come and present a bill about maritime transport like this to the House must seem deeply ironic. I know that the Minister will be thinking about the adequacy, or the inadequacy, of our coastal shipping fleet and its ability to respond in the current emergency situation. And yet, here is this bill, which actually does nothing to enhance that, and I suspect—but I will be interested to hear from the submitters—it may even take us a step backwards.

I am referring to the issue that the Minister raised in his speech, that about allowing foreign-flag vessels to deliver coastal shipping services to islands in and around New Zealand. That, I suspect, will actually have the effect of decreasing the robustness of our domestic coastal shipping fleet, and we have seen that already in recent years. We have seen that already, where our coastal shipping fleet has diminished in numbers and capacity and capability, and I believe that provision of this bill may well serve to undermine it yet again.

I raise this issue particularly because when road and rail fail—as they have done when mother Nature gets hold of them and shakes them about and gives them a jolly good shake-up and they are no longer usable, as has happened just this week—then the one reliable mode of transport is the transport system available to us by sea. Particularly for an island nation like ours, that is the one area that we can rely on when these natural disasters occur. We have seen it today. We have seen people being removed in large numbers from Kaikōura by the Defence Force by sea—by ship. That has ended up being the most reliable way to mass evacuate that area.

I know that the coastal shipping service—which is almost all in private hands—has been incredibly responsible in each of our emergencies that we have been faced with, in pulling together and offering those services to make sure that New Zealand can continue to operate. I am concerned that there is at least one provision in this bill that may make that harder in the future, but I will be very interested to hear what submitters have to say on that when they come before the select committee.

The issues of safety in the marine sector are important, so we will be supporting the drug and alcohol management plans that are proposed through this bill. That is a good thing. I would encourage the Government to look at other sectors where issues are probably more pressing and take an equally strong approach to ensure that workplace health and safety is first and foremost. Although I am not aware that drug and alcohol issues are a major problem for our maritime sector, I am aware that the problem that we face with quad bike deaths in this country, for example, is an area where I would like to see the Government take a regulatory approach. I would think that that would have more of a priority than what we are debating here in this bill today. None the less, that is a useful provision. It is a useful provision, but I urge the Government to take an equally serious approach to that mounting problem of quad bike deaths, which is plaguing our landscape as well.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are moving away from the bill.

At the first reading—I will, of course, bring it back to the bill and will be discussing the bill’s inadequacies as well.

So to the other provisions of the bill: part of the bill addresses the shortcomings that were made very obvious when we had the grounding of the Rena some years ago. The shortcomings in our ability to require compensation from companies and international organisations that we should be able to expect compensation from are addressed by this bill, and that is not before time. So we will be fully supportive of those provisions. It is important that we can have certainty that if these disasters—these oil spillages, these wreckages—happen on our coastline, we are able to ensure that it is not just the New Zealand taxpayer who cops the full force of the outcome of that. This bill certainly brings greater clarity and more options forward for the Government, on behalf of the people of New Zealand, to pursue compensation from those who have been complicit in creating the problem in the first place.

There are many other bits and pieces—technical changes that are brought forward by this bill. They are measures that, by and large, we will support, but we will listen very carefully to what submitters have to say. The people who are experts in the field and the people who work in the maritime transport sector are the people who will know what the very real consequences and implications are for all the issues that are traversed through this bill. We will listen very carefully to those. We hope that we will have a good working relationship with all members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, so that if there are unintended consequences that are discovered through that process, we work together. I think that our committee does have a history of being able to work together, to do exactly that.

I look forward to hearing the submissions and working with all the parties to bring forward the best Maritime Transport Amendment Bill that we can at this point in time. But I would also urge the Government to be more ambitious about having a maritime transport sector that can fully participate in an integrated transport system, whether it be in response to an emergency or on any other day of the week.

This bill deals a lot with the health and safety of people in the maritime industry. I would also like to echo the sentiments of Sue Moroney, the previous speaker, by acknowledging those people in Kaikōura who are in the business of keeping us safe across the community: the police, the Fire Service, civil defence, the ambulance service, NGOs, and the Defence Force, which is down there with our allies from offshore. There are also the persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs), which we have talked about in previous legislation; the health and safety officers who are in our businesses; and a new term—which is in this bill—the DAMP operator. The DAMP operator is the term that relates to the drug and alcohol management plan operator.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Very important.

It is. It is a very important person. That DAMP operator—that person—is responsible for a management plan that is initiated in this bill, which brings in the regime for random testing for drugs and alcohol that has come out of an earlier tragedy—in Carterton, in fact, in my electorate—which was the balloon tragedy. The review of that has brought about some of these changes and has applied them to the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, which we are dealing with today.

So that is all about improving safety—and people scoff at some of the health and safety regulations that are put in place. I am sure people would say that this is going over the top with health and safety, but we only need to be reminded of what can happen and what could happen, because things that have happened only in the last couple of days demonstrate that no matter how hard we try to keep people safe, there are always going to be accidents and there are always going to be emergencies. But what we are trying to do here is raise awareness of health and safety—raise the bar a little bit further—in the maritime industry.

