Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMarine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13609. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Marine Legislation BillIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to Maritime Transport Act 1994The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The debate on this part includes schedules 1 and 2.DARIEN FENTON (Labour): Here we are debating the Committee stage of the Marine Legislation Bill. This is a bill that has taken the Government so long a bill that should have been passed more than 3 years ago and a bill that if it had been in place we would not now have taxpayers picking up the burden of the disgracefulRena tragedy. But even then—look we were ready to go with this way back in 2008. Who was in Government then? Oh it was the Labour Government. What it had done was a national interest analysis relating to the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances other than Oil which is known as the intervention protocol and it had done the national interest analysis on the basis that the Labour Government wished to introduce legislation to have that convention in New Zealand law. That was back in 2008.Then we had theRena crisis and of course we know that that has cost this country millions and millions of dollars more—$11.3 million of clean-up costs for the Crown and over $50 million—due to this sloppy hopeless Government’s failure to ratify the international conventions when all the work had already been done. All the work was in place. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which I was a part of which David Bennett was a part of and which Kate Wilkinson was a part of had already done the work on this. It was ready to go. Finally—finally—the Government got around to doing something about it last year more than a year after theRena disaster.The bill was referred to the committee on 11 September after its first reading. It was all a big rush then. We supported the Marine Legislation Bill then because we knew that we had to do something urgently because this Government had completely failed to do so. We had an urgent period of hearing submissions. The submission period was just 4 weeks—4 weeks to enable people to make submissions on what then became quite a substantive bill not only dealing with the conventions but also dealing with a wholerange of other issues in the Marine Legislation Bill. We heard 21 submissions. It was referred back and rushed through that great committee. All the Labour members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee cooperated so that we could get this bill back into the House. It finally got around 6 months later—6 months after it was referred back from the select committee—to having its second reading. What was the date of that? That was 20 March 2013. So it has just dragged on and on.It is interesting that one of the things that has been changed in the commencement clause is the commencement date. It was supposed to start on 13 April. It was supposed to start on 13 April. What is the date today?Dr Megan Woods: Which year?DARIEN FENTON: Well it was this year. What is the date today? It is nearly October is it not? It is 24 September so nearly 6 months later here we are in the Committee of the whole House stage debating this bill which should have been done by the National Government when it became the Government in 2009. So we struggle to understand why it has taken the Government so long. It is an utter shambles. It shows how hopeless this Government is in prioritising things that matter. As I said this was all in place and ready to go in 2008 and it has cost us money—it has cost us money. The purpose of the legislation is so that we will not have to pick up the tab we will not have to leave it to taxpayers to pay for polluters in the future but with theRena of course which is already sunk and being ripped apart it is just too late.There are quite a lot of things in Part 1 that bear consideration and I want to start with new Part 4A “Regulation of alcohol consumption by seafarers” new section 40A and onwards in clause 11.Iain Lees-Galloway: But I was going to talk about it.DARIEN FENTON: I am very sorry Mr Lees-Galloway but I am sure you can talk just as eloquently as I can and there is plenty more in Part 1 for us to dwell on. This is a very interesting part because what it does is regulate alcohol consumption by seafarers which is fine and we support that. There is a very very long new part in this bill with clause after clause page after page about regulating alcohol consumption by seafarers. But the interesting thing for us and the thing that has had this side of the Chamber fascinated is that we can pass this legislation albeit somewhat belatedly which has the regulation of alcohol consumption by seafarers but we cannot pass regulation or legislation that regulates alcohol consumption by motor vehicle drivers.The Government has mucked around with that as well because again some time ago that issue of reducing the blood-alcohol content was discussed and was brought to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It was discussed there. It is some time now—I believe it is something like 3 years—since the Government told us that it needed to do research and that it could not reduce the blood-alcohol level because it needed to do research on it. We were told then that it would take 2 years. Where is the research? Where is the research? No answer. Do not know. Interesting.Sue Moroney: There is none.DARIEN FENTON: Oh there is none. It has kicked it for touch. It is not bothering with that. But here the Government can in this legislation regulate in a very very comprehensive way the proportion of alcohol in a seafarer’s breath have evidential breath tests and make sure it does not exceed 250 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. I know that my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway will have a lot to say about this because I believe that he took over a member’s bill on this very issue in relation to people driving on our roads. It is still—Iain Lees-Galloway: Still in the ballot.DARIEN FENTON: —in the ballot. It is still waiting for the Government to wake up and realise that this is a very very easy thing for it to do. It would save lives on theroad if the Government supported Iain Lees-Galloway’s member’s bill to reduce the blood-alcohol limit for people driving cars.As I said there is a lot in this part Mr Chairperson and I know that you will be very indulgent in allowing us to pursue this. I just wanted to touch on one issue that was of great interest to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which heard from regional councils. That was the issue of harbour masters. Harbour masters may be appointed by regional councils but harbour masters are very hard to find. They have a very very highly skilled job. The powers in this bill under new section 33F inserted by clause 6 are extensive.Harbour masters have to be highly qualified. They have to be highly qualified to be able to: “enter and remain on any ship in waters within the region: (b) enter and remain on any maritime facility or on any land or property of a port company or a port operator within the region: (c) give directions regarding—(i) the time and manner in which ships may enter into depart from lie in or navigate waters within the region; (ii) the position mooring unmooring placing removing securing orunsecuring of ships: (iii) the manner in which ships may take in or discharge cargo; (iv) the manner in which cargo is secured or handled on a ship if there is a risk of cargo falling overboard or becoming a hazard to navigation: (d) direct the master of any ship to—(i) weigh anchor; or (ii) moor unmoor anchor secureunsecure place or move the ship: (e) cause a ship to be moored unmoored anchored secured unsecured … (f) cause any floating submerged or stranded object that the harbourmaster considers to be a hazard …” and on and on it goes. It also includes requiring “… any person appearing to be in charge of any ship or seaplane”—or seaplane so they have got authority over seaplanes—“to stop and to give his or her name and address:”. So they have extensive powers and I am hoping that I will get quite a lot more time to talk about that.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): This will be the first of many calls on this bill the Marine Legislation Bill and particularly on Part 2 which is where unfortunately the Government is introducing some very disturbing Supplementary Order Papers but that will come in due course. The overwhelming question on Part 1 of this bill has to be why it has taken so long. Why has it taken so long?New Zealand has not yet ratified theInternational Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage 2001 and that fact was driven home to us in a very unfortunate and a very environmentally destructive way with the grounding of theRena off the coast of Tauranga some years ago. That particular environmental disaster cost New Zealand taxpayers a lot of money and our ability to recoup that money from the vessel operators or vessel owners was limited by the fact that we had not yet ratified this international convention which would have lifted the liability cap that was in place in terms of what New Zealand could claim.Currently we are party to the 1976 convention but we have not yet ratified the updated convention. When theRena disaster happened of course the issue of the ratification of this bunker convention was a very hot issue. Labour had moved to put in place legislation that would allow the ratification of this convention by Order in Council. That work had stalled for whatever reason and sometimes you know it takes a huge wake-up call like theRena to make us realise that we need to apply a bit of pressure really make this a top priority and ratify that convention as quickly as possible.Well I do not think anyone’s definition of “urgency” would meet what has happened since theRena disaster occurred since the Government indicated that yes absolutely it was going to ratify that convention and it was going to make sure that that $50 million cost to the taxpayers would be mitigated in the future. The scales have fallen from the eyes; these disasters do unfortunately happen and something needs to be done about it.Well that was years ago and here we are 2013 finally in the Committee stage of a bill that will make the changes that will allow us to ratify that convention.The reason I am so surprised it has taken so long is that this is an absolute no-brainer. I look at the national interest analysis that was produced on theInternational Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage—thiswas back in 2009 I believe—when the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee conducted the international treaty examination of the convention. It lists the advantages and disadvantages to New Zealand of ratifying this convention. The advantages are: “a) Shipowners operating in New Zealand waters and their insurers have a clear responsibility to carry insurance and the certainty of limited liability … b) An insurance certificate scheme (already in operation in New Zealand) gives transparency to the insurance responsibilities of shipowners and their insurers … c) Any claims for economic loss or clean-up costs can be made either in New Zealand or in another jurisdiction ... and can be made against either the shipowner or the insurer ... This arrangement allows more adequate prompt and effective compensation. It also substantially increases the probability of a successful claim in the event of the shipowner going into receivership. d) Third parties suffering economic loss because of a release of bunker oil have a simpler and more certain remedy available.”—something I am sure the good people of Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty would have loved to have in place at the time that their own businesses were facing enormous risk and uncertainty because of theRena disaster—and lastly “e) Government and regulatory authorities suffering economic loss or facing clean-up costs because of a release of bunker oil have a simpler and more certain remedy available.” That was the advice given to the Government about the advantages of entering into this particular convention. So what were the disadvantages? “There are no significant disadvantages”.So here we have a convention that provides enormous advantages and with the benefit of hindsight the people of Tauranga the businesses of Tauranga the communities of Tauranga and the rest of the Bay of Plenty who were affected by theRena disaster know they would have had a transparent recourse to address their economic loss. The liability cap for what the Government could claim back would have been lifted and the process that would have been in place would have been far simpler and it would have been faster. There would have been requirements on the vessel operators to actually have proper insurance in place. It would have been clear that if the vessel was not flagged in New Zealand we could still chase that compensation not just in New Zealand but in the courts in other jurisdictions.All these things lead us to ask the question as to why it has taken so long when there are no significant disadvantages and when we have seen what happens when something goes wrong. Heavy fuel oil is just about the most disgusting kind of oil that you could possibly put into the water. It is very viscous. It is environmentally very toxic. It is nasty nasty stuff. So we are talking big big bikkies when it comes to cleaning this up—really big dollars. We saw that with theRena. So it is good that this legislation is finally finally passing through but this could have been passed very quickly I suspect with the support of all parties across the House. It could have been put in place far sooner rather than dragging it out so that we can have an excuse to have a piece of legislation to which we add dreadful Supplementary Order Papers that restrict the rights of New Zealanders to have a say in consenting processes because that is what we are going to be doing in this Committee part—Hon Amy Adams: Part 2.MOANA MACKEY: I know it is in Part 2. I am glad the Minister agrees with my assessment of what is about to happen in Part 2. That is in Part 2 of the bill and this isbeing dragged out so that we can add these Supplementary Order Papers into the next part of the bill when in fact this should be going through very very quickly indeed.I remember going to public meetings in the Bay of Plenty during the 2011 election campaign when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was the Minister in charge of this particular area. He promised a packed meeting inWhakatāne that everything would be done to ensure that we were not put in this position again. He promised that everything would be done to ensure it would not be the taxpayers who would be fronting up and that local business owners and communities would have some kind of recourse. He promised there would not be any kind of out when companies go into receivership or when they are based in other jurisdictions. He said the Government was going to tighten down on this; that yes this should have been ratified earlier; and that no one could have foreseen what was going to happen. He said the Government had learnt from its mistake learnt from this experience and that it was going to do something about it.It has been 2 years and nothing has happened—2 years when this could have happened again 2 years when the risk to the environment and the risk to our economy which relies on our natural environment could have put us in the same situation. I look forward to hearing from Government members as to why this has not been made more of a priority why this bill has been delayed in its passage through the House and why there was not more of an effort to look around the House for a cross-party consensus to get this done as quickly as possible in order to limit the liability of New Zealand taxpayers when a foreign-owned vessel whether it be its fault or not causes oil to be released into the environment—and of course one of the qualities of this international convention is that that is not part of the discussion. If something goes wrong and the oil ends up in the water then New Zealand taxpayers will be protected regardless of liability on the part of the vessel operator or owner.I look forward to taking more calls particularly in the next part but I do look forward to an explanation from the Government as to why this issue which in the 2011 election campaign was going to be an issue of overriding importance and urgency has since gone completely off the boil and why this legislation has been delayed while we have passed legislation that is far less important and far less urgent than this legislation. