Mackey Moana: Marine Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Marine Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13611. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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.