Eagle PaulPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on this the Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill. Can I acknowledge the transport Minister Phil Twyford and the associate Minister who was here Julie Anne Genter for leading this work.It's been good to hear the memories that people have of the incident of the MV Rena back in 2011. I have similar memories of just seeing what has been termed the worst maritime disaster and for me it was really seeing the volunteers who were helping to clean up the local people of Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty region who really dropped everything that they were doing and got themselves down to the beach literally to see what had happened.But very soon we saw the outcome of the incident the accident where I'm told that over 300 tonnes of oil spilled. Then we started seeing the impacts on the local environmental conditions the marine life. For me it was an education lesson looking at the TV screens from Wellington 700 kilometres away and to see this 38000 tonne ship that was beached literally but also the impacts that came off from that: first the oil then the containers and then—I guess—the inquiry into who was responsible how it happened what the impact was and really the ramifications from there.I sit on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I'm looking forward to taking this piece of work through that process and hearing from those who never ever want this to ever—ever—happen again. Interestingly you only need to do a small bit of research to see that this is really nothing if you compared it to the accident that would await us if there was a deep-sea drilling issue. So it's good that this is being looked at now and some of those costs associated with deep-sea drilling would have a clean-up far higher than the $500 million to $600 million that was linked to the Rena. So it is timely and I am looking forward to working through the process here.So as we've heard look it really amends the maritime protection rules and that will see the increase of the required level assurance up to a maximum of $1.2 billion. I think when you look back at the costs and the implications on those wanting to do this activity that's a good amount. It's far in excess of the $27 million that operators currently have to hold at the moment. It's such a big gap that I think Wow. Why hasn't this been looked at earlier? How come it's taken an accident to ensure that costs are covered if such an incident takes place?" We've waited for the accident to take place and now we're scrambling around. But in this case we've been proactive in terms of making sure that there's a change in legislation to ensure that those costs don't come back to the poor old taxpayer but they are apportioned to the operator who as the Hon Shane Jones has said if they're taking resources then they're certainly paying for any issues that come with that activity.I want to acknowledge though and it has been said that the previous Government initiated this work. Good on you. But this Government has chosen to consult on a higher limit that $1.2 billion limit and that's been modelled to ensure that those costs are covered. So I'm hoping that the select committee process will provide us feedback that that is the right way to go. I know and am confident from people I've talked to that it feels that it's about right and we'll get a positive outcome from the process. I am excited by what this brings. Some people may be excited by another one of these disasters. I certainly don't want one to happen and I know that this will provide the necessary legislation to ensure it never ever happens again. I commend this to the House."