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation on that.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair.Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is a privilege to rise and take a call on Part 1 of the Marine Legislation Bill in front of this Committee. First up I would like to thank all of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members and the submitters. In Part 1 I am going to take a pretty short call. It is Part 2 that I am very interested in exploring in depth. Part 1 is pretty non-controversial. All it does is some port and harbour navigational safety upgrades and it is acceding to some international conventions and clarifying some miscellaneous amendments. It is the implementing of those international conventions contained in Part 1 that is the substance of my call.TheRena catastrophe almost 2 years ago was a wake-up call for New Zealand. It should have been a wake-up call for the Government but it is clear that the lessons of theRena still are not being learnt by this Government. What we know from theRena catastrophe is that the New Zealand taxpayer had to come to the party to the tune of tens of millions of dollars more than $100 million because successive Governments had not signed up to conventions or updated our legislation to protect the taxpayer. I think it is a shame. This money could have been spent on better things like breakfast for kids in schools supporting Kiwi businesses or creating jobs. I point to the Labour Party of course as those in glass houses should not be throwing stones. What we know from the Labour Government is that like the National Government it dragged its heels. It did notsign up to and ratify these conventions despite successive Governments signalling internationally that they wanted to.There are three international conventions on the subject on the floor of Parliament today. Firstly there is the Protocol to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1996 or the LLMC. All this does is update the limit for liability when ships have accidents at sea from $11.2 million to $27 million. Hopefully an Australian proposal to extend that further will gain international traction. Again we know that theRenawas I think the third most expensive maritime disaster this century possibly of all time. Still it was much much greater than the $27 million maximum cap under the Protocol to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. Secondly you have got the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage and then lastly the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances other than Oil which extends powers in the Maritime Transport Act. They are three common-sense legislative upgrades ratifying international treaties that all parties in Parliament support. I agree with the Labour Party. We should have done this years ago and the taxpayer would not be in hock for tens of millions of dollars with theRena.Likewise what we should have seen is the maximum corporate rate under the Resource Management Act upgraded. The maximum penalty is only $600000 and the Government is not taking the opportunity in this legislation or further legislative actions to actually upgrade that. $600000 is laughable when we have seen the taxpayer having to pay tens of millions of dollars. While we were at it—protecting our Kiwi environment and protecting the taxpayer—we could have been upgrading our oil spill response capability. We could have been building up the Oil Pollution Fund. We could have been listening to business in union and purchasing a rapid response multi-purpose vessel. We could have had a truly independent inquiry into theRena not a stitch-up from the Government benches—getting the Prime Minister’s mate to do an in-house job which I am sure is just going to find that everything was hunky-dory. But what we know from theRena was that it is a case study in how not to deal with a spill how not to communicate with the public and how to alienate the public when it comes to volunteers who are going down to the beaches and picking up the oil blobs themselves because there was no one from Maritime New Zealand to tell them what to do.This Government fails to learn the lessons to protect the environment or protect the taxpayer. All in all the Greens will be supporting the measures in Part 1 but we should have learnt these lessons an awful long time ago.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Part 1 of the Marine Legislation Bill makes a number of amendments to the Maritime Transport Act 1994. It amends the Maritime Transport Act “to provide for local regulation of maritime safety and maritime-related activities by regional councils; to regulate alcohol consumption by seafarers; to implement four international maritime conventions; to create offences and prescribe penalties for the improper operation of ships; and to make other miscellaneous changes.”The bill does indeed implement a number of conventions—four conventions in fact. The Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims is currently only partially applied in New Zealand meaning that maritime liability is half what it could be for loss of life injury property damage or other damage or loss. This bill enacts the convention fully and gives it the full force of law. The International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage 2001 is fully implemented in this bill as well. It sets up a separate liability regime for fuel oil pollution meaning claims would not be limited by the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. The International Convention Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of OilPollution Casualties 1969 has a protocol that includes substances beyond those that New Zealand law currently applies to so the bill extends coverage to the substances in the protocol.These are all good important moves that we have been waiting waiting waiting for the Government to pay attention to. I take the point that the Green member Gareth Hughes made that Labour was certainly in Government when these conventions were brought before New Zealand and were considered by the New Zealand Parliament but the select committee that considered them and the select committee that was tasked with making recommendations to the Government came back to the Government of the day in mid-2008. Shortly after that we had an election. Unfortunately Labour was no longer in Government after that election but the recommendation was there. All the work had been done. It was simply for the incoming National Government to pick up all the work that had been done by the previous Labour Government and the parliamentary select committee and implement it. It was as simple as that. That is all it needed to do.Gerry Brownlee Leader of the House simply had to say: “This is a priority for our Government and we will push this legislation through.” and it could have been done. It would have been done a long time before 2.20 a.m. on Wednesday 5 October 2011 when theRena ran aground on to the Astrolabe Reef carrying 1368 containers eight of which contained hazardous material as well as 1700 tonnes of heavy fuel and 200 tonnes of marine diesel fuel. That was the moment when suddenly this bill became of interest to the National Government.It could have seen to it before then. It could have saved this country millions of dollars—millions of dollars—that could have been spent on far more important things. It could have been spent on schools. It could have been spent on feeding kids. It could have been spent on health care. It could have been spent on all number of things. Maybe a few projects to get New Zealanders into work—that might have been a good use of those millions of dollars. But no it was spent cleaning up a mess that was really of the Government’s own making. I am not saying that those members drove theRena on to the Astrolabe Reef but they were negligent in their—Darien Fenton: It had a little bit to do with their deregulation of coastal shipping though didn’t it?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Sorry?Darien Fenton: It had a little bit to do with their deregulation of coastal shipping.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It did have a bit to do with the Government’s deregulation of coastal shipping as Darien Fenton points out but what it specifically has to do with is the fact that it did not make adopting those conventions a priority when all the work had been done. The Government simply needed to pass the legislation and it just was not important to those members. It just was not important to them. They have got no forethought whatsoever. They could not see the possibility of a disaster like theRena occurring.The other thing that Part 1 deals with is of course the breath- and blood-alcohol limit for seafarers. What it does is it adopts the international best practice of having a blood-alcohol limit of 0.05 or 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legislation adopts that number—the 0.05 number—because that is what all the international evidence tells us is the right level below which people are able to operate machinery or ships or motor vehicles and above which is inappropriate for people to be operating machinery or a seagoing vessel or indeed a motor vehicle.It is curious—at the very least it is curious—that the Government is happy to adopt the 0.05 limit at sea but it is not prepared to adopt the 0.05 limit for road-going vehicles. I heard an interjection from Mike Sabin who said: “Oh if you got run into by an oil tanker that would be a lot worse than getting run into by a car.” Well I say this to MikeSabin who is a former police officer and who I am sure has attended as a former police officer a number of road incidents where there have been deaths and injuries. I am sure that that member has seen firsthand the results of people being involved in motor vehicle accidents where alcohol has been involved. I refer him to this: as of today 24 September to date this year 184 people have died on our roads in 173 incidents. The fact that it has happened slowly one day after the next in 173 separate incidents does not make it any less of a tragedy than if it had happened in one incident involving a seagoing vessel.But do you know what—and the member opposite might want to consider this—Mike Sabin: Apples and oranges Mr Lees-Galloway.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No it is not apples and oranges Mike Sabin. That is exactly the point because actually—do members want to know what the officials think to do—Mike Sabin: So being behind the wheel of an oil tanker is the same as being behind the wheel of a Suzuki Swift is it?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No Mike Sabin just wants to be quiet for a second and listen to the official advice about this. Mike Sabin should know that the official estimate is that 80 vessels will be affected by this change and that on average there are around 10 incidents a year where this law change will be effective—10 incidents a year where at sea seafarers have been found to be over the limit and an incident has resulted. I compare that with the 173 incidents so far on our roads this year—we are in only September. So the member might want to think about that. He is someone who has seen firsthand what happens when someone gets drunk and gets behind the wheel of a car. He should think about why his party the party he is a member of refuses to do not only what the evidence tells us is the right thing to do but also what the public is telling us is the right thing to do which is to reduce the alcohol limit.Mike Sabin: How many people between 0.05 and 0.08 Mr Lees-Galloway?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Mike Sabin raises an interesting point. This is the red herring. Mike Sabin asks how many people were between levels 0.05 and 0.08 but he knows because I bet he has read the literature on this that reducing the blood-alcohol limit actually reduces the number of incidents of people who are heavily intoxicated getting behind the wheel. That is a fact. That is a scientifically proven evidence-based fact. Mike Sabin knows it and yet he continues to pursue the red herring of asking: “Oh how many people between 0.05 and 0.08?”. Reducing the blood-alcohol limit for driving would reduce the number of seriously intoxicated people getting behind the wheel. So that—Mike Sabin: Tell us what the member thinks about drugs and driving. What does the member think about drugs and driving?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: He wants to know what I think about drugs and driving. You should not use drugs and get behind the wheel of a car and if you do the penalties should be heavy and the law should come—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —and if someone does get behind the wheel of a car under the influence of any substance the penalties should be severe for that person. Mr Sabin knows that and he is being disingenuous.This legislation is not only late it is not only behind—way way way behind—schedule and it has not only wasted this country millions of dollars but it shows up this Government’s hypocrisy.