Lees-Galloway Iain: Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Marine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13636. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Clauses 1 and 2 deal with the title and commencement of the Marine Legislation Bill. The title clause reads thus: “This Act is the Marine Legislation Act 2012.” That might need a bit of updating seeing as we are now very late in 2013. Such is the length of time it has taken to progress this legislation late as it was arriving in Parliament late as it was to be introduced and late as the first reading was. The process since then has been so slow that we find ourselves not in 2012 but very very deep in 2013. So that part of the title will need a minor amendment as well.We could think of some names for this bill. I think there are plenty of clichés that could be applied to this bill—the “Shutting the Door Well After the Horse has Bolted Act” would be a very good name for it which leads me to the commencement. The commencement is not as straightforward as most commencement clauses are. The commencement clause allows for Part 2 of this Act to come into force “on a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council; and 1 or more orders may be made bringing different provisions into force on different dates.” So Parliament actually has no control over when Part 2 of this bill will actually come into force. That has been handed over to the Government.Again I think it was my colleague Maryan Street who pointed out that when Gerry Brownlee is given this level of control over regulations and this level of control over when an Act actually comes into force he likes to push the boundaries to the absolute extreme. Gerry Brownlee has a history of making regulations that actually undermine the original purpose of the Act that gave him that regulation-making power in the first place. I fear what it means to give Gerry Brownlee that level of control over when the different aspects of Part 2 will actually come into force.The rest of this Act—Part 1 “Amendments to Maritime Transport Act 1994”—are the changes that we really needed before theRena disaster occurred. Actually there has been an amendment made at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I do not know whether there was a bit of crystal ball gazing happening at the select committee because originally—Andrew Little: Probably done on the Labour side.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes I think it was probably the Labour side that could see what was going to happen. Originally this read that the rest of this Act comes into force on 1 April 2013. Can anybody spot the problem there—that this Act was supposed to come into force on 1 April 2013? Again we have got the same problem: this Government is so slow and has made such a low priority of this legislation that we are a very long way past 1 April 2013. The select committee got it right by amending thecommencement clause to say that the rest of this Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives Royal assent. So that at least means that Parliament has control over when this Act will come into force because it should hopefully from here on in make speedy progress through its final stages be off to the Governor-General and receive the Royal assent and we should have it enforced the following day. But it certainly is not 1 April 2013—long past that particular date.But I wondered whether there was any possibility of retrospectively applying the commencement of this Act because we would really like to have had this Act come into force before two events that occurred. The first actually is Phil Heatley making a promise to a public meeting inKaikōura about the provisions in Part 2 of this Act. I am sure my colleague Moana Mackey knows about the promises made by Phil Heatley that have now been broken particularly by one of the amendments that Gerry Brownlee has pushed through this afternoon and that the Government has voted for. So we would have liked this to be applied before Phil Heatley made those promises just to save face for Phil Heatley really so that maybe he could be transported back in time and never make those promises so that he would not be breaking a promise today.But far more important than that would be for the commencement of this Act to have occurred before 2.20 a.m. on Wednesday 5 October 2011. If this Act could have come into force at any point in time before 2.20 a.m. on Wednesday 5 October 2011 we would have saved the country millions and millions of dollars. If this Act had been in force before theRena came aground on the Astrolabe Reef then the New Zealand Government would not be liable for the cost of cleaning up that disaster. I am surprised frankly that this Government has not promoted an amendment to the commencement date that would retrospectively apply this Act because that Government over there must be so embarrassed—so embarrassed—about its failure to act. It was handed this legislation on a plate from the previous Government. The work had been done. The bill was ready to go in early 2009. All it had to do was introduce it in Parliament put it on the Order Paper and make it a priority. If it had done that then when theRena hit the Astrolabe Reef and the ensuing disaster occurred and the ensuing cost occurred that would not have been borne by the poor old New Zealand taxpayer who once again has been hit in the back pocket by that negligent National-led Government.So I think that it would perhaps be fantastic if the Minister of Transport could whip down to the Chamber as quickly as possible and put an amendment up to change the commencement date back to any moment—any moment. It could be at 2.19 a.m. on Wednesday 5 October 2011. That date would be sufficient to have had this Act in place when it was needed because any date after that frankly is far far past the useful date of this legislation. Really if that Government had been on to it if that Government had understood the risks and if that Government had been prepared to make safety around our coasts a priority then this legislation would have been commenced long before today and we would not be debating it now.