Maritime Transport (Lifejackets on Recreational Craft) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to probably ask a couple of quick questions just to kick us off; just to provide a little bit of context. Acknowledging, to start with, the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and acknowledging the member who’s sponsoring this bill, the Hon Dr Shane Reti—and this is not the first member who’s had ownership of this bill, so acknowledging the handover period. The member in the chair has been very enthusiastic in his continued support for the bill.

To provide a little bit of context, it was obviously a member’s bill that started off somewhat differently to the one that we’ve ended up with now. There’s quite the story behind that, and the story essentially outlines a select committee process where we were able to hear from many submitters actually, but particularly there are times when certain bills come before the House where the submissions clearly are from people who are very, very invested in the concept that this bill encompasses. Given this one is about safety and about preservation of life and all of those things that we all hold dear—no matter what side of the House we sit on in this House—it made the gravity of the context and the gravity of the bill even more interesting.

With regards to affording the member an opportunity to give us a little bit of an opening statement, I’m wondering if I could direct that somewhat by asking the member to perhaps give us a little bit of an overview of not only the bill itself but the substantive changes that were made to make this bill applicable to everybody, and just to give us a little bit more information about why that happened. Because it’s not often that a select committee perhaps has to go back to the Business Committee and ask for a change of scope, and that there be a relative consensus on the importance of taking that step and acknowledging that it’s important to take the opportunity whilst a bill is in front of us to see if we could make those positive changes. My question to the member is: can he—whilst still sticking within that clause 3 or 4—just give us a little bit more information about how those changes were made and why he thought that that was important?

Committee of the whole House

Thank you. This bill came to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee in October 2025 and submissions were opened. When it first came to the House it was a young person’s life jacket amendment bill that was particularly focused on young children under 15. The select committee heard a wide range of submissions, and very clearly it was pointed out that the majority of fatalities are actually over the age of 15. In fact, if we look back to 2015, there have been eight fatalities for children under 15 and 161 for those over 15. This weighed heavily on the committee. They certainly understood the intent and purpose of the bill—to reduce the number of drownings in people in recreational craft less than six metres who are not wearing a life jacket. Indeed, tragically, I understand as of late that this year we’re already well in advance of what our average is and they’re projecting an unfortunately high drowning rate to the end of this calendar year. In fact, I understand 57 drownings have already happened and that’s already starting to push up to what our yearly average is. So we’re not doing so great this year already, which is why we’re looking to have impact.

Anyway, the committee, in their wisdom, was impressed by the evidence from submitters and officials that actually maybe the focus wasn’t quite where the biggest benefit could be, so as a committee wrote back to the Business Committee asking for several things. One, if the report-back period could be expanded. Secondly, if the terms of the bill could be substantively changed—more particularly the age group expanded to everyone, not just to under-15-year-olds. Thirdly, that they could go back to consultation. And that’s exactly what happened: the Business Committee said, “Yes, that’s a wise thing to do.”, and so the committee reopened submissions with an expanded scope on the bill.

That expanded scope (1) talked to the increase in age, (2) it clarified water length versus boat length—it said what we already settled on: less than six metres—and fine-tune some of the other parts to the bill through that second process. But substantively it was the wisdom and/or courage of the committee to go back to the Business Committee and say, “The core intent is good, but actually the focus on the bill as it was introduced misses the key points and we’d like to suggest that that be re-explored.” Again, it was a substantive change so it did need Business Committee approval—it wasn’t just a tweak that could come through an amendment—and to reopen the submissions process. That was very successful and has made this bill much more focused and fine-tuned towards what we all want to achieve.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m very excited. It’s one of those things, life jackets; it’s like when riding a bike without a helmet used to be normal and some crazy idea of making those mandatory and here we are with life jackets. I think we’ll look back on this as a similar moment. I just want to indicate I do have a question on both clauses—a separate one on clause 4 as well as clause 3—and the Schedule, if that can be debated at this point as well. But I’m going to start with clause 3, just to allow others to chip in, but I do want to come back with my clause 4 question.

Clause 3, I note to the member in charge, the Hon Dr Shane Reti—and it’s good to see the doctor taking firm charge of this bill—the initial bill, as it was presented to the House, was amending Part 91 of Maritime Rules, which are made under the Act itself; in the new version, where actually it says this Part amends the Maritime Act itself. There is a bit of a relationship here between the Act and the rules which are then set.

