O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Damien: Biosecurity Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3792. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I have to acknowledge my good colleague Rino Tirikatene there. I slightly misled him on a debate. I am sure he will have the chance to put his views to the Committee on this part. 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Do you wear that tie on the West Coast Damien? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Absolutely. It takes more than clothes to maketh a man down there.  
Hon Annette King 
: That’s why he never made it. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is right. As I said Labour is supporting the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill but we do have some major problems with it and with the resourcing of biosecurity across this country. In speaking to the next part of the bill and particularly in regard to the formation of pest-management strategies— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Clause 76? Sorry Mr Chairman I am— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Ballast water and the marine environment. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Ah yes. Going back to the marine environment clauses— 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Loosen the tie. Come on—loosen the tie. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is what a pink tie does to you. 
Can I say we actually welcome having provisions in the Biosecurity Act finally around ballast water. It is a situation that I am familiar with because going back some 20 years in fact there was an application in South Westland to export fresh water. That was out of Jacksons Bay. Anyone who has been down there knows that it is a pristine environment. I know that the Chairman Mr Roy has been down there many times. One of the issues that arose then—and it has not come up that often—was ballast water and what the potential impact could be of ballast water being tipped into Jacksons Bay by boats that had set out from Singapore or some Middle Eastern port gone down there and put that water out there bringing with it all the pests and diseases. At that time no one had really identified the risk. It was put up as an argument primarily by the green movement at that time—way before the Green Party. But there were environmental groups that were concerned legitimately about what might happen down there through ballast water being put into that bay. I have to say that was one of a number of arguments and issues that actually put that whole project on hold. I am sure that at some stage we probably will be exporting fresh water from this country as its value increases. 
The issue though is ballast water the management of it and ensuring that we do not bring pests into this country unnecessarily. I do not think we can ever guarantee that we will not bring in something or that we have not brought it in.  
Undaria 
 which is a seaweed that has some commercial uses but has been deemed a weed was mostly brought in through the ballast water of boats. The question I have in this area—again because we have a Government that refuses to properly resource MAF Biosecurity New Zealand—is whether with all these regulations and these improvements that we accept are needed effectively we may not offer any more protection for the New Zealand marine environment with the passage of this bill than there was before and that would be a problem. We have here in clause 76 new Part 19A “Protection of marine environment from ballast water”. Ballast water means as we know anything picked up to stabilise a boat on its way to New Zealand with a cargo. Cargoes change in weight and obviously the ships need to take on board water to make sure they do not tip over. What we have done here is put in place defences for people who think they took all reasonable steps to minimise any potential risk to New Zealand as the other part of the bill is quite prescriptive. 
I have to say that we hope we have got it right because as good as the chair of the Primary Production Committee is I am not sure—maybe he will take a call. I hope he will get up and explain. I know he has been fairly diligent all the way through this process and he probably has read this bill a number of times so he would be able to get up and explain each and every single part of it. 
 Can I say that what we do have in there as well under Part 3—I am sorry we going up to clause 78 only. I apologise for that Mr Chairman. I was just trying to rush the bill through. I do not want to prolong it any longer than necessary. The clauses up to clause 78 deal with marine pollution as well which is another serious issue. It is one that has been overlooked internationally I would suggest. I am not sure whether this provision puts us at the forefront of ballast water management internationally but if we have a stricter regime for boats coming into our territorial waters then so be it. There are we are told ways of flushing ballast water as ships are in transit. As to whether that occurs or not I am guessing there is probably an offset in energy use and maybe the speed of the boat in doing that and we are concerned that in fact it might not occur. Hence the heavy fines of up to $200000 or imprisonment for up to 2 years. That is quite a penalty for someone who discharges ballast water in breach of the regulations that we are allowing to pass here. I think it quite rightfully says to each and every ship owner to the people in charge of those ships: “If you come into New Zealand we want to keep our marine environment free of any unwanted pests and organisms. So we will pass this bill we will allow regulations to be put in place and we are going to hammer you if you don’t do it.” 
I think this part is a good part of the bill—we acknowledge the Government for it—and that is why we will support it. But again if we do not have the resources to properly police and implement these regulations then they effectively mean nothing. In this area it is not going to be easy. In spite of I guess the ship companies’ determination to reduce the number of ports their ships come into there will be ships in our territorial waters over our fisheries areas that may not abide by these regulations. So we welcome this part of the bill.