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): Not that I wish to be critical of Mr Iain Lees-Galloway—and congratulations to him on his new position—and far be it from me to be critical but I thought that his speech on the Marine Legislation Bill was losing just alittle momentum and was getting a bit sort of personalised. This I think is a strong and sensible piece of legislation that will work well. It will work well. It was I must say one of the more interesting bills that we have had through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It is a substantial piece of legislation in its scope and reach and being an omnibus bill it embraces a whole range of legislative detail.The submissions that came forward especially those affecting Part 1 of the bill were from a blend of local authorities and mercantile marine interests all of whom I think are to be complimented on the sincerity and the depth of knowledge that they displayed in their submissions. They are experts in their subjects and they put forward a lot of practical information from a user point of view that was useful to the committee’s consideration especially I might say on this business of alcohol consumption. These are people who know their stuff. It is not that Mr Lees-Galloway does not know his stuff but these were the guys who made the submissions and I found them to be very substantial.The significance of the bill is one of economic and environmental importance. These two elements go hand in hand in a successful society albeit that the Greens would like to chop them apart. I think that this Government can be justifiably proud of the progress New Zealand is making through its reforms. The reforms that are included in this bill provide enhanced environmental effects management—we will come to that in Part 2—greater certainty and reduced compliance costs for industry increased efficiency from avoiding the duplication of processes and the opportunity for improved public and iwi participation. This highlights the National Government’s commitment to build a more competitive and productive economy.In terms of Part 1 there are a number of key achievements in the maritime transport sector that this bill brings about. It addresses gaps in the current legislation it aligns regional and national interests and it sets penalties for offences within its scope that are consistent with other comparable offending. This includes penalties for overloading ships failing to comply with internationally recognised alcohol limits and knowingly breaching requirements for the carriage of dangerous goods. This bill has provided for conducting a value-for-money review with Maritime New Zealand to improve the services and reduce the cost.This is not something that has just been dreamt up; it is a tested well-discussed series of changes. It has developed the qualifications and operational limits framework ensuring the safety of vessels their crew passengers and cargo. One has only to dwell briefly on some of the tragedies that we read about rust buckets being used in overseas countries that do not have this sort of legislation and the dreadful deaths that result from that. Published port productivity data will improve the flow of exports through our ports—and may I just mention at this point how nice it is to hear that Lyttelton Port has had a tremendous acceleration in exports over the last year. This bill has made changes to the maritime rules around fishing boats which will improve safety lift compliance and better meet the needs of the industry. I would like to commend this bill to the Committee.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak to Part 1 of the Marine Legislation Bill currently under discussion. Previous speakers on this side of the Chamber have traversed some of the issues that have exercised me about this particular part namely the delay in this bill coming to the House so I will not traverse that again unduly. But similarly my colleague Moana Mackey also raised the issue about the bunker convention and the protocol surrounding that and why that had not been pursued with more rapidity by this Government. Other colleagues have talked about the completely indefensible difference around blood-alcohol limits for those in charge ofvessels at sea vis-à-vis people in charge of a motor vehicle on land so I do not need to go over those things again.But there are two things I want to talk about. One is clause 62 inserting new Part 26A “Civil liability for pollution of marine environment from marine structures”. The other thing I wish to talk about is the reference in the national interest analysis to the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances other than Oil—and this is the intervention protocol. This is included in the material that is in front of us today for consideration. One of the things that has emerged from the dreadful incident that was the wrecking of theRena—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Whoever has the radio on it is not permitted. [Interruption] Well it is no different from the telephone. If it is in the Chamber it should be switched off. This is a debating chamber.Hon MARYAN STREET: Before I was rudely interrupted I was talking about the intervention protocol. The thing that is emerging from the wreck of theRena on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga is that although the oil was the thing that was immediately obvious and did immediate damage to the environment and there was a great deal of effort put into the cleaning up of the oil discharge from the vessel into the water what is emerging now is that there is ongoing environmental damage from substances other than oil and from structures—marine structures which are defined in the bill. It appears that the cargo on board theRena and various containers full of material are still leaking into the water around the Astrolabe Reef and that the vessel itself the bit that is remaining of the vessel itself is a hazard. There is damage that is being done to the environment by things other than the oil that originally came out of that tragedy. So I am pleased to see belated though it may be that there is some consideration of civil liability for pollution of the marine environment from marine structures which means “an offshore installation a pipeline … [a] facility site structure or thing used to transfer a harmful substance to or from a ship or an offshore installation”. That is going to be covered and the civil liability for pollution from those things is to be covered under this bill.I want to go in particular to the Protocol Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Pollution by Substances other than Oil which is the intervention protocol. As I understand it and somebody could correct me if I am wrong about this this was one of the things that were considered by the former Labour Government in its preparation of a number of conventions that needed updating and ratification in this area and it was included in the select committee material that has resulted in this piece of legislation—well the legislation that was debated at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The select committee report at that time in 2008 as we know did recommend that the Government take action and ratify these various protocols.As my colleague Moana Mackey did I would like to draw attention to the national interest analysis which talks about the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in such treaty action. Again it is a call to the Government about why it did not see fit to exercise its Government privilege in respect of this matter before now. Why did it take so long? Under “Advantages of treaty action” in respect of the intervention protocol it says in this analysis: “The Intervention Protocol is an important element in the IMO marine protection regime of which New Zealand is a committed supporter. The advantages to New Zealand of ratifying the Protocol are: [it] affirms New Zealand’s right to take such measures on the high seas as may be necessary to prevent mitigate or eliminate danger to its coastline or related interests from HNS pollution following a maritime casualty; and ratifying [it] would maintain New Zealand’s good international standing and interests as a member of the IMO council.” It then goes on to talk about the disadvantages of treaty action and says that there are not any. But it goes furtherthan that and says that these are the disadvantages of not taking treaty action: “Given [our] role as a member of the IMO a decision not to ratify the Protocol may undermine New Zealand’s stated intention to be a good international citizen.”There is no excuse for the delay in this legislation. The fact that the Government has been catapulted into action by a disaster only serves to underscore the fact that it has been lacking in conscientiousness about our duties and about the protection of the Crown by making sure civil liability provisions are in place and by protecting the environment around New Zealand. That delay is inexplicable indefensible and is right in everybody’s face in the wake of this disaster. Thank you.Dr CAM CALDER (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I first of all congratulate you Mr Chairman on the extraordinary talent you display in chairing the Committee stage of the House—in particular most recently the calls you have just made. I am really pleased to be able to speak on this legislation the Marine Legislation Bill. It is a piece of legislation we support. It has made some progress over recent times but the question that is on the lips of every single member on this side of the Chamber is why it took so long. What on earth has this Government been doing? How does it see its priorities? And where is its vision for the country? None of it is evident in either the words the Government members speak or the contributions they make.One of the better ones came from Chris Auchinvole the member of Parliament who lives on the West Coast. I just want to pick up on a very good point that he made in commending the Lyttelton Port Co. That port company happens to be in my electorate. It is at the centre of my electorate.Dr Megan Woods: Oh!Hon RUTH DYSON: It should not come as a surprise to the honourable member for Wigram because she is right next door and gains a lot of the benefits from our port. I just want to say that the workforce in the port company the management and all those who are involved through contracting at the port company have been through a really really hard 3 years. They have had a hard time in their work environment. The wharves are extraordinarily badly damaged in Lyttelton. The home of the Lyttelton Port Co. itself has recently been red-stickered so all the workers had to move out into the city into temporary accommodation in Woolston which is another fine suburb right alongside Lyttelton. The workforce is now separated. Some of them are on the port and some of them are at the city depot in Woolston and it is pretty hard on them.Of course in addition to that many of those people who work on the wharf and those in senior management positions have had big impacts on their homes. They have had their homes damaged or destroyed. Many of them have children who are attending schools that are now going to be merged or closed. In the middle of all that the port company has not only kept operating but improved its efficiency its productivity and actually its profit. So I think that is a real commendation to the workers there.Lyttelton Port is very fortunate in that we have not had the sort of shipping disaster that landed us in the difficulty that the Government saw after theRena disaster. We are very fortunate not to have had that incident theRena disaster in our own port in Canterbury.If the Government had taken the international conventions that this legislation ratifies if the Government had listened to the words of the previous Labour Government when we went out in 2008 and had listened to the recommendation of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee from towards the end of 2008 the Government would have realised that this bill was urgent and needed passing with some urgency. I do not know who the Minister of Transport was. It might have been the Hon Steven Joyce the person who features as the key character in that very very commonhash tag now “Come home Steven.” Since the Minister arrived in San Francisco we have not seen one victory for Emirates Team New Zealand. It is an amazing coincidence. So everyone use that hash tag “Come home Steven”. We are all very keen on him getting home.The Hon Steven Joyce was the Minister in charge of transport at the time and seemed to think this was not a big deal at all. He just put it on the back-burner. It was a very critical issue for us to progress. It had been recommended by a select committee—unanimously I think—and had been the intention of the Labour Government. I think the Hon Phil Goff actually had a bill that dealt with this very issue when he was a Minister. Had he stayed a Minister it would have been dealt with promptly and rigorously—I know that for sure. But it was not. It got put on the back-burner.Then we ended up with theRena disaster. People might be asking what the connection is between this legislation and theRena. Well the connection is that under our previous legislation there was nobody responsible for paying the bill incurred by theRena and that bill was significant. That was a very very big bill for a huge amount of damage incurred as a result of that ship crashing and sinking. The Government went into negotiations with the owners of theRena and has come up with quite a lot of money prised out of them as a result. But hours and hours and hours—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The Hon Ruth Dyson.Hon RUTH DYSON: As I did with your predecessor in the Chair may I commend you for the talent you have exhibited in your choice of speaker on this legislation. The Government put in a lot of effort and a lot of energy which cost us a lot of money because we were paying for very competent negotiators to try to get some money out of the owners of theRena. It is a good thing that it did that but had this legislation been passed we would not have needed to go through that negotiation process. We would have saved the taxpayer a lot of money because the liability would have been obvious in the law. Instead we end up short-changed because the negotiations competent though they were certainly did not get all the money that should have been paid by the owners of theRena. Secondly the taxpayer had to fork out a whole lot of money and instead spend our Parliament’s money if you like on the negotiators—money that we would have preferred to put into the failing health or education systems. It is solely due to the fact that the Minister—“Come home Steven.”