I’m interested to know, from the honourable member, the thinking and I guess the rationale for elevating this. To me, as I look at this, it looks like an elevation. Cards on the table, I’m not a big nautical guy—I’m more aviation—but we have similar rules in aviation; we have the Civil Aviation Regulations which sit under the Act, but it’s the regulations that people operate by. If you’re flying, you’re looking at, again, Part 91 would be the rules for most punters flying around the sky, and the same here in the maritime context, as I understand. If you do your day skipper certificate and you’re going to get that so you can take a small craft out and you’ve got the tick in the right box—which is a great thing that I would encourage people to do—you’re going to be looking at the regulations more than you are at the Act. Much as I know, if you’re going to your day skipper certificate, they’re going to teach you this, “Hey now, under 6 metres, you do have to have a life jacket if it’s underway, not if you’re swimming.” I’m sure we can explain that to people, but a lot of people, when they’re looking, might be looking just at regulations. Does this imply that regulations therefore will be amended and it will flow through? Because I know Subpart 1 of Part 2, when we get to that, does take that.

But I just note the change here in clause 3 in terms of what it is that we are amending. Is this—I’ll be interested to hear the member’s view on this—a mechanism to elevate the importance of the issue, to say, actually, life jackets are critical to safety, they are critical to the wellbeing of people that are going out on those boats, and it’s so important we actually want to capture this in the principal Act itself? We want to elevate this up a level. Or is there a risk that by not focusing on the tactical, the regulations, the things that people might look in, day in, day out, when they’re going out in their small boat, taking the kids out fishing—that kind of thing. It’s these exact scenarios that we’re thinking about. Is there a risk that we go too high by not just making this really targeted, really focused on the regulations, or do we get a bit of both by doing it this way? Can we say, “We’ll look through some of the substantial amendments in Part 2. We can amend the regulations, but at the same time we can target this to the Act.” So I’m really keen to hear from the member.

I don’t want to prolong this because I do want to come back with my question on clause 4. But for clause 3, the thinking that moves from just changing regulations to changing the Act itself. Thank you.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you. I’d like to thank the member Tim Costley for a really good question. In Part 1, clauses 3 and 4 are actually a change in primary legislation; Part 2 deals with regulations. I’d have to say clauses 3 and 4 are particularly benefited, as we heard in the second reading, by having select committee members with two previous mayors and one previous deputy mayor—and the point I’m making here is clause 3 and clause 4 is actually to make the logistics of changing the regulations easier.

What it says in clause 3 and clause 4—clause 4 refers to Schedule 5. Schedule 5 actually talks to the legislation that says, “Look, if there are some councils, and their by-laws are disparate to what this national policy is, we want to make it easy for them to harmonise.” Because part of what we’re trying to do is to harmonise the wide variation of lifejacket carrying versus lifejacket wearing across all of the country. That’s where some of the issues have arisen. So we do the substantive work on that in Part 2.

Part 1 is the primary legislation; the logistics of doing that. And what we say in Part 1: clause 3 identifies the Act, and clause 4 is the mechanics to it. What we do in that part is that we say that councils have an expectation, if their policies do not align with what will now be a national policy, to make adjustments to their existing by-laws. We also make it easy for them by saying, “Look,”—this was discussed by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—“because you are adjusting to a national policy, you don’t have to go through all the rigour of what a standard consultation process would be for by-law and regulatory change at a local council level.”

So it was on the wisdom and advice, well-supported by the committee, of those in the select committee, who had actually done this in other careers, who said, “Let’s make it easy.” A number already aligned almost perfectly with what we’re trying to do tonight and a number do not. Those who do not, let’s not force them to go through long consultation processes to get to the end point, which they have to anyway, which is a national policy. So our Part 1 primarily—that’s the primary legislative change part; it’s why it’s in the House—talks to the Act that’s going to be affected in clause 3. And clause 4 is the mechanism referring to Schedule 5, which describes how we do that to make it easy for local government to adjust their by-laws, if they need, to what is now going to be a national policy.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Dr Reti, for the explanation and acknowledging your handling of this bill, and the care that you’ve taken engaging with members who are concerned, and also with the Transport and Infrastructure Committee as a whole.

You are the third—fourth? Indeed—fourth member to have this. Dr Tracey McLellan sort of went a bit into the history, but also, going right back into the history of this. In this schedule change, there has been a more substantive move than what was in the original drawn, proposed, and questioned bill that, I think, started life with Alfred Ngaro and moved through Cameron Brewer, and now is with yourself—I’m not sure of the intermediary who makes up that fourth.

You’ve got here a piece of legislation that’s doing a lot of work to change some regulations. Clause 3 is talking about the legislation that is being amended, the Maritime Transport Act 1994, and clause 4 is referring to the new Part 5 inserted into Schedule 1AA by the Schedule—so not Schedule 5, Part 5. Is that correct?