The bar was raised in the health and safety law reforms earlier, as I said, with the persons conducting a business or undertaking, giving the responsibility for the health and safety of workers and employers to each other, so there is shared responsibility. This bill complements that and talks about, as I say, a DAMP, and a DAMP operator. Sorry about the word “DAMP”.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Acronym.

Acronym. Thank you. This bill also deals with a couple of other issues. It deals with compensation, and, particularly, it un-limits the liability—or creates an unlimited liability—to the operator, regarding cost when there is the cost of removing a wreck, when there is removal of cargo, and when there are remediating damages from hazardous substances. Previously, there were limitations on the liability of the operator; this bill would make those liabilities unlimited. It also opens up a larger fund, which is an insurance fund, essentially. It is able to be accessed—as the Minister of Transport said, from $388 million to $1.4 billion worth of funding—where there is an oil event in our patch.

So there are three major parts to this bill. There are a few bits and pieces around flag-bearings, as the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, mentioned, and that is related to competition, which I am sure we can discuss robustly in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which I look forward to. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

The Labour Party is supporting the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill to select committee. I want to focus, in particular, on the changes to the law that enable New Zealand to accede to the changes made by the 1996 protocol amending the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. There are two aspects to that that are important. One is that this bill enables the New Zealand Government to accede to the 2003 protocol that led to the establishment of an international fund for compensation for oil pollution damage, which originally started in 1992.

This change, which has been open to New Zealand for some time now, enables New Zealand to join this other fund. It is paid for by a levy on oil importers into New Zealand. They are charged a levy, and that levy goes into this international fund, which is a bit like an insurance fund. If there is a big oil spill our way, then that fund can be drawn upon in order to deal with the consequences of a major oil spill. It is very appropriate that New Zealand protects itself in that regard. We hope we never have to call upon those sorts of things, but one only has to look at some of the terrible consequences that have dogged parts of America for decades, since the Exxon Valdez went down off the American coast, and you realise how terrible the consequences can be if you have the foundering of a major oil tanker. So that is good, and that is one of the reasons why the Labour Party is supporting this to select committee.

The second aspect, as the prior speaker, Alastair Scott, mentioned, is that it also enables New Zealand to take the steps that are necessary to exclude ourselves from some of the limitations of liability that apply to other forms of carriage of goods at sea. Unless New Zealand changes its rules and makes reservations that exclude the limitation of liability that otherwise applies—so, unless New Zealand takes an active step to remove the limitation of liability that currently applies—the New Zealand Government is limited in its ability to recover costs in respect of the consequences of other vessels that founder on our coastline.

This is a very real issue that was encountered in New Zealand as a consequence of the grounding of the Rena. The explanatory note, the departmental disclosure statement, and the regulatory impact statement all variously mention the Rena, but none of them make explicit that one of the problems with the Rena was that New Zealand had not done what it could have done by then, to have removed the limitation of liability, which meant that there were limits on the amount that the New Zealand Government could recover from those at fault for the Rena disaster, and, effectively, more of it had to be borne—or potentially borne—by the New Zealand Crown. I cannot remember—because it is quite a while ago now—what the final amounts were, but the Rena foundered on 5 October 2011. When it hit the Astrolabe Reef, it subsequently broke up, and it released about 2,500 barrels of oil—about 400 cubic metres of oil—and there were also containers that went overboard, and the contents of those containers ended up in the sea as well.

The ability of the New Zealand Government to sheet home the cost of that remedial work was limited by the then limitation of liability under the international convention, which the New Zealand Government had not been able to remove, because this legislation had not been passed. It was a criticism that was made by the media and by Opposition parties at the time—that if we had acceded to the changes to that treaty earlier, and if we had enabled, in law, the New Zealand Government to remove that limitation of liability, then the position could have been different.

It is sad enough that that happened in respect of the Rena, but you have to ask yourself, if that was on 5 October 2011, why it is that it has taken 5 years since that event to bring this legislation to Parliament, because it was evident at the time of the Rena disaster that this problem needed to be fixed. Luckily, there has not been a significant foundering of a large cargo ship off the shores of New Zealand since then, so we have not been adversely affected by that in the intervening period—but we could have been. It is only a matter of luck that, in the period since 5 October 2011, when the Rena grounded, and now, we have not been faced with a substantial claim where the Government’s ability to recover compensation from the owners of the vessel that caused the environmental damage—you know, had that occurred during this intervening period, the New Zealand Government would have been hindered in its ability to do the right thing.

I cannot see why it has taken that long to get this into Parliament. It is not a particularly long bill, as others have already said. This also covers drug testing, and the total bill is 25 pages long—it is not a large bill. A significant part of that relates to the drug and alcohol management plans. Looking at that, those go for about five pages—the explanatory note and the index sections are about 10 pages of it—so, you know, the relevant provisions that the Minister of Transport, if he spent less time looking in the mirror and more time looking at his papers, he would—[Interruption] I know that he is from down near the Astrolabe, and I do not know whether that is where he got the idea for the Brylcreem, but—[Interruption] You know.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: This is—this is—

I know, this is a cruel contribution, but I am sure that your ego is strong enough to take it. The Minister of Transport should have had this in Parliament years ago. I am looking forward to a contribution from the National Government to explain why, given that it was evident in 2011, we had a gap in New Zealand’s law that meant that there was a limitation of liability as to how much we could recover from an overseas owner of cargo ships that foundered in New Zealand waters.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Some people can never be happy.

