O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take a call on the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill in its second reading. I had a little bit to do with this very early on but have since left the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am pleased to see it progressing through the House and to particularly acknowledge the Minister of Transport Simon Bridges who is seeing this through and the work of the select committee. I know that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee works incredibly hard on bills like this. I do have to take umbrage though with my colleague who has just resumed his seat Peeni Henare. He has suggested that there has been a lack of funding for infrastructure particularly in the Chatham Islands. It may come as news to the member that we are investing something like $55 million into the Chathams at the moment to replace its wharf. I know and not because he is sitting in the House that the list member resident in Rongotai the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson QC—Carmel Sepuloni: Name-dropper.SIMON O'CONNOR: Yes you have got to get all the post-nominals in as well—QC MP. He has been actually very very keen on this sort of investment—again $55 million into a new wharf there—and that does not take away from the advocacy either for a new wharf that has been put in place on Pitt Island. For those in the House who do not know the Pitt Islands are about 20 kilometres south of the Chathams. I am reliably informed by Chris Finlayson—in that marginal seat of Rongotai—that actually the investment is in play and there are dynamics if you will between the shipping player or players and the Chatham Islands. I know that he and others certainly on the Government side are keeping a close eye on that.Look I am conscious that this is the last speech on this bill so I do not want to prolong it too much. It is always great to get the support of the entire House on these matters. The bill is doing a couple of very basic but rather important things. One has been well traversed—around the whole element of alcohol and drug testing. That can be done at the moment somewhat on an ad hoc basis. This provides a legal framework to it and really it is analogous to the likes of what we do on the roads with the police. This provides a legal framework to work and support that. I think actually the previous speaker and others before him have acknowledged there have been a number of incidents involving drugs or alcohol in transport environments that we need to address. And perhaps through this bill there are some wider ones to look at. The Government has been very aware for a long time now of the importance around health and safety. Speaking as the chair of the Health Committee I say that one of the greatest impairments to one's health and to one's safety is the use of alcohol and drugs which always puts an interesting question to certain parties who are advocating more drugs in society. We will not quite get into that tonight. So it is good to see that this framework is in place.The other has been a response to the Rena incident off Mount Maunganui a few years back. This bill in effect allows the Government to get more compensation. Its primary mechanism is to exclude certain costs such as wreck removal cargo removal and other remediating damage. As I understand things at the moment there is effectively a cap and those liable can reduce that cost or how much they actually have to pay out in cash by saying that they spent this much money on the cargo removal this much money on wreck removal and so forth. We are saying now through this piece of legislation that we can still claim X amount of dollars and a hefty fee at that but we will also charge you for the removal of the wreck and so forth.So I think this bill is in a good space. I note that the select committee has made a number of recommendations. I think that is fairly normal for a select committee—not unusual. It is a robust part of the dynamic of this Parliament. Reading my very quick notes here because I did not sit through the whole time I see we have had about 25 people come and submit—I think that is particularly helpful—and 11 of those were in person. So that gives a little bit of context to the changes that the select committee has made. One particularly of note is the amendment of clause 28 which is now amending the new schedule 1AA. It is specifying commencement dates for drug and alcohol testing and around the oil pollution compensation amendments. The long and the short—the two provisions now have to come into force on different dates because of the later transition period required. Put another way it is just an appreciation through the work of the select committee that putting these two elements in place around compensation and around testing they are not going to be able to come into effect on the same day. So it is just a bit of a change there.Look I said I would not go on for too long—I probably have—but I just want to acknowledge all those who are working on this bill and those who are supporting it. Thank you.