Hon Dr Shane Reti: Yes, that’s correct.

CAMERON LUXTON: Thank you. In here, I guess, the question that I have straight off the bat is this is something that is already able to happen. It seems that in the legislation as written and the regulations that flow out of that, there is already the ability for local bodies to amend this—and you’ve acknowledged that yourself. Well, how many parts of the country are not aligned to this? Did you, in your work on this bill, engage with any local bodies that haven’t done this and found out why? Because I know the select committee heard from harbourmasters of regions who had done this and they were supportive of it, but that begs the question: the harbourmasters that hadn’t, why do they not?

So I think the first question that I’ve got for you is: which part of the country is not covered, how many, and have you engaged with them?

Then, also, these regulations are in the hands of regional councils to change, and harbourmasters, you would expect, would be the prime, say, resource for information for those regional councils to understand how a regulation’s working in their area. It was intriguing to me to see the harbourmasters—you know, plural—come to select committee and ask for this when it seems that this power is being sort of enforced, modified, taken away from local government in a way, when they’ve got the power to do it anyway.

Part 91 of the Maritime Rules enables these decisions to be made locally. Was there any investigation taken by your good self or other members who previously had this bill, into why that hadn’t been taken up at local authorities and how many of those chose not to do this?

Committee of the whole House

Thank you. That’s a really good question. And yes, we did have discussions with harbourmasters who have by-laws that are not consistent with what we’re trying to achieve tonight. I would point out, for example, Auckland Transport and Auckland Council, who do not have legislation of this type, in May, completed their consultation process to do exactly what we’re looking to do here—substantively; there may be a few tweaks. So they were already in that direction, along with their national body saying, “Oh, we, we need to do this; this is important.” So they completed consultations in May—I believe two-thirds were in support of what they were looking to do.

To answer your wider question—there is a map and I don’t have that with me—there is probably a third, as I recall, of all regional councils that are not aligned with what we’re wanting to do here tonight. I’ve also spoken with those who have. Waikato, for example, in 2013, brought in their legislation, which is like what we’re wanting to do tonight.

So I have spoken, and we have spoken, with harbourmasters who have different regulations to what we’re wanting to do tonight, and those who have. I’d just point out that our biggest area for drownings, which is Auckland, is progressing this way as well—they’re now waiting for us to progress this.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Madam Chair. I say I’d like to ask about clause 4, and the member the Hon Dr Shane Reti touched on it in his answer to my question on clause 3—it was a beautiful segue, interrupted only by a great question from Cam Luxton, who I have now interrupted his flow as well; we’ll get there.

But my question is on the “repugnancy”—it’s not often we get to talk about things being repugnant in this House, but that is the wording: inconsistencies or repugnancies—between current by-laws and this bill. And so, as I understand it, and as the member, I think, has explained it, when this comes into force 28 days after it receives Royal assent—and all that good stuff—it may override or contradict some existing by-laws. For example, it might be that someone has one that says, “You have to wear it under 15.”; well, this one trumps it because it actually says, “Everyone has to.” Maybe they have a different minimum size for the vessel that it applies to; this trumps it and it provides a pathway for them to reset their by-laws without requiring so much consultation.

Now, I support that because I think, at times, we do too much consultation; we actually elect members to represent us. This is what the last bill that Stuart Smith brought was about. We should just let them get on and make a decision for us and then hold them to account at the ballot box. But my specific question on clause 4 and introducing the new Part 5 into Schedule 1AA is: is there a need? Should this not just replace those by-laws, and therefore, those sections become redundant. They’re no longer needed; it just overrides them. Do we need to bring another one in because, actually, if their protection was at a lower level, this trumps it? Do we even need to replace them, or is it because you can’t just remove that one clause or that one part of a bylaw that pertains to wearing life preservers of lifejackets? Could it not—this comes in, and it trumps the whole thing, and we say, “Actually, we don’t need them now”? Do we need a process? Is there feedback from different councils or bodies around the country that says, actually, because of the unique nature of our waters, we want to have a higher level of protection, we actually want it on larger boats—whatever the rules may be.

Is there a need for this, or are we just creating a process for the sake of it? Or is there an implication, is there a point where we amend these bylaws and it actually jeopardises or compromises something else that is a good thing? Is there an interplay here that we may or may not have considered? I’m sure the Hon Dr Shane Reti will have considered it and have a very wise answer for us, but is there potential that this could somehow, in some perverse way, compromise some other bylaw that adds to the safety on the sea?