—did not consider this a priority. Well frankly I think the Minister got it wrong. Unfortunately the taxpayers of New Zealand have paid big time as a result. When theRena first crashed the liability was just over $11 million only—clearly a drop in the harbour compared with what the actual liability was. The Government managed to get just over $27.5 million out of the owners but still nowhere near the contribution that should have been made.The final point I want to make is that this bill is amending once again the Government’s very weak exclusive economic zone legislation.Chris Auchinvole: Part 2.Hon RUTH DYSON: That legislation was meant to be set up to protect the environment. There are many qualified people both inside and outside the House who have said that it does very little to amend that legislation at all. I know that the member is keen to take another call on this part but he should just restrain himself. I know that this Marine Legislation Bill is very interesting but he has got plenty of opportunity to take a call.As I said at the beginning Labour supports this legislation. It does make progress but it is a huge puzzle as to why—despite the recommendation of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the then Labour-led Government of 2008 to progress this with some urgency—this matter was put on the back-burner and as aresult the taxpayer has to pay. That is the responsibility or irresponsibility of the Minister of Transport and the Minister for the Environment should have had a say as well. I think it is a shame that we have ended up in this situation as a result.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I will take just a very short call on Part 1 of the Marine Legislation Bill which amends the Maritime Transport Act 1994. As has been echoed throughout the Chamber the initial stages of its progress through the House—indeed the progress of the whole bill—have not been too controversial. There was unanimous support at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the bill was reported with no dissent from the recommendation that the bill be passed with amendments.But since then the Minister in charge the Minister of Transport has seen fit to bring in further amendments and the amendments affecting this Part 1 are contained on Supplementary Order Paper 360. Some of those amendments are quite detailed and quite technical comprising some 10 pages of changes. The date on that Supplementary Order Paper is today’s date—Tuesday 24 September 2013. It amazes me that once again this Government expects that these changes can be adequately scrutinised in the course of a few short hours. The changes on Supplementary Order Paper 360 that give me cause to worry are those that relate to the ownership of ships and the clauses that relate to the bunker oil certificates of insurance. I would like to hear from the Minister on the late changes.As we all know if this had been legislated for a while before now the disastrous impact of theRena and its financial costs could have been averted. Now we are in the ridiculous situation where a smallhapū—and there are something like only 50 people of thathapū living onMōtītī Island—are now fighting for justice and fighting for a promise that this Government made about removing theRena and cleaning up the oil. Here they are a smallhapū fighting for all of New Zealand—through the courts now—against an outfit the owners of theRena who are international polluters and who have resources of over $2.4 billion. And who but the smallhapū onMōtītī Island is fighting for New Zealand?I would say to all New Zealanders: remember the vacant promises of this National Government when it said even a week before the election that all the oil had been cleaned up. It was front-page news. There it was saying that it had all been cleaned up. On the weekend I managed to get out for a surf and I saw surfers still coming in with splotches of oil on their surfboards. You know some things are just not good enough. Vacant promises made by that Government are certainly not serving New Zealand.I just want to say that I support this bill. It should have been done a long time ago and I will not spend any more time on it. Thank you.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 360 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to Part 1 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to.Part 2 Amendments to Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): We move to Part 2 which is a debate on clauses 88 to 112 schedule 3 and proposed new schedule 4.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): It is with much disappointment that I rise to take a call on Part 2 of this Marine Legislation Bill—in particular with reference to Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. Once again we find the National Government removing the ability for New Zealanders to have their say on consenting processes surrounding oil and gas exploration. Once again it is watering down environmental protections. Once again it is not doing it through the regular process of this Parliament which would have seen a select committee process that would see debate and submissions on the particular amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper; rather it is dumping amendments into the Chamber during the Committee stage on a completely different piece of legislation. Part 2 actually amends the exclusive economic zone legislation that was passed last year. Here we have the marine legislation a piece of legislation that was actually primarily amending the Maritime Transport Act and what we find is that we are amending another piece of legislation to undo changes that we were promised at the time would not be made.What this Supplementary Order Paper does in clause 89 is take the three classifications of marine consents which are currently “permitted” “discretionary” and “prohibited”. “Permitted” means that it is allowed to happen and does not have to go through a big process. “Prohibited” obviously cannot happen at all so there is no process. And “discretionary” is where the bulk of the exclusive economic zone legislation detail lay because that is the process through which a company could apply to carry out an economic activity in the exclusive economic zone and the Environmental Protection Authority would run a marine consent process. We were critical of that process for a number of reasons when that bill went through Parliament not least of all being that there was no ability to appeal as there is under the Resource Management Act. There was only the ability to appeal on points of law not on points of substance. But at least there was a process within that exclusive economic zone legislation for the public for environmental organisations for geotechnical experts and for industry experts to have their say and their input into whether or not that marine consent should be granted.At the time there was a lot of public concern that the exclusive economic zone legislation was far weaker and far more permissive than the Resource Management Act. That Act applies out to 12 nautical miles and then beyond that the exclusive economic zone legislation governs all that activity. Labour raised serious questions as to why you would have two completely different regimes operating side by side and regulating exactly the same activity. The answer to that question as one of the submitters during the select committee process on the exclusive economic zone legislation told us was that it was deliberately more permissive because it was deliberately going to allow activities to go ahead that possibly would not have been consented under the Resource Management Act because of the risk factors involved when it comes to environmental protection.So there was deep concern about this particular piece of legislation. But whenever these concerns were raised the then Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley would reassure communities. He went toKaikōura and he reassured that community there because they are very concerned about the impact of oil and gas exploration on their whale watching tourism economic activities down there. They are very very concerned and Phil Heatley said to them: “I promise you that there will be a process within the marine consenting process where you can have your say on any application for oil and gas exploration in the exclusive economic zone.” That was a promise that the National Government made when that legislation was going through Parliament. That was the reason it gave for disregarding all the other concerns that were being raised about the legislation concerns about how permissive it was concerns about the lack ofenvironmental protection concerns about taking away appeal rights on points of substance—all these concerns were to be addressed by the fact that the public would be allowed to have their say through the consenting process. So here we are not a year later with an amendment that removes that right with an amendment that now says that we are not going to have just the categories of permitted discretionary and prohibited activities; we are going to introduce a new definition for a non-notified discretionary activity. This is a discretionary activity where the public will not get to have their say and the Minister has already indicated that oil and gas exploration for the drilling of exploratory wells is going to be a non-notified discretionary activity.Well the Gulf of Mexico disaster was not an exploratory well. This is not a low-risk activity as the Minister for the Environment has tried to claim. She said: “Oh it will happen over the course of about 6 weeks. You know it is fairly low-risk.” Well tell that to the people who had to deal with the Deepwater Horizon event in the Gulf of Mexico which was in an exploratory well and in one that was in shallower water than that of some of the applications that are currently being considered—much shallower water than the waters in much of the most recent block offer for 2014. The Minister’s response to that was then: “Oh well we write legislation for what should happen not what does happen.” Basically she is saying that nothing can ever go wrong so she is writing legislation on the basis that it will never go wrong and ignoring the fact that it does sometimes go wrong. On this side of the Chamber we think that actually the legislation and the regulation should be robust enough to ensure that all those protections are in place. A part of that is very very much that public input process. It is not just the public who input during that; it is geotechnical experts it is environmental experts it is people from the industry who are not currently connected but who want to have their say people who have experience in the oil and gas industry people who know a lot more than the collective wisdom of even this Parliament because of their own experiences. Why that is important is that there are real concerns around the Environmental Protection Authority’s ability to process these marine consents now completely void of any input from any outside experts or individuals or organisations. The authority does not have an investigative capability. It does not have that. So how is it going to be able to now make a crucial decision on whether or not this stuff should go ahead based on a complete lack of information from those who would be interested?We know this because when we sit on a select committee hardly ever do we get a piece of legislation that goes through without amendment after we have sat down and heard submissions. That is why the select committee process is such a good one. That is why it produces good law. We do not have the monopoly on all the information in our Parliament or in our select committee or even in the Environmental Protection Authority. We get an awful lot of benefit out of that process of having people come along and submit. I do not think there is a single member in this House who would say that the submissions on bills at the select committee do not add an awful lot to the legislation and the changes that are potentially then made before it comes back to the House.This change could have gone to a select committee because this decision to introduce a new non-notified discretionary classification was adopted by Cabinet on 25 February 2013 and this bill was reported back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on 27 February 2013—2 days later. So there is no reason why this could not have gone to a select committee. The Minister knew that this change was going to be made. Months of work would have led up to this finally going to Cabinet and being approved and all the while this legislation was sitting at the select committee and no one was told that this was coming. Again this is exactly what we saw with the changes to the Crown minerals bill where Minister Bridges held off his protest banSupplementary Order Paper from the select committee until we had reported back and then threw it into the Committee stage. This is exactly the same thing—exactly the same abuse of process happening again—in order to avoid the scrutiny that comes from a proper select committee process.The interesting link back to that protest ban in that Supplementary Order Paper on the Crown minerals legislation is that Minister Bridges could have instead amended this Act the Marine Transport Act to carry over the provisions that exist for dealing with dangerous or reckless activity at sea in our territorial waters out into the exclusive economic zone. So not only could he have done it under the Crown minerals bill and actually have given it to the select committee but he could have done it under this piece of legislation as well which actually governs that dangerous and reckless behaviour in our territorial waters except what we know now from the regulatory impact statement which was finally released once Treasury forced him to put it up on the website is that it was not about banning dangerous or reckless activity. It was about banning protesting—full stop.The Government does not want anything getting in the way of the only plan it has for regional economic development in this country. Here we are again greasing the wheels. Here we are again with another broken promise. National promised that the public would be able to have its say and here it is again taking it away in a Supplementary Order Paper on a completely different piece of legislation about which the Minister says: “Oh well we alerted people to it back in April.” Why was the select committee not told about it when she would have been doing the work on that Cabinet paper for the entire time that this bill was at the select committee over those months leading up to the reporting back on 27 February? The reason is that when it comes to watering down environmental protections when it comes to greasing the wheels for industry as much as possible and when it comes to shutting the general public out this National Government