Ross Jami-Lee: Marine Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ross Jami-Lee: Marine Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5090. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 It is a shame that a significant event like the  
Rena 
 grounding has been turned into such a political football here tonight. I think it is worthwhile acknowledging the people who spent hours and hours and hours on the beaches cleaning up the oil. I think it is worthwhile acknowledging the people who have risked their lives to try to dismantle and take containers off that grounded vessel. The people who acted immediately the first responders to be on the scene so quickly and to be doing the work to try to sort out that situation as quickly as possible should also be acknowledged. So rather than turning it into a political football I think we should firstly be acknowledging the excellent work that has been done on trying to recover from that. 
If you were to listen to the speeches of the Opposition members you would almost come to believe and understand from their speeches that the Government drove the boat on to the reef. In fact no this Government has actually acted pretty quickly and very swiftly to deal with the consequences of that disaster. I think Steven Joyce and other Ministers who were involved should actually be congratulated on it too. 
This legislation the Marine Legislation Bill is about making changes to the oversight of port harbour and navigation safety. It is also about making changes to implement our international maritime conventions and protocols. We have been criticised tonight—although there seems to be cross-party support for the legislation—and there has been a lot of criticism about the time that has been taken for these protocols to see legislative change. I think it is worthwhile looking at the dates however that these protocols were actually signed because we are getting the criticism that this Government has done very little to implement the protocols. But in fact many of these protocols were signed a long time ago and actually before the Labour Government came into office last in 1999. 
If Labour members want to criticise National for not implementing these protocols fast enough they should really be looking at their own record whereby they failed to implement these protocols as well. The Protocol to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims was signed in 1996. The International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage came into effect in 2001. So if one wants to criticise the time that has been taken one should look in the mirror when making comments like that. 
The fact of the matter is that there was a disaster in New Zealand that has led to this greater impetus for these protocols to be enacted through legislation. We should be saying good on the Government for doing that well done to the Government for putting in place legislation to bring these protocols into effect and let us all work together on ensuring that the legislation we have in front of us is as well written as it can be and enacts the protocols in the way that we want it to. 
I also want to touch briefly on the question of the protocol that sets the maximum alcohol limit of 0.05 grams of alcohol which is going to be implemented through the legislation. Yes I heard the criticism from Opposition parties on this as well but I think there is actually a very logical explanation for it. If one actually reads the bill you will see that New Zealand is a party to the International Convention on Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers—for seafarers. That is actually a 1978 protocol. I think there were several Labour Governments in place post-1978 if we are to be consistent with our points. Yes that protocol does recommend that a maximum alcohol limit of 0.05 grams be implemented but the logical reason why it is different from what we have in place for road users is that it is around risk mitigation. You have to say that if there is going to be somebody behind a multimillion-dollar vessel carrying hundreds of millions of tonnes of oil with the risk that it could cause millions of dollars’ worth of damage to New Zealand’s sea and to New Zealand’s beaches then yes you would have a greater risk mitigation strategy in place. That is what this is around. 
If we were to take the logical conclusion of what the Opposition parties are arguing that any laws around what happens at sea should also be reflected in what happens on land with vehicles then I would like to bring up the case of aviation. I come from an aviation background. In aviation the aviation rules the regulations actually do not allow pilots to have any alcohol in their blood when they are flying. No crew member in aviation can have any alcohol in their blood. So if the Opposition parties are saying that if there is a 0.05 gram limit for people at sea then that should also apply on land for vehicles then I am guessing that they are also arguing that if there is a zero limit for aviation then there should also be a zero limit for vehicles. I look forward to them coming out and telling the New Zealand public that there is to be a zero limit for alcohol for vehicles because I do not think that would go down very well. 
Let us all get behind this legislation and realise that it is implementing some important international protocols that arguably should have been put in place some years ago. But if we are going to be critical about the timing then we should all look in the mirror because it is a case of several Governments having not implemented those protocols. We are taking the steps now to do that and that should be congratulated.