I am actually very easily made happy. I am a very happy person, but I am disappointed at the slackness of the Government and the Minister in not bringing this to the House to cure this problem that was so publicly aired in 2011 following the foundering of the Rena.

I am not going to spend much time on the drug and alcohol testing provisions. I agree that they are necessary. I agree that technology has improved in a way that enables those testing regimes to be more practical than they used to be. And I also agree with the last speaker that the tragedy that we had in respect of the balloon that burnt and then crashed to the ground following a collision with wires may have been avoided—we do not know that it would have been—if we had those tests and arrangements in place earlier.

One of the questions that does, I think, need to be asked by the select committee is why it is that there has been this delay in respect of the empowering provisions that enable the changes to the protocol to be brought into effect, both in terms of the oil spills for oil tankers, which is a different thing from the cargo ships, but also why there have been the delays in respect of getting rid of this limitation of liability in respect of cargo ships. And I would also be interested to see a time line as to how long it is going to take, once this legislation is passed, for those changes to be brought into effect, in practice, through the changes that are then made to New Zealand’s participation in those international agreements.

It is a pleasure to be talking to the first reading of the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. I have got to say that I think I have to defend the Minister’s integrity and honour from the previous speaker, who so slanderously talked about his hair. I just want to put it on record from this position: there is no Brylcreem. I have got to admit that the hair looks beautiful and well-coiffured, but I am putting it on the record that there are no further additives. But I do take this moment just to say that this bill comes from a very hard-working Minister who is doing a lot for transport, particularly in my electorate in Hunua, where we are doing a lot of good roading projects and rail projects.

I think it is very timely, given the circumstances that Kaikōura and the people of the northern part of the South Island are facing today, just to acknowledge all the wonderful work that the various coastal shipping companies and navies are doing, including our own, in terms of helping the people down there through the earthquakes that have occurred and, unfortunately, seem to be occurring as we talk.

Just turning to this bill, there are four really good parts to this bill, which I think are vitally important. I think there has been a lot about the oil spill capacity in terms of accessing a much higher pool of money, raising it, basically, from $388 million to $1.4 billion, which we do need to have in the event of a catastrophic failure of an oil tanker. This is prudent planning. But the one part that I find particularly interesting is the change that we are putting in place as a party to the protocol in 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. Of course, this is all covered under section 86, in clause 8.

Basically, what it means is that in respect of both ships or cargo, where a ship has sunk or cargo has sunk, or been wrecked, stranded, or abandoned, there is in place some compensation, which means that we can actually increase the amount of compensation we can get from those vessel owners. The Rena event was a very strong example of where we had trouble as a Government trying to get proper recompense for what was going on. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am really looking forward to discussing that element in particular, but I thank you very much for the opportunity to talk tonight.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party will be supporting this bill at its first reading. As some of the other speakers have mentioned this evening already, notably the Hon David Parker, we do wonder why it is that this bill has taken so long to come before the House, given that it has been 5 years since the catastrophic event of the Rena hitting the Astrolabe Reef. Of course, there have been ongoing problems because of our inability to claim the amount of costs that were actually incurred as a result of that cargo ship running aground and disintegrating.

This bill has three to four main points. The first one is that, of course, it increases the amount that we are able to receive in compensation in the case that an oil tanker should have a catastrophic spill or accident—that only makes sense. But, again, I wonder why it has taken so long. This is the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992. So, presumably, it has been about 13 years that we have been waiting to accede to this particular protocol, and I am not sure why it has taken quite so long.

New Zealand is a country that trades on its clean, green reputation in the world. Part of the reason people come here—tourism being one of our major exports—is that we have these pristine beaches. That reputation is at risk if there is an oil spill, which could then potentially result in far costlier damage than what we are even able to access in terms of a major oil spill. Under this legislation, we are increasing it from $377 million to $1.392 billion. That is considering no-fault claims. But, obviously, it would cost us far more—and that much is clear from the national interest analysis, which goes into the ways in which a tanker spill in New Zealand may cause environmental and economic damage.

These include damage to New Zealand’s aquaculture industry, fishing stocks, and decreased demand for New Zealand seafood, and an oil spill could also potentially impact shipping vessels reaching or leaving ports, resulting in delays and costs for exporters and importers. The environmental damage if oil reaches our coastline—or the occurrence of an oil spill itself—could damage New Zealand’s tourism industry. So we are highly vulnerable to the impacts of a catastrophic oil spill. Even if the chances of one occurring are quite low, the impact and the consequences of such an event would be so catastrophic that we should be taking it very seriously and making it a priority.