will stop at nothing.Dr CAM CALDER (National): It is an absolute delight to take a short call on this omnibus bill the Marine Legislation Bill. Part 1 as we have heard amends the Maritime Transport Act and Part 2 amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012. We as a Government are committed to building a more competitive and productive economy and this bill highlights our commitment to creating strong and sensible legislation that works. It aims to improve the clarity consistency and effectiveness of the Maritime Transport Act as we heard earlier and it will also provide more certainty around the laws involved as well as improving safety enforcement practices and environmental protection. We know that successful economic and environmental policy can and must go hand in hand. This is why we are putting in place policies to help local economies that rely on their ports and harbours and to ensure that our unique environment is protected.As we have heard the reforms will provide greater certainty and reduce compliance costs for industry increase efficiency by avoiding the duplication of processes enhance environmental effects management—this is dear to all our hearts—and of course provide the opportunity as we heard earlier for improved public and iwi participation. This is a decisive piece of legislation that highlights our commitment to building a more competitive and productive economy. We strongly believe that the natural environment is our greatest asset. That is why the bill places significant focus on addressing gaps in our current legislation and better aligning regional and national interests.I have made no secret in the past of being a “Naki” boy and I am proud of coming from “Taradise”—I am proud of coming from “Taradise”. I have grown up with the oil industry. From my earliest years I can remember a “nodding donkey” down onNgāmotu Beach which at one stage was the longest-producing oil well in the world—the longest-producing oil well in the world. As we would go there—we would go swimming occasionally—we would see oil actually coming up from the sand because it does that such is the richness of “Taradise”. That oil industry which is worth $2 billion—Chris Auchinvole: How much?Dr CAM CALDER: —$2 billion—to our country is the third or fourth leg of our economic prosperity and it coexists with an outstanding world-leading dairy industry and of course a wonderful tourism industry for those New Zealanders and world travellers who see the joy and delights to be found in that blessed province of Taranaki.Of course this would not be the case were it not for an incredible concentration by the major players in the industry on health security environmental and safety issues within the industry. That is why it gladdens my heart to see clause 90 in Part 2 which I understand the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in a unanimous display of good faith and good fellowship recommended be amended so that it could insert definitions related to the discharge of harmful substances and the dumping and incineration of waste and other matter at sea and insert a new definition of “mining activity” that would ensure that this term covered prospecting as well as other events so that the new definition of “mining discharge” would ensure that hydraulic fracturing—a very worthwhile technique used to improve the productivity of our fields there and used with due respect to the environment—would be subject to the legislation.So as a proud boy from “theNaki” and someone who is determined to see New Zealand achieve its best economic potential with due regard to the environment I commend this bill to the Committee.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair.Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on Part 2 of this bill the Marine Legislation Bill. I want to talk about two Supplementary Order Papers in particular—two amendments. The first is Supplementary Order Paper 347 which inserts new clause 102A. I do not want to bore anyone watching Parliament TV with a whole bunch of jargon. What this amendment does is it gives Kiwis no say when it comes to consenting exploratory wells in all of New Zealand’s deep water. Why? Because the Government does not want to give Kiwis a say. Why? Because it does not like what it will hear. The fact is that New Zealanders do not want the risk to our environment and economy from risky deep-sea drilling or risky exploratory drilling that they saw in the Gulf of Mexico from an exploratory well 1.5 kilometres down when we know we could see drilling twice as deep in New Zealand’s waters. They do not want to see that and that is why in this amendment the Government is shutting away their ability to have a say.It is embarrassing for the Minister of Transport to have to amend this bill. I mean this is legislation that Parliament passed last year legislation relating to a consenting regime in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. Here is the Government having to change it again only a year later and it is doing it through a back door. Instead of doing it through a normal select committee process where an amendment would have its due diligence from a New Zealand Bills of Rights Act vet this Government is introducing it through a back door through an amendment to take away Kiwis’ rights to discretionary exploratory drilling. It is just not on. It is the Kiwi way that we should have a say.It is deeply ironic that this Government in partnership withDulux is going to ask Kiwis what colour it should be painting Department of Conservation huts—of course inDulux paint—but not what they think about deep-sea exploratory drilling. This is an activity that could affect all of us. In the Gulf of Mexico we saw 600000 tonnes of oil enter the environment. It makes theRena look like a puddle. Three hundred tonnes had a huge impact on the taxpayer’s books on the local economy and on the local citizenryyet here we are looking at potentially 600000 tonnes of oil and the Government wants to do it without giving the public any sort of say.I would like to ask the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment what she is worried about and why she is scared about hearing from the people of New Zealand. I am curious as to why in the Minister’s explanatory note it says that “The amendment requires the Minister when recommending whether regulations should provide for a discretionary activity to be a non-notified activity to take into account the desirability of allowing the public to be heard …”. The desirability of allowing the public to be heard! I find this language incredible. It is anti - New Zealand it is anti our values and it should not be going through this back-door sneaky path.What we have seen of course is that this is a pattern of this Government particularly in the energy and resources sector. We saw the Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges in an embarrassing display of poor lawmaking having to amend the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We had the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill in front of this House. Now it is an Act and it saw the Anadarko amendment which took away Kiwis’ right to protest at sea an honourable Kiwi tradition. We are seeing a process of this Government circumventing normal legislative due diligence and good process and it is all for the outcome that is to support the oil industry and the extractive economy in New Zealand. It goes to the heart of the Government’s “drill it mine it frack it” approach to economic development. That is no economic strategy. There is no plan there is no innovation and there is no looking to the future. It is simply hoping that someone will find something and will not leave too much of a mess as they get it out and we will clip the ticket albeit with the fourth-lowest tax and royalty rates in the world for oil and gas.The Green Party has a clear position when it comes to deep-sea oil drilling. With our amendment we would rather see deep-sea exploratory drilling made a prohibited activity. That is what more than 99 percent of submitters to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee wanted—not this non-notified discretionary activity class but a prohibited activity. I hear the Labour Party talk about deep-sea drilling an awful amount but I still do not hear what its position is on this bill.Also in respect of Part 2 of the bill we have new Supplementary Order Paper 363 introduced by me. This amendment would enact the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and insert a new section 37(5) in clause 105 that would amend the exclusive economic zone legislation to simply make seabed mining in benthic protected areas prohibited. At the moment we have the inconsistent situation where bottom trawlers cannot trawl within 100 metres of the seabed and dredgers cannot dredge the seabed but we see mining companies granted permits by this Government to literally vacuum up the seabed in benthic protected areas. It makes a mockery of our marine protection laws to allow this. [Bell rung] Thank you Mr Chair. I will be very brief because I need to get to the Business Committee. My Supplementary Order Paper 363 simply means that benthic protected areas would actually be protected. I think that if you cannot trawl and you cannot dredge you should not be able to literally vacuum up the seabed. I think that most New Zealanders would agree with me.It is akin to the schedule 4 mining proposals about which New Zealanders stood up and said that some parts of our country are off limits. Some parts of our country have intrinsic value. In fact when you look at the economic opinion on it you see that we are stronger and more prosperous as a country by having protected areas on land. When it comes to the sea we have got only 0.4 percent—that is less than half of 1 percent—protected in marine protected areas. The Government should not be allowing mining of benthic protected areas.Again I would like to issue a challenge to the Labour Party. I would like to see it support my amendment. I do not think that the Labour Party stands for mining marine protected areas. I do not think that its members want to see the Labour Party voting for mining marine protected areas and they are seeing an inconsistent approach. So the challenge is that the votes will be cast and the Labour Party can make its opinion—it can cast its votes and make its choices its way—but let us hope that the Labour Party members send the Labour Party a clear message that when it comes to deep-sea drilling let us not just hear talk; let us see some walk as well. Let us see a strong position. When it comes to seabed mining let us not mine marine protected areas Labour. What we can see is a greater prosperity for all of our economy if we focus on that “clean green” brand.All in all what we see in the Minister’s amendment is a back-door way to take away Kiwis’ rights to have a say. That is deeply un - New Zealand and deeply disappointing and that is why the Green Party will be voting against that amendment. Kia ora.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I am going to take a short call just because I forgot to mention Supplementary Order Paper 363 on the Marine Legislation Bill from the Green member Gareth Hughes in my first speech.The first thing I will say is that it would have been nice if we had got the Supplementary Order Paper earlier than 10.30 p.m. this morning.Jacinda Ardern: A.m.MOANA MACKEY: Sorry 10.30 a.m. this morning. By that stage we had gone through our procedures process of determining how we would vote. We had a number of members including the two MPs for the Chatham Islands Rino Tirikatene and the Hon Annette King who wanted a little bit more time to consider it. We certainly think that there is a lot of merit in some of the concerns that have been raised. I know that it is an issue that has been raised with Maryan Street before but we did not feel that we could vote for a Supplementary Order Paper at such short notice when we had not given affected members of Parliament in our caucus—part of the Chatham Rise is included in this protect area—the opportunity to hear both sides of the debate and to decide No. 1 whether or not this Supplementary Order Paper was actually going to deliver what the Green member Gareth Hughes intends it to deliver and also whether there were not going to be any unintended consequences because this is an area where there is significant scientific debate. It is very interesting and I am very very sorry but I am afraid that 5 or 6 hours’ notice of a Supplementary Order Paper really is not enough for us in the Labour Party to feel that we have given it due consideration and have looked at the science and the evidence around that matter. So it is an issue that we are going to continue to consider as a caucus and we look forward to working with the Green Party further on that matter but it is not an issue that we can vote for today.I want to also address a question that the member Gareth Hughes raised about deep-sea drilling—I know that the Greens support a ban on deep-sea oil drilling—and the Labour Party position on this. My first question when someone says to me “Do you support a ban on deep-sea drilling?” is “What do you define as deep sea?”