Maritime Transport Amendment Bill

Members, we turn first to the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. When we were last considering this bill, the committee was debating all provisions as one question, by leave. In terms of voting, I understand the leave granted was for a vote on the Minister’s amendments, and then a vote that all provisions as amendments stand part. We will proceed accordingly. The question is that Parts 1 to 3, schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part. Marja Lubeck had the call, and she has four minutes and 20 seconds remaining.

I’m rising to take a call on the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. It’s a real privilege to speak to this bill, as it will support marine safety and tackle pollution. This bill reads that it amends the Maritime Transport Act 1994 to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of the maritime transport system. This bill will increase the amount of compensation available to meet the cost of a major spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand’s waters.

In the legislation as it currently stands, there are limits on the amount that the New Zealand Government can claim back in the case of an environmental disaster, such as we saw in 2011, with the grounding of the Rena. The result of that was that, in the end, the taxpayer ended up paying for cleaning up that mess. The limitation of liability under the international convention prevented the New Zealand Government from recovering from those at fault. The member for Hutt South, last night, during his slot on the Trusts Bill, referred to this bill as a cracker—tried to make out that spending our time on this bill was misplaced and that it wasn’t an important enough bill to get finalised. I find it rather ironic that the other side of this House is criticising this Government for progressing, as a matter of priority, some of the bills that we have seen come through this House in the last fortnight.

With regard to this piece of legislation—this cracker of a bill, as the member for Hutt South has called it—it’s hugely overdue when you consider that the major maritime incident of the Rena happened in October 2011, which is more than six years ago. So my question is: why has it taken that many years to get legislation to Parliament to ensure that the New Zealand Government can recover compensation from the owner or owners of the vessels that have caused the damage to our environment? I believe the other side of this House is doing New Zealanders a real disservice by continuing their negative broken-record narrative when all this Government is doing is cleaning up the bills, clearing the deck—no pun intended—of all outstanding matters so that we can actually get on with getting the next pieces of legislation through this House.

Now, back to the bill. As I said, it will ensure the recovery of significantly more compensation from those responsible for environmental disasters such as oil spills, so that the cost is not borne by the New Zealand taxpayer. This bill increases potential compensation from approximately $411 million to just over $1.54 billion.

This bill, however, is not the bill as it was put forward by the previous Government. This bill is not a National bill; this bill is a greatly improved version of the bill as it was drafted under the previous Government. This version of the bill has taken into consideration the many submissions from those affected by it, and turned it into a Labour bill. During the select committee process, it became clear that a couple of proposed amendments were not supported by the vast majority of submitters to the bill.

Madam Chair, if you permit me, I would like to delve a little bit more into both of these arguments. Firstly, the mandatory drug and alcohol tests were unnecessary, counter-productive, and objected to by employers as well as employees. Unlike the statements from the member for Botany—who obviously didn’t read all the material—it wasn’t just the unions who were opposed to the drug and alcohol testing. Several operators submitted it would be too costly and difficult to comply with mandatory testing. The great message that came out from the submitters on this bill was that employers, in particular, felt strongly about the need for employers and employees to work collaboratively on this issue.

Officials commented in the regulatory impact statement as follows: “We do not have the data to know the true scale of the problem or if there is a problem … Until we know the true extent, we will not know what the appropriate level of intervention is.” Now, I say that, without evidence, there is actually a problem to address. The provisions as drafted are onerous and impractical, as well as costly, for the mostly small businesses in the maritime sector. The important thing to note here is that the risk that is being mentioned by the other side—[Bell rung]—of the House is about impairment, something random drug-testing doesn’t—

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call Marja Lubeck.

The important thing to note is that the risk that is being mentioned by the other side of the House is about impairment, and impairment is actually something that random drug-testing does not actually test. There are, however, already checks and balances on risk in place with the health and safety at work and the maritime safety system requirements, and the bill, on top, retains provisions for the Director of Maritime New Zealand to carry out non-notified drug and alcohol testing of workers in safety-sensitive roles. So there’s no evidence of any need for a costly and onerous system of mandatory drug and alcohol tests.

