Twyford Phil: Marine Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Marine Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5094. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
I just want to give a little background to the frustration that we on this side of the House are feeling not about the content of the legislation but the fact that had it been introduced when the select committee recommended and the House understood it was to be progressed then the New Zealand taxpayer would be $50 million better off. I bet every single person in this House could think of a really good use for $50 million—a better use for $50 million than cleaning up oil on the beaches of Papamoa and Maketu as Brendan Horan has so graphically illustrated. In my electorate we could have a lot of fences between my constituents’ homes and the rocks that are making their houses unsafe. That $50 million would actually protect the whole lot of them. They could all go back and live in their homes instead of living in horrible garages and caravans as they currently are. 
But that is not to undermine the excellent quality of this. Mr Auchinvole and his colleague from Auckland Mr Ross I think did not seem to— 
Phil Twyford 
: Lee Ross. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: —sorry Lee Ross—realise that actually the reason— 
Hon Members 
: It’s Ross. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I was right the first time. It is very confusing when you have so many names! I am sorry about that. He did not seem to realise about the international conventions that this legislation puts into practice. The bunker oil convention is the critical one and that did not come into force until 2008 so it was not actually possible for legislation to have been introduced under the Labour-led Government of the time. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee looked at that convention reported back into the House and said it should be passed into law. The incoming Minister— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: When was that? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: At the end of 2008. The incoming Minister of Transport got a briefing that said that this legislation was ready to go and it should be introduced so that we could update the Maritime Transport Act in 2009. For some reason and I am sure that members in the House will ask the Hon Steven Joyce what his reason for not progressing it was the Government chose to not progress this legislation which had already been considered in the convention consideration of the select committee and which was ready to go. So that was 2009 early on in the piece. We know what happened. On 5 October 2011 the  
Rena 
 ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef. Jami-Lee Ross—if I say it like that I am sure I will get the combination of first names and second names correct—basically said “Well we weren’t steering the  
Rena 
. We didn’t ride it on to the reef. It wasn’t the Government’s fault.” Well nobody said it was actually. I remember Steven Joyce raising the same point at the time. What we said then and continue to say now is that had the Government done the right thing and passed the legislation which was ready to go then the people who were in control of that situation would have been liable for the costs. 
Actually it is only a percentage of the costs because I have been there and seen what damage it did to the communities. I know that the people who rely on seafood as part of their culture and way of life were devastated by what happened to their surrounding areas. I know that the people who operated the tourism facilities in Tauranga Papamoa the Mount—in those areas—were devastated that their livelihood was threatened by something that they were not even sure they were going to get compensation for. Thank goodness the Government came to the party and supported those businesses but it was not required to. It was goodwill and I want to acknowledge the Government for doing that. But the point that Labour the Greens and New Zealand First have been making is that this legislation that could have protected the taxpayers and was all ready to go and had been worked on was totally ignored by the Government. We cannot understand that. What have the Minister of Transport and his predecessor been doing for the last 4 years if they could not progress a bill that not only was ready to go but had cross-party support in this Parliament? 
The second part of this bill is an amendment to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012. It is really interesting when you look at the fact that we have been waiting for 4 years for this bill to come in to protect us against damage such as what occurred with the  
Rena 
 reefing and yet the second part of this very same bill has got 37 pages of amendments—37 pages of amendments—to the exclusive economic zone legislation to a bill that we passed just a matter of weeks ago. How can it be? A bill that has just gone through this Parliament not rammed through under urgency—it went through a proper select committee process—did not get support from our party because the very point of it was not achieved in the legislation. Numerous amendments were ignored by the Minister and subsequently by her colleagues. Great efforts were made for a bipartisan approach. A multiparty approach would have followed in terms of the exclusive economic zone legislation because we considered it was something too important to just override for some sort of petty political point-scoring. But the Minister went ahead and said “No I’m not going to alter it. I’ll just go ahead.” Now just a matter of weeks later we see 37 pages of amendments. I think that is a bit of an indictment really on the shambles of process that this Government has been operating under. 
The Minister of Transport is clearly not on top of this bit of work. The fact that it has taken him so long to get it out of the cupboard and into the House has cost us $50 million. The Government day in day out tells us about cuts to front-line services that we have to put up with in our constituencies because there is not enough money and here it is frittering away $50 million because it could not get the bill on to the Order Paper fast enough. That is just bad management actually. It is bad House management. It is a shambles and it reflects very poorly on the Minister. The Minister for the Environment has an equally poor reflection cast on her in this legislation. There are 37 pages of amendments to a bill on which the ink has hardly dried. It was only in the last sitting period that this Parliament was debating that legislation. 
I just want to conclude by acknowledging the criticism I suppose that perhaps was a little unfair that Chris Auchinvole who spoke immediately prior to me talked about in relation to Brendan Horan’s speech. He said that Mr Horan had got quite obsessed with “minu-ties”. I know that a number of my colleagues have been discussing this very point at some length today. I know that Richard Prosser Brendan Horan’s colleague has been tweeting about that very subject and has made awards on this “minu-ties” subject. I want to just acknowledge Mr Speaker—not the current Speaker in the chair but our regular Speaker—and I also want to acknowledge H V Ross Robertson and Alfred Ngaro who are three of the male members of the House who are wearing their new ties today and who look extraordinarily dashing in their ties if I might just say so. So thank you Mr Auchinvole for acknowledging that. It is great—[ 
Interruption 
] I beg your pardon. At the risk of being named and sent from the Chamber can I also acknowledge Mr Deputy Speaker your extraordinarily classy tie and say how well it looks on you. 
Seriously it is really good to be able to support this legislation. I am disappointed that it has taken so long to come before the House but I look forward to its speedy progress through to its passing.