. I have sat through many many select committee considerations on many many technical bills and many many environmental bills and I do not want to sit in a select committee for 6 months arguing down to the nanometre about what constitutes deep sea and what does not only to then have enormous reviews about how it was measured especially when I think that it would be difficult around the science to pick where deep sea begins and shallow sea ends. What I want to see and what Labour wants to see is a robust regime throughout the entire marine environment. Depth is very much a risk factor. It is very much something that does need to be taken into consideration and conventional wisdom says that the further out you go and the deeper you get the more risky it is.That needs to be considered and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act which we are amending today is not adequate to provide that robust risk assessment analysis. It is not. It is woefully inadequate.So what we want to see is a regime that is consistent right throughout our marine environment and that considers all the variables that are taken into account when carrying out a risk assessment. In some cases yes depth is going to be the overriding risk factor. In other cases it may not be. I would hate for a focus on one risk factor to be to the detriment of others. There may be other things such as seismic activity ecological sensitivity and a whole range of issues that occur in shallow water as well that need to be taken into account and that under the exclusive economic zone legislation are not adequately being taken into account.Labour supports a robust regime where environmental protection is the bottom line no matter how deep the water is—no matter how deep the water is. There may be some projects in shallow water that should not go ahead because of the risk assessment around them but at the moment the problem we have is that we do not have confidence in that risk assessment process. We do not have confidence in the Environmental Protection Authority which does not have an investigative capability and yet which under an amendment being raised in Part 2 today is now going to be the sole decider of whether or not a marine consent for exploratory drilling goes ahead. It will be the sole decider because it is not going to have the benefit of the submission process that exists in the current economic exclusion zone legislation a submission process that the previous Minister of Energy and Resources Phil Heatley promised would remain in the legislation. That process has now gone so all that information and the benefit of that information that comes from experts from interested individuals from NGOs and from industry is now going to be non-notified. It is not going to happen and that is the issue that we have.So I certainly acknowledge the Greens’ concerns around these activities. I can say that although the exclusive economic zone legislation is woefully inadequate until we get a Labour Government that changes it we do not support that activity going ahead in the exclusive economic zone. It should not go ahead until we have adequate regulation in place that has environmental protection as its bottom line. We need to recognise that the line between our territorial waters and our exclusive economic zone is jurisdictional only. It has nothing to do with the environment. It has nothing to do with risk. It has nothing to do with anything other than that our territorial waters are within 12 nautical miles and beyond that we have the right to extract resources only because we are a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is not our territorial area. For a jurisdictional line we do not see the need to draw some kind of difference between the two regimes in legislation that operate on either side of that: the Resource Management Act for our territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone legislation for our exclusive economic zone. When that line is jurisdictional only it makes absolutely no sense particularly on a scientific basis to have two such differing regimes one of which we are further weakening today by removing the public’s right to have their say during the consent process for marine consents for exploratory drilling.I hope that provides some clarity to the Green Party. As I said it is with regret that we were unable really to have the time to give more consideration to the merits of Gareth Hughes’ Supplementary Order Paper. It is an issue we will be considering further but in future the more time we are given to consider a Supplementary Order Paper around such a serious area the better. In terms of good decision-making on behalf of the Labour Party we simply did not feel that we were given that opportunity. Thank you.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I rise to take a call on Part 2 of the Marine Legislation Bill. Part 2 amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012. As I observed in the debate on Part 1 of the bill for the initial stages of its progress through the House the bill was not too controversial. There was unanimous support for the first reading. In the debate at the time however I took a call and said that the support I voiced was with some reservations.In Part 2 we have Supplementary Order Paper 347 from the Minister Gerry Brownlee with amendments—a Supplementary Order Paper released in August well after the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee reported. The amendments in Supplementary Order Paper 347 have two significant problems. The first is the provision for emergency dumping—that is emergency dumping of waste at sea in the exclusive economic zone beyond the continental shelf. The second is the proposal to create a fourth category of activity the category of non-notified activities.Let us briefly peruse some of these: first the emergency dumping of waste or the so-called dumping of waste. What is the emergency dumping of waste and what could that waste be? What might it entail? Could it be fish? Could it be radioactive material? There is nothing as permanent as a temporary provision for a brief emergency and it certainly opens the gate to all sorts of dumping. With these provisions National is opening up our oceans to dumping.I turn to the new definition of “non-notified activity”. Up to now the exclusive economic zone has had three types of activities within that legislation—that is “permitted” which is things that can be done; “prohibited” which is things that cannot be done; and “discretionary” which is things that can be done in some circumstances. But now this Government is bringing in at the last minute a fourth category the “non-notified activity”. In Supplementary Order Paper 347 we learn that this is to be a discretionary activity that will not—not—be publicly notified. This has a certain stench about it.To fully understand we have to consider the Minister’s consultation document which reveals that only one category of activity is to be non-notified and that is the activity of exploratory offshore drilling. One immediately thinks of the disgusting despicable backyard deals that this Government is so proud of doing. Even at the moment with regard to theRena the smallhapū fromMōtītī Island are fighting for the complete removal of the wreck of theRena off Astrolabe Reef. This Government has done a dirty backyard deal that if theMōtītīhapū fail in getting theRena off the reef the Government gets $10.4 million. This Government has done a backyard deal against the people of New Zealand.Hon Maurice Williamson: What sort of a dirty deal? Like doing your family out of money? That sort of dirty deal?BRENDAN HORAN: There is Mr Williamson. Where was he? He was watching a test match I think when theRena grounded. He was too lazy to get down there and get the oil off theRena. But he is very happy to stand over there and make comments throw comments at me.Hon Maurice Williamson: I’m just asking what sort of a dirty deal we’re talking about here. Is it like taking money off your family or something?BRENDAN HORAN: Unbelievable. What this Government is doing is giving corporations a rubber stamp and saying: “Come over. Get a rubber stamp. Come to our oceans our moana obtain the rubber stamp off the National Government and not be subject to any public consultation or input.” What idiot in New Zealand would drill in 1500 to 3000 metres of water? What is our rapid oil response unit? Three 8-metre aluminium dinghies—three 8-metre aluminium dinghies. But this Government is completely willing to put our entire coastline at risk for a few dollars.It is interesting. We saw on TV the Prime Minister going to church when he has openly stated that he is an atheist. It is interesting that the Pope came out just yesterday and said how Governments’ love of money is destroying families and that is what is happening in New Zealand—this Government’s grubby love of money.David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member should stick to the bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member has strayed beyond Part 2 but his time has expired.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Marine Legislation Bill. I want to do two things. First of all I want to reiterate some of the points that my colleague Moana Mackey was talking about earlier in response to a call from the Green Party to find out just what Labour’s position is on deep-sea drilling. I keep wondering why those members keep asking because we keep saying it and they keep not hearing it. So I will say it again—I will say it again. When we talk about deep-sea drilling it is not clear from anybody’s definition what deep sea means. We have heard certainly those of us on our side of the Chamber Greenpeace for example say that deep-sea drilling is anything beyond about 200 metres. I would be happy to accept that as a definition because if we were to go in that direction its rationale for a depth of 200 metres is that that is the depth at which a human diver can go in order to repair any failure of equipment or any spill or any leakage from oil drilling equipment. But it begs the question about what the criteria are and what the science is that would determine what deep-sea drilling is. Surely the whole point should be about the protection of the environment. When we have clear criteria for the protection of the marine environment around this area then this Parliament could expect the Labour Party’s support. We do not have that and we need to consider those issues as a totality before we start sounding off about what we think deep-sea oil drilling is.What is very true is that the deeper one goes in offshore drilling the greater the pressure on those oil and gas deposits. When the rock holding down those oil deposits for example is pierced the oil emerges of its own volition. They do not have to pump it up to the surface because the pressure of the water is so great that it forces the oil up. This is what happened at a depth of 2700 metres in the Gulf of Mexico and that was the problem. It was too deep too risky and the pressure was so great that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil escaped and was responsible for the degradation of the environment that we have seen subsequently.We will have a look at offshore drilling and we will insist that criteria around offshore drilling are based on environmental protections not just 200 metres. What makes it better at 199 metres than it is at 201 metres? It all depends on the environment. It depends on the ecosystems. It depends on the benthic areas that are there. It depends on whether or not there are any benthic protection areas in that domain where the drilling is taking place. That is the first point.The second one I want to make is in relation to Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee. This Supplementary Order Paper replaces Supplementary Order Paper 340. It amends this legislation by making a number of changes to Part 2 of the bill. Some of them are simply technical amendments but primarily its purpose is to provide for some discretionary activities to be prescribed as non-notified activities for which an application for a marine consent is not publicly notifiable. Again we are seeing this Government do what it has done in other pieces of legislation coincidentally or not that relate to oil and gas exploration. Certainly in respect of oil and gas exploration the Government is much more lenient on oil and gas companies than on anybody else.To deprive the public of their right to have a say on whether or not exploratory drilling should happen off their shores is an affront to democracy. It is as simple as that. It is clear from this Government’s previous behaviour that that is how it intends to proceed. When that tricky little business of democratic participation gets in the way it will ride roughshod over it and it will find ways of writing out of the legislation any requirements for public consultation. That is what this amendment does. It is a travesty. There are people—including the Gisborne District Council committee which because of its own experience with the possibility of offshore drilling exploratory or otherwise is looking to oppose this particular provision—who want to have a say. It does not matter whether offshore drilling is something that is likely or unlikely to happen for those people; what they want is the ability to have their say. So how can any potentially adverse impacts on the environment be assessed if it is going to be up to only the Environmental Protection Authority to determine and to give permission for things when it does not have its own investigative capacity?One other thing that I just want to draw attention to in Supplementary Order Paper 347 is this Minister’s particular penchant for regulations that are so broad ranging as to be likely to be used to undermine the original purpose of the legislation. It says here in new section 29AB(2) inserted in clause 100 by Supplementary Order Paper 347: “The Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister make regulations that prescribe requirements methods or technical standards for emergency dumping of waste or other matter.” I use this one as an example because it is talking about the emergency dumping of waste which is a particular consideration but it will be the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister who makes the requirements and who makes the regulations that prescribe the requirements methods or technical standards. How is it the Minister’s responsibility to determine those regulations without any scrutiny from this Parliament? That is not appropriate.We know this Minister because of his track record with road-user charges and all sorts of other things. We know his track record and his protégé Simon Bridges’ track record in bringing in Supplementary Order Papers after select committee reports have been returned to the House and we know that they have no regard for anything other than the agenda to which they are committed—that is to drill and mine everything they can in order to get some economic improvement—because they lack imagination to do anything differently. That is at the heart of this. Even democracy gets in the way of any economic improvement that might be an alternative to drilling and mining. It is this lack of imagination and lack of a plan to modernise our economy that is going to be the death of this Government.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I am not sure that that member Maryan Street is well placed to be talking about the death of the Government given the bloodshed that has been occurring in the Labour caucus in recent times but there we go. That is certainly a party that is in the practice of throwing many stones within the glasshouse.I want to come to Supplementary Order Paper 347 and speak to that just briefly. I was not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee when this Marine Legislation Bill was passing through the select committee but I have been listening intently to some of the comments made in the debate on Part 1 which I would also like to contribute to just very briefly.It is fair to say that there is little contention about Part 1 or the need for this legislation. The Labour Party did advance with “Why is it taking so long? Why is it taking so long?”