I actually, personally, would argue there is much more of a need to investigate the effects of fatigue in the transport sector as the extent of fatigue in incidents and accidents is largely unknown. But I’ll come back to that, hopefully, another day.

Back to the testing. So the improved version of the bill has removed the contentious aspect of the testing. The second aspect of this improved version of the bill is that it also has removed another contentious part, which was allowing foreign-flag vessels to carry cargo to the Chatham Islands. This would have created unfair competition, because foreign vessels aren’t subject to the same conditions as our domestic vessels. I am thinking about things like GST and labour laws. They would have had an unfair advantage over our own domestic services, likely putting them out of business. The people affected by this spoke at the select committee stage. All of them stated they did not support the foreign operators to come on to this route.

So this Government has cleaned up the bill to the point where we can support and commend it. As a new member of Parliament, I thought it was really heartening to see that many of the bills such as these, which have gone through the House, have been a cross-party exercise—a result of collaboration between all the members of the House. I understand the other side isn’t very happy about the fact that these are now passed as Labour bills, but there it is.

Our speakers at many times have acknowledged that many of these bills—like these bills—are the result of parties working together constructively, because that is the kind of MMP Government we aspire to be, and in the best interests of the people who have put us there to do the best job for New Zealand, some members on the other side of the House could try a little harder to show that they’re here for the right reasons. It’s not about point-scoring; it’s about doing what’s right. Do your homework—like we all have to—read all these bills, all the reports, and all the facts and figures, and provide insight to the people that are listening into the how and what.

So, just to repeat, this Government has done its homework and cleaned up the bill to the point where we can support and commend it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise also to support this bill, and I want to acknowledge the contribution from Marja Lubeck, the previous speaker, who pointed out quite rightly that it’s taken quite a long time to get a bit of action in this area. She spoke of the Rena disaster, which in 2011 caused catastrophic disaster to the whānau, the hapū, and the iwi that were living along the coastline in the Bay of Plenty area that I represent. It will always be ingrained into my memory, the images of our whānau out there with their white disposable suits on, clearing rubbish and clearing the oil spilt from the Rena disaster from their beaches. They were picking up dead birds and they were picking up dead animals and dead sea life, and all because there weren’t tight enough rules, I guess, around what the Rena was—well, against the crisis that actually happened there. So if this bill actually moves to address some of that, then I’m incredibly supportive of it.

I remember last night, just before we wrapped up, the member for Hutt South was also looking forward to this as well, so—[Makes finger gun gesture] just for you. Here we go.

Let’s drill down into some of the amendments that have been made—kind of in the final stages here—and I specifically wanted to talk about the compulsion of drug and alcohol testing that has been taken out. As a small-business owner myself, I would do anything to minimise compliance costs and admin costs and things that weren’t deemed to be absolutely necessary. So, as a result of that, recommendations have been put forward that the random drug-testing requirement was not evidence-led policy-making, and so for that reason it’s been taken out. It was also pointed out that a significant majority of those commercial operators are already required to have appropriate drug and alcohol management systems as part of their marine operator safety systems, as well. So with those kinds of precautions in place, it makes good sense to actually have removed that particular requirement out of this bill.

The officials actually noted—and I quote—“We do not have the data to know the true scale of the problem or if there is a problem … Until we know the true extent, we will not know what the appropriate level of intervention is.” So, again, it was another good reason to have taken that particular amendment, that particular piece, out. It was also noted that it’s very difficult to know to what extent alcohol or drug use is involved in accidents in the commercial maritime sector.

I reiterate: there’s a lot of costs already on small-business owners. In canvassing the contributions made from people like that, who were small-business owners that were going to have to make themselves compliant with this random drug and alcohol testing—by taking it out, it removes quite a bit of cost and headache, really, that had been unnecessarily put in there.