I’m just keen to tease out this idea of bylaws. Could they not just be overridden, and they don’t need to be replaced? Do they want to be replaced because we need a high level of protection, or is there this other sort of place where there’s an interplay between the rules around lifejackets and something else—whether it’s evacuating small craft in a hurry. I don’t know, but is there another reason that we might need to have this that we might want to go and develop bylaws that this can’t just trump outright? I put that question to the member.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Madam Chair. Another good question. I think the end point to this sort of line of inquiry is that harbourmasters requested this. What that says is, fundamentally, and for a number of reasons, they either didn’t have the resources or a timeliness—again, I’ve just mentioned that we look like we’re heading for a very bad drowning rate this calendar year already. For any of those reasons, they were very supportive of us progressing this, supported by officials, in the style that we’re looking to do it—that is, to adopt a national policy.

I’d comment that they may be able to do more than this. This is a baseline, if you like, that those on vessels less than 6 metres—recreational craft less than 6 metres—be required to wear, not just carry, a lifejacket. They may well be able to say, “No, look, we actually want to go further in the bylaw process and do more”. But at this point in time, this is the safety net that the data supports, that we wanted to be around, and again, harbourmasters asked us or supported us to do this. For whatever reason, if we look back, as I say, Waikato were the first to bring in bylaws of this type in 2013—what’s that, 13 years ago—and we’ve still got a third to half of the country with a different set of bylaws. I think that, in itself, is testimony that they needed a hand.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Madam Chair. The history is being traversed a little bit here, so I think this is an appropriate part to ask some questions of the member, regarding previous speeches that were given in this House, about the development of this bill and how we got to where we are.

In the first iteration, this bill was for lifejackets to be mandatory on all boats under 6 metres at water length for 15 and under—so under-16-year-olds—at all times. That was the original drafting. I don’t want to get into the “at all times” and all of those specifics, but I do want to ask the member a specific question. This bill was introduced with a specific purpose in a country where polling conducted by water safety organisations says that in the high 90 percent, parents overwhelmingly, when asked on surveys, respond that they know that a lifejacket is a life-saving good and should be worn by children under 16—and yet the bill was still introduced and carried on. We also had a lot of Kiwis believing it was already mandatory for young people—across the country, surveys showed that.

We had contributions to this House talking about our beautiful beaches and rivers and how the tragedies of New Zealanders and our visitors dying while enjoying our natural environment needs to be avoided. However, the bill was only for boats. Now we’ve got a change, I feel like—it’s an awkward question to ask, but I do want to ask it. People would look at this and say there is a Trojan horse element to what’s happened here, where members’ speeches were not actually addressing the issues identified to be fixed in this bill. It started with a defined area. How do we, as members of the House and the member in the chair, say to the New Zealand public who were listening to the first reading speeches that this was an honest attempt at a specific piece of legislation that has changed and not something that will keep going up?

I voiced my scepticism in those first speeches, and I’ve had the public come to me and say, “Is this a slippery slope?” I don’t really like slippery slope arguments, but is this a slippery slope towards boat registration and mandatory licensing? How do we know—how will this be enforced, and are we going to end up with something that we didn’t expect coming out as a result of this? I’ve got more specific questions to ask that will allude to some of this. I think since the history is being traversed, I felt it was an appropriate point to ask this question of the member.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you. Yes, a number of New Zealanders already did think that you had to wear a lifejacket, not just carry it—I think that’s a fair point—and yet, here we are, with one of the worst rates already of preventable drownings and the proposition that with the decisions we’re hoping to make, we may save 10 lives a year. We also look at when Tasmania introduced their legislation in 2013, and within the first year, they had a 50 to 60 percent reduction in preventable drownings. We know that what we’re wanting to do here today is likely to be impactful.

Is there an increase in scope? There was an obvious increase in scope at the request of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee because we were able to determine that the data and the evidence provided a better way to do what we all wanted to achieve. We want to achieve an improvement in preventable drownings. As the bill initially came to the House, it would achieve some—as I said, eight preventable deaths, potentially, in the last decade, or since 2015. But that’s incomparable to the 161, and that’s why the select committee agreed to go back—that’s why the Business Committee agreed with it—because its initial focus wasn’t quite right. Therein lies the benefit of the select committee and the select committee process.

This is not a request here tonight, in any shape or form, to take it any further. The considered wisdom of the select committee, I think, has landed on a good safety net, so I am comfortable with where this is sitting.

Part 1 agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Part 2 Amendments to Maritime Rules and consequential revocation

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, we come now to Part 2, which is the debate on clauses 5 to 9—“Amendments to Maritime Rules and consequential revocation”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.