. There was a lot of hand-wringing and clenching of hands and fingers over that. The question I would have—Hon Maryan Street: We’re on Part 2 now Mike.MIKE SABIN: I know that we are on Part 2 but this is my first contribution Maryan Street so I would like to actually offer something a little more fulsome. It has been raised in Part 2 anyway as to why we have not done anything. The member Ruth Dyson raised that exact point. Although not uncommon with Labour Party members the ironic thing here is that they sat around for 3 years when they could have done something about this but they did not. They have been in the practice of pushing the hard things to one side and just dealing with the populist issues to help them get re-elected. Then when they go into Opposition—I give them credit; Labour is actually an effective Opposition party when its members are not cannibalising one another—they turn round and say: “Why isn’t that Government doing what we didn’t?”. The difference between this party and the Labour Party is that we get on and actually do what needs to be done. So the posturing over why this has taken so long needs to be put to bed right there because Labour had its chance and it did not take it. Then it comes into the Chamber and spends the last 3 years filibustering—Iain Lees-Galloway: I beg your pardon?MIKE SABIN: The member heard me.Iain Lees-Galloway: We’ve spent 3 years filibustering this bill have we?MIKE SABIN: I could try to spell it out but I would probably struggle with that one I think. I am not sure whether that word starts with an “f” or a “ph”. I am not sure but never mind. I could come to the member’s comments about alcohol limits but of course we are on Part 2. I will pick that up on another occasion—what I would think about what pilots are doing not just what people are doing in ships because they also have some concerns around alcohol.Supplementary Order Paper 347 deals with introducing a new definition of a non-notified discretionary activity. The Environmental Protection Authority will have a regulatory opportunity to keep the sort of oversight that is required essentially where exploration is occurring or where a narrower field of activities are going on. There is a distinctly different implication to exploratory activities or short-term or controlled activities from full-blown production. I think that is where members may be getting a little confused—when we look to manage and mitigate risk and get the balance right in terms of providing a pragmatic and effective legislative framework in which we can encourage activities with a balance towards ensuring environmental needs are taken care of. This is what this Supplementary Order Paper is actually dealing with. The members on the other side would have us think that this is Armageddon that this is a disgrace to democracy and what have you. Well what I would suggest is that it is not a case that every single initiative every single policy of Government is subject to the referendum sort of approach that we see from the Labour and Green members. It just so happens that they cherry-pick particular issues that they believe that is important for.It is quite clear that when we look at the restrictions that are put on and what this Supplementary Order Paper actually relates to they are quite controlled and risk-managed practices. Yes this Government makes no apology whatsoever for the fact that we want to look and explore the opportunities that this country has in terms of its mineral resources. We would be doing New Zealanders a great disservice were we not to do that. It is a matter of doing it in a fashion that ultimately gets the balance between the environmental needs and the consequences of things going wrong and having effective vehicles for us to make something of the opportunities that this country has to offer in terms of mineral exploration. So I have no problem with Supplementary Order Paper 347 and I would challenge the Opposition to actually deal with that issue.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora andngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I cannot just sit here and listen to this faux debate we hear from this side of Parliament as if 200 metres is the critical issue facing the question of deep-sea oil drilling in AotearoaNew Zealand. The depth of 200 metres which is what groups and the Greens define as deep-sea drilling is not the critical issue; the critical issue is protecting our beaches protecting our moana and protecting our economy from the threat of deep-sea drilling. But it is academic because what we know is that the permits this Government has offered including the recent 343000 square kilometres that it has opened up are considered ultra-deep in the oil academic literature. We can have a debate as to whether 200 metres is deep or shallow; the fact is that it is deep. Only advanced robotics and submersibles can maintain the rig or fix a spill if it happens at that depth. But the fact is that it is academic because what we are talking about in New Zealand is a different kettle of fish from what we have seen in Taranaki and what is considered in the literature as ultra-deep. It is extremely risky extremely complex and operating at the frontiers of technology geography and geology. It is something that we should not be putting at risk—our marine environment.What we see with Supplementary Order Paper 347 which introduces new clause 102A is a back-door no-say amendment that takes away Kiwis’ rights to have a say on discretionary activities. When you take the precedent which is the Resource Management Act then the public gets a say on discretionary activities if they have an impact greater than minor. The Government is asking Kiwis what colour they think the Department of Conservation huts should be painted. There are various consultations on various issues. But when it comes to consenting the most risky activity affecting our marine environment the Government through this back-door no-say amendment is taking away New Zealanders’ right to have a say.This is the critical issue: should New Zealanders have a say on the greatest environmental threat facing New Zealand? The Green Party is clear. We have a strong position. Deep-sea drilling should be prohibited. It is a different kettle of fish from what we have done in Taranaki where the deepest well is 125 metres. What we are talking about in New Zealand—say at 1.5 kilometres or deeper—is well casing that has to be specially strengthened or it will burst under its own pressure. We are talking at 1.5 kilometres down about a water temperature of 0.4 degrees or close to freezing yet the oil is coming out close to boiling. What we are talking about is operating at the extremes of technology and in hostile environments kilometres down.There are no guarantees with oil drilling. The Government is clear on that point. The industry is clear on that point.Obama’s presidential commission into Deepwater Horizon said that it is akin to nuclear power. Not every well is going to have an accident and blow up but when an accident occurs the consequences can be catastrophic. What we saw with theRena is that New Zealand does not have a response capability to deal with such a spill. Maritime New Zealand has adopted only 5500 tonnes as its response capability that it is planning for. The Deepwater Horizon was 600000 tonnes yet Maritime New Zealand is planning for only 5500 tonnes and it clearly struggled with only 300 tonnes from theRena. In the Gulf they had more than 1000 vessels working on that spill. In New Zealand Maritime New Zealand has three skimmers which are more akin to dinghies. In the Gulf they had more than 46000 people working on the spill. In New Zealand Maritime New Zealand has around 180 trained responders. In the Gulf it cost $40 billion. In New Zealand we cannot afford to deal with a spill. That is why New Zealanders need a say. That is why it is egregious that we are seeing this back-door amendment taking away New Zealanders’ right to have a say.When it comes to the permitting process New Zealanders already do not have a say. It is because of Green Party pressure that with the granting of permits our councils now get a say. I urge all the councils across New Zealand to have a say. The fact is that an oil spill is not going to recognise the 12 nautical mile jurisdictional limit. An oil spill would affect all of our councils and affect all of our public. It is good that last year theGovernment extended the consultation out to councils. Now it needs to extend it out to the public.This bill is a step backwards. We need to stop having a debate around whether Labour thinks 200 metres is the right limit or not. Let us have a debate around ultra-deep drilling which is happening to New Zealand this summer with Anadarko’s ship theNoble Bob Douglas coming to New Zealand—this summer—to drill our first deep-sea exploratory wells off our coasts. This is the critical issue and this is why I am proud to be a Green member because we are standing up for the clean economy we are standing up for the innovative economy and we are standing up for real jobs for New Zealanders not for a sector that is going to see environmental risks and profits flow offshore with the lowest job-producing potential of any sector in the Taranaki economy. This is our future.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 347 in his name to Part 2 be agreed to:add to clause 102A the following subclause:In the heading to section 33 after “regulations” insert “under section 27”;insert the following new clause:102BSection 34 amended (Information principles)In section 34(1) replace “section 27” with “sections 27 29A and 29AB.”; andinsert in clause 107D(2) after new section 99(5)(c) the following paragraph:(ca)section 149RA(1) and (2) (which allows the board to makeminor corrections to board decisions and resource consents):.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments to the amendments be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes53New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14;Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Amendments to the amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee the amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 360 in his name and the following amendment in his name to Part 2 be agreed to.in new section 164A  in clause 111 replace “commencement of this Act” with “commencement of this section”.Amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 363 in the name of Gareth Hughes to Part 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed toAyes16Green Party 14; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes105New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7;Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 2 as amended be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes53New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14;Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Schedule 1agreed to.Schedule 2The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 360 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to schedule 2 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.New schedule 2AThe question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 360 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to insert new schedule 2A be agreed to.New schedule 2A agreed to.Schedule 3The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee and the following amendment in his name to schedule 3 be agreed to.In Part 1 item relating to section 272(1)(e) new section 272(1)(e)(iv) insert after “section 29A” “or 29AB”.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes53New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14;Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Amendments agreed to.Schedule 3 as amended agreed to.New schedule 4The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 347 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to add new schedule 4 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes53New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14;Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.New schedule 4 agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2IAIN 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.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Let us call this Marine Legislation Bill what it is which is the “Anadarko Bill”. The fact is that we are seeing laws for and by the oil industry under this Government. In this part of the debate on clauses 1 and 2 in the Committee stage as we look at the title and commencement clauses it is a chance to actually speak a bit of truth to power and to ask what the rationale is and what the truth is behind this billThe fact is that this used to be a good bill. This used to be a common-sense bill that all parties in Parliament could support. Sure it was a bit late in signing up to some common-sense international conventions making some minor amendments to the Maritime Transport Act and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act but now the Government through this back-door no-sayamendment has changed it. It is now a bill about deep-sea oil drilling and that is why Kiwis are so incensed. So let us also call it what it is which is the “No-say Back-door Amendment Bill”. Let us call it what it is: the “Deep-sea Drilling Empowering Bill”.This used to be a good bill; now it is a bill that I think the public could legitimately say was the “What is the Government Scared of (Asking the Public) Amendment Bill” because the fact is that this bill is locking out the public from having a say on discretionary consents when it comes to exploratory deep-sea drilling. We are talking about drilling kilometres under the sea an incredibly risky activity. Now that the amendment has passed it means that this bill should be called the “Government is Scared of What the Public Will Think Bill”.We have seen this twice now in this Parliament where back-door amendments have seen the scope for New Zealanders to express themselves and to express their opinions taken away. We saw it with the Anadarko amendment to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Act which took away Kiwis’ right to protest. Of course what it is really doing is giving Kiwis a challenge because what that amendment Act said was: “Sure we and the oil industry are scared of protest. That is why we are going to legislate against it.” In fact it is a giant challenge to iwi and Kiwis to stand up and send those oil companies a message.Likewise with this amendment changing this bill and making it the “No-say Back-door Amendment Bill” for deep-sea oil drilling it is again giving Kiwis a challenge. The Government has sent them a very clear message: it does not want to hear what they think because it is scared of what the people of New Zealand will say. So the people of New Zealand need to say it loud they need to say it clear and they need to say it together: no deep-sea drilling in New Zealand’s waters; focus on clean energy—that is where our future is. Kia ora.