I also would like to just finish off by congratulating the Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter for really championing this. I think this is a great piece of legislation and I commend it, on behalf of the people of my electorate, to this House.

Malo ‘aupito. Thank you. It is a privilege to take a call on the committee stage of the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for their due diligence in hearing and taking action on the views of the public and in receiving advice from non-Government and Government officials.

Furthermore, I’d like to acknowledge the submitters, who duly voiced their knowledge, skills, and expertise. To some, this may seem insignificant, but to those in the shipping industry, this is indeed significant.

I’m honoured also to be a member of a Labour-led coalition Government where we support having a safe, sustainable, effective, and efficient transport system. Effectively, what this bill seeks to amend is the Maritime Transport Act of 1994, to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of the maritime transport system.

So there is a list of aims that this bill attempts to achieve. I’ll begin with managing the risk of drug and alcohol impairment. Effectively, the aim is to manage the risks associated with drug and alcohol use in the commercial maritime sector by requiring maritime operators to have a drug and alcohol management plan. So it is at this point that I wish to acknowledge the 11 people who lost their lives on 7 January 2012 in the hot-air balloon incident in Carterton, where it was found that the operator was impaired by drug use. Sadly, at the time of this incident there were no rules in place that allowed random drug and alcohol testing in this area.

This bill not only states that the operators must have a drug and alcohol management plan but it also has the intelligence to introduce a new Part 4B, in terms of random testing. So the bill provides that a drug and alcohol management plan must ensure that the random testing of safety-sensitive workers is carried out only if the worker consents to be tested. The consequences of refusing must be explained to the worker, where the director of Maritime New Zealand is also given power to administer random testing with the consent of the worker. The term “random testing” is defined as the “drug or alcohol testing of a safety-sensitive worker by a [drug and alcohol management plan operator] … where the worker—(a) is selected for testing in a way that is non-discriminatory;”.

One of the aims is about oil pollution, and this is where—I like this bit, because the aim for me is fair is fair, OK; compensation for damage caused by oil spillage. This bill increases the level of compensation available to meet claims or for oil pollution damage by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. Like the previous speakers before me, I was outraged when I was watching—of course, most of the information that we saw about the Rena disaster was on the media, and one of the questions that I was outraged about was that most of the costs for cleaning up the mess, as a result of the Rena disaster, was actually met by the New Zealand taxpayer.

So this bill will enable New Zealand to accede to the protocol of 2003 of the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992. What the protocol does is that it establishes an additional tier of compensation that we can call upon in major events in New Zealand waters.

I know that my time is running out, but I would like to conclude that what this bill, basically, does is that this bill will protect people, it will protect the crews and people, and then it will protect our coastline and our taonga, and, effectively, have the intelligence to not have the taxpayer foot the bill, but there is an avenue to do that. So I therefore commend the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill to the House in committee. Malo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I note that the National Party members haven’t been standing up to take calls, and I’m pretty certain I know why. It’s because last night, we had a few calls from the National Party, and their arguments against the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that’s been put forward by the Minister are so flawed and have got so many holes through them, you may as well call them Swiss cheese. I know that the Minister stood up and made some very good points against the National Party arguments, and we haven’t heard from them since.

I think, actually, Alastair Scott took a call and he let a few things slip that perhaps he shouldn’t have. He made it clear that there was a new scale of measurement of how successful a policy is for the National Party, and it was whether it was hard, medium, or soft—that’s exactly what he said. He said that the Minister is being soft with this legislation. If that’s now the new measurement for the National Party in the policies that they’re going to try and bring forward over the next three, six, nine, or longer years, I think they’re going to be there for a very, very long time—and will make their time in Opposition a very hard and tough and long one.