For that reason, of course, it is probably also a very, very, very bad idea for the current Government to be pursuing deep sea oil drilling as an economic development strategy, because the risks of a catastrophic spill in that case are equally high and the pay-offs are actually quite low—particularly given that we know we cannot afford to burn all of the fossil fuels that we currently know are proven and exist while we are exploring for new fossil fuel reserves, and we know we cannot afford to burn them. The risk of a catastrophic oil spill could potentially do enormous damage to New Zealand’s reputation and economic ability to earn a living in the world. It seems a bit short-sighted.

The second point of this bill is, of course, the removal of the limitation of liability on certain types of accidents relating to cargo ships and other types of ships, which is directly related to the Rena. Of course, it has taken 5 years for this legislation to come to the House. We are glad that it has finally come to the House, and we will be supporting it, but we do wonder what would have happened if, in the intervening years, there had been a similar accident. It would have been quite costly for New Zealand—and quite problematic.

The third point of the bill, I do have some personal concerns about. Although it makes absolute sense to have drug and alcohol testing for people who are operating marine vessels, there is a question about whether or not it would become problematic if any level of alcohol or drugs showed up in the test sample for a worker who submits a positive drug test. I mean, obviously, most people in this House would enjoy a glass of wine or two when they have the ability to, and as long as that is done responsibly, that is OK—if they are not on the job. So we are interested in drug testing for impairment, rather than for the presence of the drug. I will be interested to see, in the select committee process, if the regime that is set up for drug and alcohol testing is going to be appropriate for assessing impairment on the job rather than just the presence of alcohol or the drug.

The other changes that are proposed by this bill, in Part 3, are a whole range of technical changes. One that jumps out, for me, is to “improve access to coastal shipping services to non-mainland ports by allowing for foreign-registered ships to carry freight to and from New Zealand’s offshore islands,” and “to enable territorial authorities to transfer responsibilities in relation to maritime activity to council-controlled organisations and port operators:”.

I am not yet convinced that this would be the right approach. If anything, I think the events of this week have shown how important it is for the resilience of New Zealand’s transport system to have a robust domestic coastal shipping service. I think that it is something that this Government has let languish in its term since it came to power and it cancelled the paltry amount of money that the Ministry of Transport had assigned to it—which was $1 million to $2 million a year—for investigating the ability to increase coastal shipping. Of course, in that time, the freight tonne kilometres carried by coastal shipping have actually declined from 15 percent to 14 percent of the total overall freight task.

At a time when we know we need to be reducing carbon pollution from transport, and knowing all that we do about the high cost of infrastructure and the high cost of transporting goods inter-regionally around New Zealand, we should be looking for opportunities to increase coastal shipping. We have got the ocean all around us—we are a coastal nation. It is true that it has not flourished in the previous decades, but that is not to say that there are not economic opportunities in moving more goods by sea. By the Government examining the opportunities to increase coastal shipping services, it could potentially be vastly reducing the cost of moving goods around New Zealand, the pollution associated with moving goods around New Zealand, and the number of big, heavy trucks on the road. But, at the moment, our transport funding and assessment of infrastructure projects is very, very siloed.

The Government has a huge fund for putting money into a few State highway projects, on the assumption that they are going to benefit people driving around New Zealand, whether they be in trucks or cars. The reality is that if we made it easier to move goods by sea, it could result in huge economic benefits, in terms of reduced cost of wear and tear on the roads, of congestion, of cost to our domestic shippers, and of an improvement in terms of safety risk. We want to make our roads safer, and moving more goods with big, heavy trucks is obviously not the way to make our roads safer, and it is certainly not going to reduce the cost—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: You like trucks, don’t you? What’s wrong with trucks?

Trucks have their place, Minister. Trucks have their place, but there is the potential for more goods to be carried by sea or by rail. If that is going to result in benefits to ratepayers and people who are using the roads, then I think the Government should not be ideologically opposed to rail and sea freight—which it obviously is.

The Green Party would like to see a resilient and safe integrated transport system, and we recognise the enormous opportunities afforded by utilising our “blue highway”, which is available to us if we can keep it safe and if we can protect our national environment. Thank you.

I would like to begin by extending my condolences to the families of those killed in the recent earthquakes, and I send my best wishes to all those in and around the quake-affected areas for a speedy recovery.

New Zealand First will support this bill to the select committee. I think it should be called the “Rena Bill”. It is a shame that it takes a marine accident of that scale to generate the changes needed to improve health and safety, to protect the environment, and to ensure that adequate compensation is payable for oil spills, in the way that this bill does.

Looking first then at compensation, the bill does significantly increase the level of compensation available to meet claims for oil pollution damage caused by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. I understand, from what the Minister says, that that increase is to $1.4 billion, which is certainly a significant sum. The bill will enable New Zealand to accede to the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage of 1992. That establishes an additional tier of compensation that can be called upon in the event of a major oil tanker spill in the waters of a contracting State. New Zealand First obviously supports that.

