Street Maryan: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Marine Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8748. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I take great pleasure in rising to speak on the Marine Legislation Bill. Talk about having something handed to you on a platter. All of the work had been done for this bill by the previous Labour Government. It had taken a number of years to get to the point where this legislation was written and ready to go. By the end of 2008 of course we had an election. There it sat on the new Minister’s desk. Here was something that could have been implemented immediately but no National reverted to type and said that this was an idea from the Labour Party therefore it was not going to give it any credence whatsoever. It took a shipwreck it took a disaster for somebody to go back and say: “Gosh Minister of Transport. Ooh! Were you meant to do something about this? What’s this about a convention? Was the Minister meant to do something about this? What’s our responsibility here?”. Even then having all of the work done—everything prepared legislation ready to go everything handed to the Minister on a platter—he still did not act for another 4 years. Even then it is late. It should have been in by 1 January this year. Even then the Minister could not get it right. 
So for David Bennett to whinge and moan about us and my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway before me and saying that it is a bit rich of the Labour Party to get up and complain I am sorry but there needs to be some responsibility sheeted home for why this was not managed earlier. The Government has had 4 years and it has not been able to implement something that was all done and dusted and ready to go. We will continue to make that point. 
We are supporting the bill. We wish it had been given the chance by this Government to pass before the  
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 disaster but the other thing that is of concern—well let us just say we welcome it coming anyway. Fortunately if there are not going to be international penalties for us in getting it in late then that is well and good but it is no thanks to the assiduousness of the Minister. Due to the Government’s failure to ratify the international conventions when the  
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crashed of course we know that it was liable to pay only $11.3 million of the clean-up costs for the Crown which ended up being over $50 million. Although the Government was able to negotiate that up to about halfway it would not have been necessary for the Government to go through those negotiations had it subscribed to these international conventions in the first place. 
I suppose there is one other thing that I want to reflect on just briefly. One of the parts of this bill sets a blood-alcohol limit of 0.05 grams for people in charge of ships and for people sailing ships but the Government cannot bring itself to do that for people driving lethal weapons on our roads. I do not understand the difference. I do not understand why there should be one standard for maritime safety and quite another for road safety. More New Zealanders are going to be travelling on our roads than are ever going to be travelling on vessels covered by this legislation. I would ask one of the Ministers in the House—well the Minister in the House the Minister of Justice—to consider that again. Do not be afraid to revisit legislation on alcohol limits because I do not think the Minister got it right last time. 
Do not be afraid to revisit things because it is perfectly clear that Amy Adams has had to revisit a few things in the course of developing this legislation and contributing to it. In fact there are 37 pages of amendments to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act that have been introduced in this legislation even though National passed that bill only about a month ago. From one shambles to another—although at the same time I do say to Minister Collins that should she choose to revisit blood-alcohol levels I am sure there would be a number of people around this country who would be prepared to welcome that. 
Amy Adams has brought forward 37 pages of amendments to a bill that she clearly did not get right a month ago. The primary aim of the amendments which I do support—and this is where I am particularly interested—is to move the powers from Maritime New Zealand to the new Environmental Protection Authority. The Environmental Protection Authority is a regulatory body whose responsibility it will be under these amendments to monitor and regulate around waste dumping. The amendments go on to implement the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships as modified by the protocol of 1978 and to implement the 1996 protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. 
The quality of our oceans is something that should be of concern to all of us. The original exclusive economic zone legislation was weak. It was inadequate and 37 pages of amendments go some way to providing the Environmental Protection Authority with its regulatory oversight the strength to monitor to comment on and to regulate around waste dumping in our oceans. When people get out to sea and they do not think anybody can see them they think it is fine to release waste into the vast oceans and it will just wash away. But anybody who has travelled around the Pacific can tell you it does not wash away it washes up—it washes up. 
These amendments raise the question of why the Minister for the Environment had to dump the substantive changes to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill in Supplementary Order Paper 100 on Parliament after the Local Government and Environment Committee consideration rather than including them in the bill so they could be consulted on and people could submit on them. It would also go some way perhaps to explaining why that exclusive economic zone legislation was rushed back from the select committee as the Marine Legislation Bill had to be passed this year. Given that it contained these amendments it could not be put into Parliament before the exclusive economic zone legislation was passed. With that confusing set of consequences and time lines it is clear that Ministers around this area whether they be of transport or for the environment are clearly not across the detail of the job and not across the urgency of this job. Having been critical of the Ministers in this regard I still support the legislation. We wish it had happened years ago.