The opposition to one of the fundamental parts of this SOP 6, which the Minister is putting forward, I think shows just how far south the National Party has gone since the election. Basically, in fundamental terms, this National Party is standing up and arguing for more bureaucracy for small businesses. They’re arguing for—

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Excuse me, member. Could we come back to the bill, please.

So, I’m talking about the part of the SOP in regard to the drug testing, Madam Chair. So what this National Party is doing when they are arguing against that part is arguing for more bureaucracy for small businesses. They are arguing for more red tape, more enforcement of regulations, and more costs for small businesses.

In fact, the mandatory nature of the drug tests that the National Party wants reminds me of the nanny State that they so much and so often complain about. The bill itself actually already states that, where necessary, those drug tests will already occur—where necessary—and they will achieve the safety objectives. So, with the inclusion of this SOP, if the drug tests are being conducted, where necessary, where they will occur and if safety objectives will be achieved, why on earth would the National Party want to increase the obligations and increase the bureaucracy and the red tape and the costs for small businesses? That’s why I say that the National Party have lost their way and moved south since the election.

💬 Matt Doocey: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I think that where I come from, going south is something to be applauded.

Yeah, all right—sit down.

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): That’s not a point of order.

In general terms, what we’ve heard from the National Party—and what we will hear continually through these calls that they will take—is just a bunch of scaremongering. What they’re actually implying, and what they implied last night with their calls, is that we’re going to have a bunch of drunken sailors and drugged-up sailors—the likes of Captain Jack Sparrow—across our waterways, and that’s absolutely not true.

The extent of their scaremongering can be simply explained only if they read the actual SOP that the Minister is putting forward. If they look at the amendments to clause 6, the SOP’s explanatory note states that “The amendment of clause 6 replaces proposed new Part 4B with a scheme that no longer imposes … new obligations on an operator but continues to provide for … In particular,— … The operator is still identified as a person who is required by the Act and the maritime rules to establish a safety management system:”. That already is applied.

It also states “In particular,— … safety-sensitive activities and testable drugs are both prescribed by maritime rules:”. It already exists. There is no need for more bureaucracy, red tape, and costs for the small businesses.

I’d actually just like to mention clause 40ZB. It lays out what happens if a worker refuses to consent or the test result is not negative. It states that “If a worker refuses to consent to Director testing or is tested and returns a result other than a negative result, the Director must notify the operator for whom the worker carries out work of the fact as soon as practicable. … the operator must prohibit the worker from performing safety-sensitive activities until the operator reasonably believes that the worker is able to safely perform those activities.”

My point is this. The bill in its original form, when it was put forward by the National Government last term, imposed unnecessary bureaucracy, unnecessary costs, and additional obligations on small businesses, and the keyword is “unnecessary”. What this SOP—which New Zealand First will be supporting—does is it takes all of that away because it is not necessary. Those provisions are already there in legislation, and it accommodates for that. The only argument—the only basis of any argument—that the National Party has against supporting this SOP is scaremongering, and if they only read the SOP and if they only read the provisions within it, they would see that there is no need to continue with the bill in its current form.

We need to be able to ensure that safety is maintained and that the operators are still held to account and will have the ability to be able to ensure that the people who are employed under them and in their organisations will be able to be drug tested, which they are under the SOP. That’s why New Zealand First will be supporting it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a dicky knee at the moment. I’m sort of hobbling about like an old sailor, actually, but even I’m quicker to my feet than the Opposition, who seem to have nothing to say about this bill today, and it’s a shame, because there are some important provisions in here.

I want to commend the contributions made by a number of colleagues in this session in respect of the random drug and alcohol testing provisions of Supplementary Order Paper 4, filed by the Minister the Hon Julie Anne Genter and just to really reaffirm that what we have in this bill, with the addition of the Supplementary Order Paper, is a very, very robust regime, but one that is actually proportionate to the issue that we have. I think it has been commented on, possibly, that at the select committee there was really very scarce evidence that there was a significant systemic issue here that requires the implementation of drug and alcohol management plans across a whole sector of the economy. If you are going to implement them here on the basis of no evidence, where else might you implement them as well?

