O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to begin by extending my condolences to the families of those killed in the recent earthquakes and I send my best wishes to all those in and around the quake-affected areas for a speedy recovery.New Zealand First will support this bill to the select committee. I think it should be called the Rena Bill". It is a shame that it takes a marine accident of that scale to generate the changes needed to improve health and safety to protect the environment and to ensure that adequate compensation is payable for oil spills in the way that this bill does.Looking first then at compensation the bill does significantly increase the level of compensation available to meet claims for oil pollution damage caused by a spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. I understand from what the Minister says that that increase is to $1.4 billion which is certainly a significant sum. The bill will enable New Zealand to accede to the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage of 1992. That establishes an additional tier of compensation that can be called upon in the event of a major oil tanker spill in the waters of a contracting State. New Zealand First obviously supports that.But I have a concern and it relates to clause 11 of the bill which amends section 342 in which the term "ship" is defined. Subsection (2) states: "In the Civil Liability Convention ship means any sea-going vessel and seaborne craft of any type whatsoever constructed or adapted for the carriage of oil in bulk as cargo" and so on. So that raises a question for me as to whether the Rena would have been covered by that definition because she was not an oil tanker. It would seem to me that that is excluded from the provisions of this bill and yet the Rena was carrying 2 million litres of oil—easily enough to pollute the beaches of Mount Maunganui. So that is a significant concern for me and I wonder why the definition of the term "ship" is so restricted. I would like certainly the select committee to take a good look at that.The public has been rightly concerned about how lightly the Rena operators and their owners have been let off. There is an urgent need to ensure that New Zealand does all it can to see that the costs associated with these accidents are sheeted home to the people who are actually responsible. That did not happen in the case of the Rena and I certainly worry about whether this bill will rectify the situation at all.I see that the bill includes provisions that would allow New Zealand to "exercise its right as a party to the Protocol of 1996 to amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims to make reservations that exclude limitation of liability for three different categories … wreck removal; cargo removal; damage caused by hazardous and noxious substances." Those exclusions mean potentially a lot more money to meet claims for pollution damage in the event of a major maritime accident such as the grounding of the Rena subject to the reservation I mentioned before. It is a good bill as far as it goes if it goes far enough to cover vessels like the Rena.New Part 4B inserted by clause 6 is keenly supported by New Zealand First. It establishes measures to deal with alcohol and drug use in the commercial maritime sector. That includes a requirement for commercial maritime operators to have drug and alcohol management plans to manage the associated risks with drug and alcohol use—a very important provision. There is also a requirement for those plans to provide for random drug and alcohol testing of staff carrying out safety-sensitive activities. There is further a requirement for the Director of Maritime New Zealand to see that the drug or alcohol testing is actually done in accordance with the plans. Where the test is other than a negative one an operator must implement its response plan and the individual in question will not be allowed to perform any safety-sensitive activity until the person is again capable of doing so. These are very good provisions that have long been needed on the New Zealand coast.There may however be an issue for the select committee to look at around consent to testing and I wonder why it is not mandatory rather than requiring consent. I tend to think that a mandatory provision would be justified and should be possible and I wonder why it is not provided for. Whether or not it is provided for the bill does require the operator to respond to an individual's refusal in the same way as it would respond to a positive test result. But I would like the select committee to look at whether we could make the requirement mandatory rather than requiring the consent of the employee concerned.I have noted that the new maritime rules will establish requirements for the content of management plans and also procedural requirements for random drug and alcohol testing which will obviously be necessary. I understand that existing Maritime Transport Act offences penalties and cost-recovery provisions are sufficient for enforcement purposes but I would like to see information brought to the select committee to satisfy us all that that is in fact the case because unless those provisions are robust and unless in particular the enforcement provisions and penalties are sufficient it is not going to be an effective piece of legislation.The remainder of the bill contains a group of miscellaneous amendments to improve the operation of existing provisions of the Act and to address some minor anomalies but amongst those regional councils will be able to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules so that they can enforce the national rules directly. I think that is very important otherwise the poor old ratepayers of sometimes quite small regions would be required to front up with significant amounts of money for matters that really have nothing much to do with them and are actually national issues rather than regional ones. I think that is actually although a minor provision in the bill an extremely important one that we should not overlook. Regional councils have for too long had far too little power and far too few resources to do the jobs that have been conferred upon them by national legislation so it is good to see that at least some movement in that direction is being made in that regard.Finally one of the things New Zealand First does have reservations about in this bill is the move to allow foreign-registered ships to carry freight to and from New Zealand's offshore islands including the Chatham Islands and we would wish to hear submissions on that before we would agree with those provisions. As you know New Zealand First has always been very hot on putting the interests of New Zealanders and New Zealand employees and New Zealand businesses first so I wonder why that provision is in this bill. And it would be typical of the National Government to slide this past us—David Bennett: Come on you're voting for it!DENIS O'ROURKE: —in a bill of this kind without a proper explanation of why New Zealand people and New Zealand businesses are not being put first. New Zealand First will do that. Mr Bennett never will—never look to him never look to him for those sorts of things because he does not care but New Zealand First does.We will hear the submissions and see what people have to say about that before making a final decision. We would need to be assured that the interests of New Zealand businesses and New Zealand employees are not compromised by this measure and I doubt that will be the case and in the end this measure alone may force us to vote against the bill. I hope that is not the case because as I have said there are some good things in it subject to a number of reservations that can be corrected. However subject to those reservations—and some of them as I have pointed out are quite serious—New Zealand First looks forward to being able to support the bill should it make it through the select committee in a way that we consider to be satisfactory. We will be looking forward to that process and to a robust examination and a robust debate."