But I have a concern, and it relates to clause 11 of the bill, which amends section 342, in which the term “ship” is defined. Subsection (2) states: “In the Civil Liability Convention, ship means any sea-going vessel and seaborne craft of any type whatsoever constructed or adapted for the carriage of oil in bulk as cargo,” and so on. So that raises a question for me as to whether the Rena would have been covered by that definition, because she was not an oil tanker. It would seem to me that that is excluded from the provisions of this bill, and yet the Rena was carrying 2 million litres of oil—easily enough to pollute the beaches of Mount Maunganui. So that is a significant concern for me, and I wonder why the definition of the term “ship” is so restricted. I would like, certainly, the select committee to take a good look at that.

The public has been rightly concerned about how lightly the Rena operators and their owners have been let off. There is an urgent need to ensure that New Zealand does all it can to see that the costs associated with these accidents are sheeted home to the people who are actually responsible. That did not happen in the case of the Rena, and I certainly worry about whether this bill will rectify the situation at all.

I see that the bill includes provisions that would allow New Zealand to “exercise its right, as a party to the Protocol of 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, to make reservations that exclude limitation of liability for three different categories … wreck removal; cargo removal; damage caused by hazardous and noxious substances.” Those exclusions mean, potentially, a lot more money to meet claims for pollution damage in the event of a major maritime accident, such as the grounding of the Rena, subject to the reservation I mentioned before. It is a good bill as far as it goes, if it goes far enough to cover vessels like the Rena.

New Part 4B, inserted by clause 6, is keenly supported by New Zealand First. It establishes measures to deal with alcohol and drug use in the commercial maritime sector. That includes a requirement for commercial maritime operators to have drug and alcohol management plans to manage the associated risks with drug and alcohol use—a very important provision. There is also a requirement for those plans to provide for random drug and alcohol testing of staff carrying out safety-sensitive activities. There is, further, a requirement for the Director of Maritime New Zealand to see that the drug or alcohol testing is actually done in accordance with the plans. Where the test is other than a negative one, an operator must implement its response plan, and the individual in question will not be allowed to perform any safety-sensitive activity until the person is again capable of doing so. These are very good provisions that have long been needed on the New Zealand coast.

There may, however, be an issue for the select committee to look at around consent to testing, and I wonder why it is not mandatory rather than requiring consent. I tend to think that a mandatory provision would be justified and should be possible, and I wonder why it is not provided for. Whether or not it is provided for, the bill does require the operator to respond to an individual’s refusal in the same way as it would respond to a positive test result. But I would like the select committee to look at whether we could make the requirement mandatory rather than requiring the consent of the employee concerned.

I have noted that the new maritime rules will establish requirements for the content of management plans and also procedural requirements for random drug and alcohol testing, which will obviously be necessary. I understand that existing Maritime Transport Act offences, penalties, and cost-recovery provisions are sufficient for enforcement purposes, but I would like to see information brought to the select committee to satisfy us all that that is in fact the case, because unless those provisions are robust, and unless, in particular, the enforcement provisions and penalties are sufficient, it is not going to be an effective piece of legislation.

The remainder of the bill contains a group of miscellaneous amendments to improve the operation of existing provisions of the Act and to address some minor anomalies, but amongst those, regional councils will be able to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules, so that they can enforce the national rules directly. I think that is very important, otherwise the poor old ratepayers of sometimes quite small regions would be required to front up with significant amounts of money for matters that really have nothing much to do with them and are actually national issues rather than regional ones. I think that is actually, although a minor provision in the bill, an extremely important one that we should not overlook. Regional councils have for too long had far too little power and far too few resources to do the jobs that have been conferred upon them by national legislation, so it is good to see that at least some movement in that direction is being made in that regard.

Finally, one of the things New Zealand First does have reservations about in this bill is the move to allow foreign-registered ships to carry freight to and from New Zealand’s offshore islands, including the Chatham Islands, and we would wish to hear submissions on that before we would agree with those provisions. As you know, New Zealand First has always been very hot on putting the interests of New Zealanders and New Zealand employees and New Zealand businesses first, so I wonder why that provision is in this bill. And it would be typical of the National Government to slide this past us—

💬 David Bennett: Come on, you’re voting for it!

—in a bill of this kind without a proper explanation of why New Zealand people and New Zealand businesses are not being put first. New Zealand First will do that. Mr Bennett never will—never look to him, never look to him for those sorts of things, because he does not care, but New Zealand First does.

We will hear the submissions and see what people have to say about that before making a final decision. We would need to be assured that the interests of New Zealand businesses and New Zealand employees are not compromised by this measure, and I doubt that will be the case, and, in the end, this measure alone may force us to vote against the bill. I hope that is not the case, because, as I have said, there are some good things in it, subject to a number of reservations that can be corrected. However, subject to those reservations—and some of them, as I have pointed out, are quite serious—New Zealand First looks forward to being able to support the bill, should it make it through the select committee in a way that we consider to be satisfactory. We will be looking forward to that process and to a robust examination and a robust debate.

The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill addresses the risks associated with drug and alcohol use in the commercial maritime sector. Under the proposed changes, commercial maritime operators will be required to have an alcohol and drug management plan, including random testing for staff carrying out safety-sensitive activities.

