O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Maritime Transport (MARPOL Annex VI) Amendment Bill which sounds something of a mouthful but like all these pieces of legislation it's good to give it some context and to really understand what we're here for. Really most New Zealanders are lucky enough to live near a harbour near water. I know that Wellington Harbour—we all look out there and I know I've been enjoying fishing out there on the odd occasion. And if you get an evening say a March evening there might be two or three cruise ships—in a non-COVID time the cruise ships of course—heading out of the harbour. You'll get the odd ferry coming in and out fishing boats you may even have a log ship. And of course because they're sitting out there on the water it's easy to forget just how much pollution is coming out or just what emissions are coming out of those boats—or ships I should say: any maritime people listening would be disgusted to hear them described as boats; those ships. One of those cruise liners actually produces as many emissions as every car driving around Wellington in a day. That just puts things into perspective which is exactly why we need to ensure that we're addressing such issues. Of course New Zealand as the previous speaker Christopher Luxon said has been something of an outlier on this. In fact in November 1973 the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) adopted the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) which remains today the main international convention covering preventing the pollution of maritime environments by ships from operation or accidental causes. Obviously this is a piece of legislation that now underlies efforts to do what the world is now increasingly seeking to do: reduce pollution. New Zealand joined MARPOL in 1998 and is a party to four of the six annexes of that treaty. Often when we talk about treaties—one of the things we learn when we come here is that everything is interrelated and that when we pass legislation here often it needs to be something that complies with our international treaty obligations. In 2018 New Zealand participated in negotiations that saw the adoption of the IMO GHG the greenhouse gas strategy. So of course at that stage New Zealand by being part of that—the fact that we were one of only two countries ourselves and Mexico who hadn't actually signed up did again make us something of an outlier and also made it very difficult for us to continue arguing for ambitious action to reduce maritime emissions—almost as though we were getting something of a free ride. So that's the background as to how we've arrived at where we are today.The consultation occurred on whether we should sign this and obviously in doing so we just have to make sure that there are all considerations and the two global problems relating to shipping emissions are of course impacts on human health and environments in port communities from maritime pollution. While I've mentioned Wellington Harbour you go to somewhere like Picton which again is in a narrow valley. That's now one of New Zealand's busiest ports. In fact Picton's a bit unique because most New Zealand ships—certainly coastal ships—haven't complied with this whereas most international ships coming here now have. Most of the container boats—certainly most of the cruise liners—that have come here do actually comply. So you get a port like Picton where obviously while being busy most of those visits are from ferries going back and forth and those ferries don't actually comply so you can imagine what the impact on a place like Picton might be.Of course the other broad issue whenever we're talking about pollution is contributions to climate change and ozone layer depletion. Climate change once again as we reflect on the floods down South Canterbury the one-in-100-year flood that people are discussing—but you'll wonder now with a plethora of one-in-100-year events that seem to be occurring with monotonous regularity how much climate change is contributing to these weather events that we are seeing.Of course we then look at the benefits of this bill for New Zealand becoming a party to the annex we're talking about. Of course one of the important things with all of these is protecting New Zealand trade interests and advancing effective migration measures because again as Australia are finding now it's all very well to basically put the proverbial finger to the world and say that we won't comply but very quickly they're going to suddenly find that internationally it doesn't matter what the various states and what the various state governments say; they're going to have to start complying or it's going to badly affect their international trade. So again in considering a piece of legislation like this it is again ensuring that our trade interests—as we have our officials around the world now negotiating trade in the UK or negotiating trade with Europe these are the things that are going to be very important. They'll be quickly thrown back in our face if we don't comply because often particularly the agricultural interests of those places will be very quick to point the finger at us if we're not complying with these treaties.Also of course another thing is that it will also allow—we do not have a big international shipping fleet from here which is a shame. There was a time I remember just recently reading some history that Tainui alone had 50 ships plying the Tasman back in the mid-1800s and wouldn't it be nice if we could ever get back to the day when New Zealand did have those shipping fleets out there around the world ensuring that our goods were getting there but we were able to be—somewhat crudely put—clipping the ticket the whole way as our goods found their way around the world. Of course as I say if we do get those New Zealand ships it will mean that they will comply as they go to the various ports. With ourselves and Mexico being the only non-compliant countries as you can imagine there are plenty of ports there that would very quickly be turning us away.So what are the amendments? This is what we are seeking to apply so what does the bill actually do? Well section 388 of the Maritime Transport Act provides for the Minister of Transport to make marine protection rules for a number of purposes. Clause 10 of the bill empowers the Minister to make rules for the purpose of prescribing the requirements procedures and standards relating to the prevention of air pollution from ships" for the purpose of implementing this annex. The Act also provides—in section 395; this is an interesting one Madam Speaker—that the director of Maritime New Zealand may grant exemptions from the maritime protection rules; however section 395(2) provides that the director "must not grant an exemption unless satisfied that—(a) granting the exemption will not breach New Zealand's obligations under any convention".So as my time draws near—and there's so much more material that I'll leave for my colleagues here to explore—as one does you'll see as you look through the legislation here in fact there's this reference to "scrubbers". I see the excitement raising and it's not the terrible comments made by the coach of the Australian netball team that can never be forgiven. These scrubbers—and it's quite interesting; often when you're speaking you go "How do these things actually work?"Christopher Luxon: How do they work? Tell us how they work.GREG O'CONNOR: So I did take time to actually find out how these things actually work. It's quite interesting because we either change the fuel or we put scrubbers as the previous speaker talked about to ensure—so how they work: it actually "sprays alkaline water into the vessel's exhaust which removes the [sulphur] from … ships' engines and boiler exhaust gases." So it's not an inexpensive exercise to fit these but "In a seawater system the sea's natural alkalinity largely neutralises the results of [sulphur] removal before discharge" into the sea. I'm sure there'll be other speakers here who will mention these scrubbers which are an important part of this bill so now you need wonder no more Madam Speaker just what it is that is being referred to as we go through this. Again as the chair of the very hard-working Transport and Infrastructure Committee who will be considering this bill I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House."