Dyson Ruth: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8757. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It is a split call. I am delighted to join with the other members of the Labour team in supporting this Marine Legislation Bill but I have to say that it really does still beg the question—despite all the National members who have spoken none of them has answered the question—why did this take so long? Why did it take New Zealand ending up losing millions and millions of dollars when in 2008 leading into the election National received the bill? It had this legislation all ready to go. It won the election—and it has reminded us of that on many occasions—yet for 3 long years Steven Joyce sat on this legislation and did nothing. Then he was stripped of that portfolio—clearly he was not up to the job—and blow me down who was it given to but the Hon Gerry Brownlee. He took another excruciatingly long period of time to bring this legislation through. 
Well some people might think that it is not important and often we would not see directly the implications of having legislation that was below standard. But tragically we did know the impact of having substandard legislation caused by the National Government sitting on its hands when the bill was written and given to it. We saw the tragic effects on our economy and on our shorelines when the  
Rena 
 hit the Astrolabe. If that had not happened prior to this legislation then we would not have had to have huge amounts of resources involved in haggling over what will now be our legal entitlement. When damage like that is done to our environment we know who should pay the consequences. But because of the shoddiness of Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownlee New Zealand taxpayers paid the cost as well as the poor people in the Tauranga area who had to look at the dreadful mess made by that incident. 
I went up to Tauranga just a few days after the  
Rena 
 disaster and I have to say that it was pretty awful looking at the penguins and the birdlife covered in oil. I would like to take the opportunity to put on record my admiration of the passion and the knowledge that was demonstrated by the people who were cleaning those animals and making sure that they were brought back to good health. It really was a fantastic gift that they were giving to the animals themselves obviously and also to the surrounding area. There were a lot of people involved from local community people right through to Government departments and agencies. They did that because they care about the community and they care about the beauty of our beaches and our water. All of that time the Government was sitting on its hands letting the financial liability be carried by those people and their fellow New Zealand citizens as well. It was a shambles and we lost literally millions of dollars as a result. 
This bill really is another indication of how poorly some Ministers are running their portfolios and the cost that we have to bear as a country as a result of their shoddiness and laziness. We will be supporting this bill. It is a good bill to support. It is a long way overdue; it should have been introduced as a priority in 2009. We wish that we had been given a chance by the Government to back this bill earlier.