We do need to have a balance between economic activities and the environment. On the one hand, you have to support commercial and economic activities; on the other hand, you need to protect our environment. The natural environment is our greatest asset. This is particularly so in New Zealand. For example, tourism is now our largest export sector. So it is very important for us to make sure our country and our environment remain clean and beautiful. Also, we have vast coastlines and exclusive economic zones. These are very vulnerable to environmental disasters—for example, oil spills. I can still remember the Rena oil spill 5 years ago, in the Bay of Plenty, which is regarded as one of the most disastrous maritime accidents in New Zealand. Globally, it is recognised that oil spills can cause huge damage to society—environmentally, socially, and also economically.

Maritime accidents do occur; however, there are some factors that make such incidents more likely to happen. For that reason, it is important for us to make sure that employers and workers are more responsible, to make sure that they are more responsible not only with regard to themselves but also with regard to the environment. One simple way to prevent maritime accidents is to have a strict policy regarding drugs and alcohol. The detrimental impact or effect of drugs and alcohol on people’s reactions has been well researched and documented, and is well recognised: being under the influence of drugs and alcohol means a person is impaired.

There are many jobs in the maritime industry that are already very dangerous. They require a quick reaction—to be alert, focused, and able to concentrate—to be able to react or to operate safely. For such kinds of jobs, people need to be sure that they are not influenced or impaired by any particular drugs or substances. This bill will improve both safety outcomes in the maritime system and the compensation regime for maritime pollution incidents. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Green Party is pleased to support the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and it certainly supports the provisions in the bill that will enable New Zealand to access much more financial compensation in the event of an oil spill—up to $1.39 billion. Of course, New Zealand is one of only five OECD countries with a coastline—not including the United States—that has not acceded to the Supplementary Fund Protocol of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which the IMO adopted more than 13 years ago, in 2003. So this bill is overdue given that the oil tankers that operate around New Zealand generally carry between 55,000 and 100,000 tonnes of oil as cargo. The advice that officials have provided is that a spill of between 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes—if it should ever happen—would easily exceed that $377 million compensation.

It is ironic that the Government is introducing this bill in the same week that the world’s largest seismic testing vessel, the Amazon Warrior, has arrived in New Zealand waters to start seismic testing for oil along our eastern coast for the Norwegian company Statoil. It is really disappointing that the Government has ignored the huge opposition to this. When it is well known that we have got to keep oil in the ground to protect our climate, the Government has, in fact, allowed Statoil to take over Chevron’s permit, and then to have seismic testing with these big airguns, blasting the marine environment from now through until May next year. The Government is really short-sighted in allowing that in the same week that we have got this bill.

The other major concern that the Green Party has with the bill is that the Government is allowing, through this bill, foreign-flagged vessels to carry cargo between New Zealand and our offshore islands, like the Chatham Islands. It shows an absolute lack of commitment to a thriving coastal shipping sector to force the New Zealand coastal shipping to compete with foreign-flagged vessels. In Budget 2015 we finally got the Government committing to investing $51 million in a new wharf on the Chatham Islands. That is long overdue. Given the rusting metal in the concrete on the wharf at Waitangi, the Chathams need a new wharf. But this bill, by allowing competition from foreign-flagged vessels, will potentially be undermining the south-east shipping and the community-owned Chatham Islands Shipping and their ability to service the Chathams’ wharf. Why, when they finally get a new wharf on the Chathams, is the Government allowing foreign vessels to use that and undermine our own coastal shipping companies? That is likely, because we know that there is overcapacity in the global shipping fleet and that has resulted in what some commentators have called “zombie ships”. They offer out their services at rates that are just enough to cover the interest on the vessel. They do not cover the capital costs, and so they will be undercutting our own coastal vessels.

We need a thriving coastal shipping sector. As the earthquake events in Kaikōura have shown, we need to use what Julie Anne Genter calls the “blue highway” to move freight around New Zealand, because transport greenhouse gas emissions are a major component of our climate emissions. We can reduce those if we invest in coastal shipping, but this bill and its provisions, which undermine the services to the Chathams, will potentially cut right across that. So we will be very interested in submissions from the Shipping Federation, from our own coastal shipping services, and from people in the Chatham Islands and the council there, because this legislation potentially cut across there.

In respect of the provisions around drug and alcohol testing, given that each week I put my trust in the pilots in Air New Zealand to land in Wellington Airport, in often difficult conditions, assuming always that they are fully functioning—and I am sure they are—I say that this bill is likely to help reduce the incidence of alcohol and drug impairment in people providing commercial transport services.

May I join with others in conveying condolences and sympathies to those families who have lost loved ones as a result of the recent earthquake.

My colleague Sue Moroney has indicated to the House that we are supporting this bill in its first reading, but she also gave a challenge to Minister Bridges and the Government about the need for us to look to a more comprehensive bill that covers broadly and in the long term what our needs are in terms of transportation. I recall, in 2011, when the Rena—that is right; in October 2011—crashed into the—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Reef.

The reef.

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Astrolabe.