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): Well I think given the debate that has happened in the Chamber today an appropriate title for this bill the Marine Legislation Bill might be the “Marine Legislation (Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse) Amendment Bill”. When the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act which this bill amends was passed through Parliament Labour was the only party that voted against it at every single reading. Then at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee other political parties realised just how dire the legislation was and that it was likely to be inconsistent with our commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; that it was woefully inadequate in terms of economic protection compared with the Resource Management Act which is the legislation that governs economic activity in our territorial waters; that we were removing the ability to appeal to the Environment Court on points of substance; and that basically it was a general greasing of the wheels for industry to make sure that projects that potentially would not have got through under the Resource Management Act process which is far more robust would get through under this very very permissive piece of legislation.When you consider that the line between our territorial waters and our exclusive economic zone is jurisdictional only—it is not based on any environmental factors any scientific analysis or any risk factors; it is just that within 12 nautical miles is our territorial waters and beyond it is not—you would have to question the sanity of having two such completely different regimes regulating exactly the same activity operating side by side separated by only an invisible jurisdictional line in the ocean. Well the Labour Party thinks that that is not sensible. We do not see the sense in introducing untested legal terms in the exclusive economic zone. We question why we could not have used the well-known language of the Resource Management Act which has 20 years of case law behind it and which provides certainty for regional councils certaintyfor industry and certainty for communities so that they know what they are dealing with and they know what these legal and environmental tests are. We said “Why can we not just use those terms—mirror them in the exclusive economic zone legislation?” and the answer is that again it was intended to be more permissive than the Resource Management Act and not intended to mirror the Resource Management Act.Labour raised concerns the entire way through the process. We were very disappointed. We made approaches to Minister Adams saying to her that no one in the country whether they be from industry or environmental NGOs wanted to see this kind of pendulum swinging of legislation between National and Labour Governments. We have seen it too often on crucial pieces of economic legislation like the emissions trading scheme and the Crown Minerals Act—and it was not just Labour; it was a meeting that we had with the Greens and New Zealand First. We said “Look we actually think that there is a lot we could lock down in common on this exclusive economic zone legislation. How about we try to do it? Find something that none of us are entirely happy with none of us are 100 percent happy with but we can all live with and then give that kind of assurance that stability that it is not going to change.” and we were rebuffed. That I think was very unfortunate.But the reason I think that this bill could be called the “Marine Legislation (Just When You Think It Couldn’t Get Any Worse) Amendment Bill” is that at that time we really did think that well this was pretty bad and that we were going to have to make changes to it. We signalled clearly what those changes were going to be. No one saw this coming down the pipeline. We were not told at the select committee. In fact at the select committee it was reinforced for us time and time again that all these concerns that had been raised about the legislation and all the concerns that were raised in submissions—all the concerns that were being raised by councils that were being raised by environmental NGOs that were being raised by technical experts and that were being raised by the general public—would be addressed through the marine consent process which allowed for public submissions. That is what we were told.Minister Phil Heatley the then Minister of Energy and Resources was inKaikōura where there was significant public concern about the block offer that was being pursued off the coast. Given their extensive whale-watching interests and given how important that particular industry is to the economy inKaikōura the people there asked Minister Heatley why this legislation was so weak. He said to them: “You will get to have your say through a public submission process when the application for a marine consent off the coast ofKaikōura is being considered.” That was the promise that the previous Minister of Energy and Resources made less than a year ago to the people ofKaikōura and then to the people of New Zealand.Well I do not know whether he did not read it properly or whether he was lying or whether he was—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You cannot say that.MOANA MACKEY: Sorry Mr Chair. I do not know whether he was being—Andrew Little: Wrong—he was wrong.MOANA MACKEY: —yes whether he was wrong—Meka Whaitiri: Misleading.MOANA MACKEY: —or whether he knew he was being misleading at the time or whether in fact someone had got in the ear of the new Minister of Energy and Resources and the Minister for the Environment since that legislation has been passed and said: “You know that pesky process where we actually have to listen to people who have concerns and who want to have their say? Or to experts who have not been engaged in the process so far who think that maybe when we are considering an application for an activity as controversial as offshore oil and gas exploration we shouldnot rely solely on industry data maybe we should not rely solely on industry research and maybe it is good to have a contestable process where people can challenge the science and challenge the data and challenge the facts that have been put through by the applicant—people who think maybe that might make for a better process that No. 1 could result in decisions being made based on all the information available not just the information from one side.That is particularly the case when you consider that the Environmental Protection Authority does not have an investigative capability in there and that it is very new in what it does and also the fact that when the Environmental Protection Authority legislation was going through this Parliament Labour put up an amendment to make environmental protection one of the purposes of the Environmental Protection Authority and the National Government voted it down. That leads us to have some concerns about whether the Environmental Protection Authority is actually about environmental protection or whether it is solely about economic development at any cost.On this side of the Chamber we see the value of a submission process. I do not think there is a member of this House who has sat on a select committee who does not see the value in that process. They accept that even in an organisation like the Environmental Protection Authority you are not going to have a monopoly on all knowledge. There are going to be factors that could be brought through a submission process. That is why very few pieces of legislation go to a select committee in this House and come back to Parliament unchanged. It is because we take on board the points that have been made and the comments that have been made and the same is true of a process that consents a very technical and controversial activity like offshore oil and gas exploration. To have that taken away not only undermines confidence in the legislation not only undermines confidence in the Government and not only undermines confidence in the process but also means that information that would have been put on the table in front of an agency that is brand new in front of an agency that does not have any investigative capability of its own is now no longer going to happen.Minister Amy Adams said: “Well that’s because we write legislation assuming that nothing’s going to go wrong.” Well I am sorry but I do not know whether the Gulf of Mexico disaster happened just to other people and not to Minister Amy Adams but it did because things do go wrong. In terms of legislation that consents risky activities even though the risks may be considered low in exploratory drilling—drilling of exploratory wells—we cannot get past the fact that the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon disaster was in an exploratory well. It was in a well about which Minister Adams has said: “They should not have to go through a full consent process because the risk is so low and I write legislation for things always going right not for things going wrong.” That is not good enough.The National Party appears to be the only political party that has not taken another look at its policy in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the wake of theRena disaster and in the wake of the Pike River disaster. It has not done anything to reinforce our emergency response capability. My colleague Andrew Little has been doing a lot of work on what a rapid response capability would look like maybe based somewhere like Taranaki where they have a lot of experience in this and maybe actually having some equipment in New Zealand ready to go in case something goes wrong. Having the expertise training people on a regular basis—surely these are lessons that we should have learnt from tragic recent experiences that have had enormous environmental and economic impacts. But it appears that the National Party members have not learnt.The reason that they refuse to do anything and that they want to keep their heads buried in the sands is because they have no plan B. Oil and gas exploration is their entire regional economic plan and if it does not pan out then they are kind of screwedand we in the provinces are kind of screwed. I am sorry but I think that the provinces of New Zealand deserve a plan B from this Government. If it wants to charge ahead with oil and gas exploration that is its right as a Government. If it wants to weaken environmental protection it will be held to account for that at the next election but we deserve a plan B in provincial New Zealand. Because if this does not pan out—and it has not; we have been told on the East Coast—David Bennett: Come to Hamilton.MOANA MACKEY: “Come to Hamilton.” says Mr Bennett. OK—Andrew Little: That’s plan C.MOANA MACKEY: That is plan C. Plan C my colleague says is to move to Hamilton.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I would like to take a short call on the commencement clause as well. I would like to follow on with regard to the friends I have inKaikōura—the electorate I live in—whom I joined when they protested the direction that this bill the Marine Legislation Bill and the Government is going in terms of oil exploration. They had hundreds of people on the beach in that very small community. They had a petition in which somebody from every household in that community said they did not want deep-sea oil exploration to go ahead as it could risk their livelihoods and risk the things that whole economy is based on inKaikōura.I just point out—the Government seems to have missed it and the Minister for the Environment missed it as well when she spoke about exploratory wells—that the riskiest phase in drilling is when exploration is happening because they do not know until they do that what is likely to go. The risk of blowout is worse in the exploration stage. I will just pop over to another area that has had exploration and that is just offD’Urville Island another part of my rohe over into Tasman Bay. I negotiated with an oil company that wanted to drill offD’Urville Island and ultimately did. I remember that the Minister—it was Nick Smith—actually got on the platform when they did do the exploration ultimately. That is in a much shallower area but the risks even there are too high.Even following that negotiation where we ended up getting some format where you could do decent environmental assessments—a matrix that you would look at to check what the risks were in a marine environment; we got that developed out of that negotiation—there is no way I would sign off again on something like that. What we found with that company which has got a very good record in theory is that it did not disclose to us that years before it had managed to pollute the Taranaki coast with a much smaller oil spill than what we are really worried about here. But that spill I think affected up to 15 kilometres of coast at the time.So these risks are very real and if we get the companies that have been associated with the Gulf of Mexico coming over here and thinking they can do the same thing without as my colleague pointed out the resources to support or back up any correction from a mistake in even just the exploratory part we have got some real concern. But I go back to the people inKaikōura. They are actually further away from some of the main focus of that protest which was closer to the Wairarapa Wellington the Marlborough Sounds Clifford Bay and Cloudy Bay areas—those people as we have heard were promised that they would have access to the process. That has been taken away from them and left with the council maybe and some of the iwi maybe and we can hopefully rely on them—we certainly can in respect ofKaikōura—to be very concerned and to be opposing this. But that is not necessarily the case elsewhere in the country for other councils that may have been told porkies as we were—we were misled—in terms of the exploration offD’Urville Island to some degree.So I just want to add voice to the fact that the Minister does not know everything and may be being misled by some of the officials as to where the risk lies. This Committee certainly has been misled if we are listening to the Minister on that. There is a major risk. We are an island nation. We have got a lot of coastline. The last thing we need is oil on our coastline. We do not need it in the Marlborough Sounds around aquaculture and we do not need it down through theKaikōura coast either.If people on the Government seats have an issue I ask them to come to my region and talk to me. I ask them to meet those people and actually realise what they are concerned about: their livelihoods their local flora and fauna the things that they are really proud of. The fact that they can drive to theKaikōura coast and see seals just off the beach is fantastic for the tourist industry.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 360 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee to clause 2 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Clause 2 as amended agreed to.The Committee divided the bill into the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 359.Bill to be reported with amendment presently.