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:5081. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 Labour will be supporting the Marine Legislation Bill to the select committee. This is an omnibus bill that amends the Maritime Transport Act of 1994 as Mr Williamson was just telling us and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act of 2012—only recently passed into law that particular bit of legislation—to enact various international conventions around maritime safety and ocean pollution. This is a bill that is worthy of support. It is a reasonable bill. It is drafted to include a number of measures to boost port and harbour safety and give a little more teeth to the voluntary New Zealand Port and Harbour Marine Safety Code. I will just mention some of those things. They are unremarkable but useful provisions. 
The bill will extend authority for a Maritime New Zealand director to take action where port safety is a risk to the safety of shipping or the marine environment—sounds reasonable enough. It places responsibility on port operators and regional councils to address maritime safety issues—nothing to object to there. The Minister of Transport is given power to make rules to ensure port and ship traffic safety. The Local Government Act is amended to move some provisions into the Maritime Transport Act and allow local government to apply national maritime safety laws without creating by-laws. Regional councils will be required to appoint suitable harbour masters—as they should—who will alongside enforcement officers be able to issue infringement notices for breaches of maritime laws. 
It is an unobjectionable bill; it is just a little late. In fact it is $50 million too late because this National Government is such a shambles it could not get its act together to pass into law international conventions that would have saved the taxpayer $50 million. When this Government came to office at the end of 2008 the briefing to the incoming Minister recommended that he implement and sign up to the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage otherwise known as the “bunker convention and to a number of changes to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. If it had done that instead of shelving that important advice the New Zealand taxpayer would not be left in the position of having to fork out the lion’s share of $50 million to pay for the clean up of the  
Rena 
 grounding. 
This Government should be embarrassed today that this bill is a form of fronting up in this House to the New Zealand taxpayer for a massive waste of taxpayers’ resources because this Government is such a shambles it was not able to see the significance of implementing those recommendations from officials. Steven Joyce is on the record. He has acknowledged it. He said: “Unfortunately it wasn’t made clear there would be the effect that it is obviously having in this case in terms of the level of potential liability. It’s disappointing”—he said—“but you deal with the hand you’re dealt with.” Well that Minister was advised in the incoming briefing that this Government should implement these conventions. The work was all done under the last Labour Government. It was there on the desk of the new Minister but he could not see fit to implement those recommendations. As a result taxpayers are going to have to pay the cost of cleaning up the  
Rena 
 grounding. 
There is another issue that jumps out from this bill that I think is worth commenting on in this first reading debate. Due to the International Convention on Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1978 the bill imposes an “alcohol limit of 0.05 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood on masters officers and other merchant seafarers performing safety security or marine environmental duties.” Why could the drafters of this bill have come up with this amount—0.05 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood? It is interesting. It is possibly a completely arbitrary amount—0.05. That is very interesting. That is the same 0.05 millilitres that the Government refused to legislate for people driving a motor vehicle. So it is OK for merchant seamen seafarers masters and officers to be held to that standard of alcohol consumption when they are in charge of a vessel on our coastline but it is not OK to expect the same level of people who are in charge of a motor vehicle on our roads. Well that is very interesting. 
Andrew Williams 
: Usual double standards. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Exactly Mr Williams. It is the kind of double standard that we have come to expect from this Government. What we know is that all the research and all the international best practice points to 0.05 millilitres as being the obvious standard that is required of someone who is in charge of a motor vehicle or a ship on our coastline. It is the obvious standard that people should be held to but what we know also is that the Minister of Transport pulled that provision and refused to support it because he did not like the optics because it might be seen to be a bit too nanny State for this National Government. Yet it is perfectly happy for merchant seamen and officers to be held to this standard and not allowed to have any more alcohol in their blood than 0.05 millilitres when they are in charge of a ship on our coastline. But apparently it is OK Mr Bennett for New Zealanders to drive a car when they have that much alcohol in their bloodstream. Well I am sure we will have some very interesting discussions at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee about that. Apparently about 80 vessels would be affected by this change and the regulatory impact statement estimates that there will be 10 incidents per year that could be affected or avoided because of this new provision. This compares with the 34 percent of fatal car accidents that are linked to alcohol and what we know is that National will not against all the good advice it has had reduce the blood-alcohol level for motorists to 0.05 millilitres. 
It is interesting I think also to note that the 0.05 level is already less restrictive than that faced by a number of vessels already operating on New Zealand’s coastline. The two Cook Strait ferry operators have zero-alcohol limit and Pacifica Shipping the last remnant of our coastal shipping service which has been destroyed by the policies of this National Government has a blood alcohol limit of 0.04 for its employees. So a limit of 0.05 is not Draconian but it is too Draconian for National to implement that limit in regard to motorists. 
The third point that I want to make is that there are numerous other Maritime Transport Act amendments in this bill that relate to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. There are 37 pages of amendments to the exclusive economic zone legislation—legislation that this National Government passed only a month ago. What kind of shambles is this—that it would bring 37 pages of amendments to this House a month after the exclusive economic zone legislation was pushed through this House? What an absolute embarrassment! These amendments raise the question of why the Minister for the Environment Amy Adams had to dump the substantive changes in her Supplementary Order Paper 100 on the select committee rather than including them in the bill. It also goes some way to explaining why the exclusive economic zone legislation was rushed back from the select committee as the Marine Legislation Bill must be passed this year if it is going to meet the January deadline that is set down in the conventions. This is really a shambles. Why is this Parliament being asked to process these many amendments only a month after National passed its exclusive economic zone legislation? I think members on that side of the House have some questions to answer.