Astrolabe Reef, that is right. I recall watching on TV the spills—not just the container spills but the oil spills. My first reaction was one of anger, because the impression I got was that here again was a ship run by an international company, and it appeared, from the reports that I recall, that there was a rush by the captain to get from one point to the next point, and a failure by the staff on board that ship to direct it away from the reef. As a result, it was the local community, the animals, and the biodiversity that suffered as a consequence of that wreckage. I remember the reports about the locals who depended on the sea for food and who were devastated by this. I remember also interviews saying that it was going to take such a long, long time for us to clean up the mess that had been caused.

I cannot help but think that it is another example of an economic activity where cases of failure as a result of human error mean that it is not only people who suffer, through no fault of their own, and have to face the consequences. The animals suffer, biodiversity suffers, the land suffers, and the seawaters suffer. All of those are interconnected, and if we have learnt anything from the recent debates over climate change, it is that man-made harm is resulting in what we are now experiencing throughout the world, particularly in the Pacific region, where we are seeing that harm being caused. Often these economic activities are driven by greed, and I want to lay that before the House because of how I felt when I saw the wreckage back in 2011. It took a long, long time for us to be able to get on that ship and not only try to recover the cargo but also ensure that the harm caused by the spillage would be contained in some way.

So I support the fact that this bill increases the level of compensation available to meet the claims from all pollution damage caused by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. But I wonder whether the definition that we are given in this bill is sufficient. So I am hopeful that not just the shipping industry and the transportation industry will take the opportunity to make submissions. I am hopeful that the Maritime Union, both local and international, will take the opportunity to voice its concerns. I am hopeful that Local Government New Zealand will also take an interest, because any spillage along our coast will have an impact on the local government that looks after that particular region. I am also hopeful that iwi—local and throughout this country—will pick up the opportunity to spell out for parliamentarians’ information their role as kaitiaki, and spell out too the harm and the damage that our economic activities often impose on our land and our wider environment.

I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill, and I say thank you to the parties that are supporting it. What this bill does is make some adjustments to legislation that enable us to have a greater ability to access compensation if occurrences happen that create some environmental impact. I think it is important to understand, as much as the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, spoke about all of the negative effects of the Rena grounding, that we are a trading nation, that he comes from a trading nation, and that iwi were a trading nation even before Europeans came here. We are traders, and we need to be able to take our exports, our products, across the oceans of the world, which, by the way, do not cost anything. I do not know how you invest in the oceans, because they are free already.

We are pro-development, we are pro-trade, we are pro-export, and we need to understand that in this day and age we are smart in technology. We are strong in regulations. What this bill does is it enables, if ever there was an occasion where there was an event that impacted our environment, the compensation that we can claim to be four to five times what it is right now. That is important, because we know that this Government invested a huge amount in that clean up. We know that we took that task on very responsibly, and we would like to hold companies to a higher level of accountability.

In my very brief contribution, I would like to say: “Let us be realists.” Let us understand that technology works for us, that we need to put safeguards around it, that we are people who understand that there is risk and that we mitigate that, that we have in place measures that hold people to account, and that we have regulations in place that demand a proper respect of the law of the land and the laws of the sea. This is what this bill is doing. I commend our fantastic transport Minister, Simon Bridges, who has a great task ahead of him in what he is doing down in Kaikōura. I am thankful that we can, in this bill, see some great progress.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. To inform the House, the Astrolabe Reef was originally called, by the local iwi, Ōtāiti—Ōtāiti reef. So when we refer to the Astrolabe Reef, we are talking about the Ōtāiti reef, and I would like to acknowledge the member Su’a William Sio, who mentioned the iwi involvement in that particular incident, and I too would encourage them to make a submission on this particular bill as we support this bill going on to the next stage, to the select committee.

I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage other iwi. As we know, the exploration for oil has turned its focus away from the Far North and has now headed down to the area where the Minister Hon Hekia Parata calls home, the waters of Te Tai Rāwhiti. The permit afforded to that particular company runs from Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka, or from the top of the South Island, all the way to Ruatōria up the East Coast. I just want to point that out, because talking about the compensation level rising to allow, in the case of a tragic environmental disaster—the limit of that compensation, of course, has been lifted so that money can be paid out to make sure that we can return as much and as best as we can the pristine environment. It was mentioned quite well by the member Julie Anne Genter that New Zealand takes a lot of pride in the 100 percent pure, green New Zealand image.

I want to now turn my attention to the alcohol and drug provisions within this bill, around the testing and the need for plans. Look, I think every member in the House and in the community will agree to make sure that these vessels are operating safely, that those who are in charge and working on the vessels are of sound mind, and that their vision and their judgment are not impaired by drugs or alcohol. I wonder whether in this bill we could explore more definitions when requiring a plan around drugs and alcohol. For example, recently, we talked about the ability for those who are on bail to be tested for drugs and alcohol, and it was very specific in that particular bill around the use of psychoactive substances in line with the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013.

I wonder whether we can be a bit more specific with our definition around that, because we all agree that it is important to have a good plan, and it is important to make sure that safety is paramount. But I wonder whether we can just be a bit more specific there—and I would encourage the submitters who do come in front of the select committee, of which I am a proud member, and I hope that we hear from the Maritime Union. We also, as I mentioned earlier, will hear from environment groups, who will take an take interest in the matters being proposed in this bill.