But really, I want to comment, actually, on some of the changes that came through in the select committee process. The Supplementary Order Paper is very good, but there is so much good stuff that came out of the select committee that I think it warrants a little bit of time on the floor of the committee as well.

💬 Todd Muller: Great committee.

Actually—and you should be proud of this one, Mr Muller, because it was a bill that was worked through at select committee pretty collaboratively by members all around the House, but I’d invite you to stand up, take a call, and take some ownership of the good work that your party did on this as well. It might be the only bit of legislation that your party contributes to passing over the next three years, so own it—so own it, sir.

I want to speak to a couple of particular provisions that came out of select committee—a couple of the changes that were made there that I think are actually very good, but it is appropriate to draw the attention of the committee to them. The first one relates to the reimbursement for a second director test. Let me just draw people’s attention to the relevant clauses here. We are talking about sections 40ZC(4)(g) and 40ZE of the principal Act. These relate to the fact that—again, reaffirming—the director under the bill and under the Supplementary Order Paper does have the power and the authority to require random drug and alcohol testing where he or she believes that there is a good reason for doing that. That’s really important: a good reason; not just lumping it on a whole sector because we in this House say they should, but where there’s a good reason.

But here’s the thing. That has potentially huge impacts on the worker concerned, because we know that in the legislation, if that worker fails that test or if they refuse to undertake that test, their job is potentially on the line. It’s perfectly reasonable and simply just a matter of natural justice that a worker, having gone through a test, might want to have a second test taken to ensure that the test is accurate and that they’re not potentially going to lose their position or face other sanctions on the basis of a faulty test—and they do happen from time to time. So I think that all of us in this committee would agree that it is only fair and reasonable that a worker in that situation does have the opportunity to request a second test. Indeed, that provision is in the bill—that’s all agreed.

But the odious thing that was in the original bill, in section 40ZE(2), and I will read this out—this in the original bill: “If the worker requests a second test—(a) the Director must carry out a second test;”—fair enough—“and (b) the worker must reimburse the Director for the direct costs incurred in carrying out the second test.” So the poor worker, who was simply trying to ensure that their legitimate rights to natural justice were upheld, by legitimately requesting a second test that is allowed under the terms of the bill, would have to cough up for that. That seems to me to be totally unreasonable and totally at odds with what we would expect in other sectors where we go through this kind of testing regime. I think it was very sensible and very reasonable of the select committee, which had a good look at that and struck those words out.

Under replacement section 40ZA we do have the ability for the second test to be requested and to be adhered to, but no longer do we have that odious provision that would then require that worker to actually have to pay for something as basic as having the second test occurring. So I really want to commend to the committee that change, which came through the select committee process, and it was an example of the process working really, really well.

There are just so many good points that came through from the select committee, and I’d like to speak to some of them a little bit later on, but, for now, I’ll give someone else an opportunity to speak to this very, very good bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that the Minister’s amendment set out Supplementary Order Paper 6 be agreed to. All those in favour say Aye; all those against say No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption] A party vote is called for. The Clerk will conduct a party vote.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Sorry, can I just get a point of clarification? Are you putting the leave? Are you putting the procedural motion?

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): You are correct; I have made an error. The question is that the question be now put.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. A vote was commenced. You cannot stop a vote once it’s been commenced.

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I’m sorry; I made an error of procedure. I will put the leave for the question to be put. The question is—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. We started a vote. You called a vote. You can’t stop a vote that’s been called.

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Let me take some advice on that. [Chairperson seeks advice] Members, I do want to say that there were no members taking a call, so the decision is that we will continue with the vote as put.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: So what are we voting on? We’re voting on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)?

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): We’re voting on the SOP.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 6 in the name of the Hon Julie Anne Genter be agreed to.