Roche Denise: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roche Denise: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8749. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENISE ROCHE (Green) 
: 
 It is my privilege to speak to the second reading of the Marine Legislation Bill. I take this call and I acknowledge that I am speaking on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes who has been the Green MP who has been ushering this bill through its first reading and the select committee process. He will no doubt have a lot more to say on this bill as it reaches the next phase the Committee of the whole House and the subsequent third reading. 
The Greens will be supporting this bill. Just to recap this is an omnibus bill that primarily amends two Acts: the Maritime Transport Act 1994 and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012—the EEZ Act; the one that was referred to previously as having 37 amendments to it. It is an omnibus bill that will also enable New Zealand to accede to three international maritime conventions the amendments implement changes to another international maritime convention to which New Zealand is a party and it makes changes relating to the making of maritime and marine protection rules. 
I would like to acknowledge and give thanks to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members to the officials and also to the submitters. I note that there were 48 submitters from a wide range of organisations including Local Government New Zealand regional councils across the country the merchant officers’ guild shipping companies oil companies port companies and also individuals. My colleague Gareth assures me that the select committee worked cooperatively to bring this bill to the House with the amendments that have been agreed to in the report. Personally I would like to see a lot more of that so I encourage the Government to think about other bills that are sensible and solutions-focused that protect our special places and that support our people and are just—quite unlike the previous bill that was in the House the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. Then we could look forward to more cooperation in the House and much better decision-making. 
But I go back to the Marine Legislation Bill. This is the bill that will become the Act that we should have had in place at the time that the  
Rena 
 crashed into Astrolabe Reef and leaked debris and oil on to our beaches and into our marine environment. At the first reading of this bill in the House my colleague Gareth Hughes said that the  
Rena 
 disaster and aftermath shocked New Zealanders—and I agree with him—and that our people were particularly shocked by the Government’s initial lack of response its failure to act with speed and the lack of urgency expertise and infrastructure that it supplied to deal with the environmental degradation the wreck was causing. Gareth also highlighted in the first reading that the cost of cleaning up after the  
Rena 
 was borne by the taxpayer to the tune of around $130 million because we were not adequately protected by our own laws and because we had not acceded through legislation to three international conventions that would have protected our taxpayers when this accident occurred. 
We do support this bill. In particular we support the bill’s positive changes which I will get to soon but unfortunately there are still within the bill some weaknesses that we raised at the first reading and which remain unaddressed. No doubt we will get to them during the Committee of the whole House. The bill does not go far enough to protect New Zealand against the environmental and economic risks of an oil spill. Even with this bill in place it is likely that the taxpayer will still have to cover some of the cost of potential future marine disasters. For example the bill does not sign up New Zealand to the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund’s supplementary fund. New Zealand is already a party to the 1992 fund. But it is not a party to the supplementary fund which would allow us to access over $1 billion for compensation and clean-up if there were a spill from a tanker. 
The Government has also failed to adequately fund the Oil Pollution Fund. In the case of oil drilling the Government should be increasing the amount of insurance required for companies that wish to engage in oil drilling. The Gulf of Mexico spill cost $40 billion. However our Government is happy to allow oil-drilling companies to have insurance of only $30 million. Who pays the difference? The Government still does not have adequate oil spill protection within the country. I note that this bill does not introduce compulsory shipping lanes which would go some way towards highlighting where the super-highways are on the sea and could even be used in my part of the country—where I live in the Hauraki Gulf—to steer ships away from the endangered Bryde’s whales that live in the Hauraki Gulf. As I said in my speech in the first reading of this bill in the House those whales although endangered have a tendency to live near the surface and so are more likely to be hit by ships particularly when the ships are going fast. 
 We do support this bill though. In particular we support the changes that outline the responsibilities of regulating maritime safety as a function of a regional council and the amendments that involve more comprehensive details for duties and requirements of harbour masters. We support the new section allowing for enforcement officers or constables to exercise the certain same powers as harbour masters and to restrict this exercise to occasions of special request or authority by a regional council. So basically we support the regional councils having some autonomy here. 
Like the other parties in this House we agree with the alcohol limits that should be set for seafarers and again we do note that they are set at a lower level than those for the driver of a car. We also support the new section to create an offence of and prescribe a penalty for the overloading of a ship and to allow consistency with the International Convention on Load Lines. This is an extremely important piece to have in this bill as unstable loads or overloaded ships are at risk of further capsizing. We are also pleased with the proposed insertion of a new definition of “mining discharge” to ensure that hydraulic fracturing or fracking would be subject to this legislation and I think that is a major achievement. Although fracking is not actually occurring in our oceans at present it is good to see that this legislation is being futureproofed if an application were lodged. 
Our oceans are under threat. However we believe this bill goes some way towards supporting some positive changes. It is curious however that this bill comes with 37 amendments to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act which was passed less than a year ago which kind of highlights the sloppiness of the Government’s process of creating that bill. 
However in summary we support this bill. We think it is a good bill. It has been improved through the select committee process. It does not go far enough in terms of protecting New Zealand’s waters or the taxpayer from liability but it does start a process of improving things for our oceans.