My colleague Mr Su’a William Sio also mentioned the need to hear from councils. It is mentioned in this bill here that there is the ability for regional councils to keep those infringement notices and the money that is paid to them, and also to have a bit more say in the care and the discharge, if you like, of this particular bill within their regions. That is an important thing. But for us to truly comprehend that, we need to make sure that those interest groups will submit or kōrero to the select committee.

I am also interested in hearing from the Shipping Federation. The point has been made many times through this debate about the need for a fully integrated freight and transport system. And, in light of the recent events—the earthquake and the damage to the infrastructure, mainly road and railway, in New Zealand—we wonder why this bill is not more ambitious in making sure that the infrastructure is there so that we can have a more sound sea-freight operation.

I was reminded as I sat in the House recently as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill went through the House that the Government continued to tell us that we cannot simply trade with ourselves; our country would die. That is true, but it is important that, in the event of natural disasters like we have experienced, we are still able to connect with each other. Obviously, the road network and the rail network are severely disrupted in the South Island and have isolated certain communities. Kaikōura is a classic example. If the infrastructure or, more importantly, the will of this Government was there, then, perhaps, we could have connected better and supplies would not have dried up. There would be a stronger connection with that particular community of Kaikōura, who have suffered over the past few days.

One of the things I like to do when we read these particular bills is this: my colleague Mr Parker mentioned the large amount of content focused on the drug and alcohol provisions in this particular bill, but there are, of course, some, as the explanatory note says, miscellaneous amendments—miscellaneous amendments. It is important to cast our eye over those, because we have experienced in the past from this Government that it sells you the old dummy. One thing Government members are saying is that “We’re going to do this.” when really, when you look just a little bit below the surface, you will find more miscellaneous amendments—ones that, perhaps, have a far wider impact than those larger chunks of the bill that are being debated, like the drug and alcohol requirements of this particular bill.

So we read through some of those and, first of all, in the explanatory note there are a few grammatical errors in there—but never mind; we will move on. Some of the things really are about transferring responsibilities shared by a territorial authority, which brings me back to my point. I hope that we can hear from the territorial authorities as the bill progresses through to the select committee.

Another one—subclause (4) of clause 32 inserts new section 3A, which provides that a transfer of a responsibility in relation to construction works under section 331 of the Maritime Transport Act does not transfer ownership of the works. I think that is slightly more important than being just a miscellaneous amendment, because too often when disasters happen, such as with the Rena, everyone points the finger and nobody knows who to blame. Somebody built this; it is their fault. Somebody was the captain in charge. It was the technology system, which Mr Young says will never fail us and will, in fact, lead us into the future. It was the technology that failed us in the case of the Rena crashing into Ōtāiti, and those particular clauses are, I think, important to make sure that we are able to establish, in the event of an emergency, who is culpable.

I just want to conclude by saying that we do support this bill going to the next stage, to the select committee. We will welcome all the submissions that will come to it, and we look forward to making sure that we take the opportunity right now—the opportunity that is being missed by this Government—to make sure that this particular bill is robust, that this bill is more aspirational than what it is right now, and that we can make sure that we do have a maritime transport system that better serves our country. We commend this bill to the House.

It is great to see so much support in this House for the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, and from that last speaker, Peeni Henare, as well, who, obviously, is a member of the committee—

💬 David Shearer: How many ships do you get in the Waikato?

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: You wouldn’t know what a ship was in Hamilton.

Is there a problem over there, guys?

💬 David Shearer: How many ships do you get in the Waikato, David?

Oh, how many ships do you get in the Waikato? That is typical from the Labour Party, is it not? This is dealing with a serious issue, where a ship could get impaled on a reef—just like a car can get impaled. And we would hate to see that happen to any members of this House, but it does happen. Accidents do happen, and there will be varied members of this House who would have—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Driver error?

It would be, yes—while driving, members could have accidents like that. Well, just running a ship could have similar problems. So, Mr Shearer, this is an important issue, and we look forward to you using your vote constructively, as you did with things like the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, to support your whole party and not your individual interests, as we have seen in the past.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge Stuart Smith, who is here from Kaikōura, and the great work that he is doing, getting around his people, and acknowledging and helping them in their time of need. From the rest of the country, you have our full support. We look forward to you carrying on that good work in your area.

I know that the Minister of Transport, who has just left the Chamber, has had an important role too. We all see how important transport is when you look at the disaster that has happened in that region and the importance of having good transport links.

I will not take too long. Everybody has explained everything.

💬 David Shearer: Excellent, excellent!

Oh, here we go—Mr Shearer again. He just cannot be quiet, can he? Once he has got whacked down, he still comes back up. It is a shame he did not do that during the election campaign, but that is the nature of it. [Interruption] Yeah, it was a bit harsh, actually. It is a bit harsh, at this time of night.

This is an important bill, Mr Assistant Speaker, as you will be aware, and we look forward to its passing through the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.