Genter Julie Anne; Williams PotoMARITIME TRANSPORT AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 7 December.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. When I was so unfortunately interrupted on the last sitting day while giving the first speech of the third reading of the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill I was saying that I was so pleased to be seeing this bill through the House with substantial improvements that were made by the current Government in the recent weeks. Although many of the speakers from the Opposition today have been claiming that the Government is simply putting through bills that were introduced by the last Government this bill in fact has been substantially improved thanks to the agreement of the New Zealand First Party the Labour Party and the Green Party.Now when this bill was originally introduced under the former Government the Green Party voted for it at its first reading. Largely that was because we agreed with the overall aims of the bill and in particular the increase to oil pollution compensation. The bill gives effect to the Supplementary Fund Protocol" under which an additional tier of compensation is available to deal with the damage caused by oil spill damage from tankers. This will increase the compensation potentially available in the event of a tanker spill from around $411 million to just over $1.5 billion. The Green Party absolutely applauds this increase. It's about time that we should be able to access greater compensation when there is damage from tanker spills.There are other miscellaneous amendments introduced by the bill that will improve the operation of existing provisions in the Act and address minor anomalies by way of amendments. That includes improving the flexibility of empowering provisions for the making of rules under the Act; allowing regional councils to retain fees from infringement offence notices issued for breaches of maritime rules; enabling territorial authorities to transfer responsibilities for harbour works and maritime activity and clarifying that powers transferred to a public authority can be varied or withdrawn; clarifying that the director of Maritime New Zealand may issue guidelines consistent with ballast water convention requirements and procedures; clarifying the definition of "marine protection product" for the purpose of marine protection rules; and extending on-board limitation of liability provisions to remote pilotage. The "Miscellaneous amendments" in Part 3 also include clause 30A an amendment to "Section 33M … (Navigation bylaws)" to facilitate space launch activities. This will enable launches over water to be carried out safely from a maritime standpoint.There are two other aspects to the bill. In Part 1 of the bill as introduced there were provisions around managing the risks and drug and alcohol management within the maritime sector. This is one area in which the Green Party along with support from the coalition Government was able to make substantial improvements to the bill. During the select committee process we heard from a wide range of submitters who expressed concern about the cost implications and practicality of mandatory drug testing for the small and often remote businesses that make up the majority of the maritime sector.It was also noted that existing legislative mechanisms already provide for the management of drug and alcohol risks. There was virtually no evidence presented by the Government of the day—the National Government—that requiring mandatory drug and alcohol testing from all operators was going to improve safety or reduce impairment on the job. In fact during the submissions we did hear a good deal of advice that simply empowering the director of Maritime New Zealand to carry out non-notified drug and alcohol testing of maritime personnel in safety-sensitive positions when there is reason to believe there is a risk would be sufficient and that a number of large operators are already employing drug and alcohol management plans.So quite simply the proposal from the previous Government was so poorly researched so poorly thought through and so substantially lacking in evidence that the Green Party was forced to change its vote from supporting it at the first reading to opposing it at the second reading simply because of just how abysmal the provisions were around random drug and alcohol testing for everyone.But luckily there was a change of Government and the three parties of the Government agreed to amend the bill to remove the requirement for mandatory drug and alcohol testing for small operators. I'm sure the many small businesses who would have had huge costs imposed on them that had not even been investigated by that previous Government will be extremely grateful that we are taking a much more pragmatic and effective approach which is aimed at actually improving safety not simply generating work for drug-and-alcohol-testing outfits.The third aspect of the bill of course in the miscellaneous provisions was a proposed change around coastal cargo which the three parties of the current Government also opposed after the submissions process let us know that changing and opening up the possibility of foreign-flagged cargo shipping to the Chatham Islands and other New Zealand offshore islands would be very problematic for those communities. In fact all of the submissions we heard stated that the people most affected by the change were not in support of that change. So this Government has also removed those provisions that would have allowed foreign-flagged vessels to engage in shipping and that will protect the current service which is very adequately serving the Chatham Islands and ensure the ongoing sustainability of that service.I want to thank officials and members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for their work on this bill. I also want to thank Parliament for backing this bill. Taken together the changes proposed by this bill demonstrate the Government's commitment to improving the efficiency the effectiveness and the safety of the maritime sector here in New Zealand and I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Tim van de Molen.Chris Penk: It's Chris Penk ma'am.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Oh I'm so sorry Christopher. I call Chris Penk."