New Zealand Maritime bill gets first reading
A New Zealand maritime bill implementing international conventions and creating new safety provisions had its first reading Tuesday, the New Zealand National Party reports.
The bill would increase compensation payable for incidents like the 2011 Rena grounding, which spilled over 300 tonnes of fuel oil near the Port of Tauranga.
The bill would amend several sections of the New Zealand Maritime Transport Act of 1994, including implementing an internationally sanctioned alcohol limit for merchant seafarers, giving regulatory power over discharges and dumping from Maritime New Zealand to the Environmental Protection Agency and clarifying the relationship between national and local navigation rules.
The Liberia-flagged Rena ran aground on the Astrolabe reef on Oct. 5, 2011, in what the country's Environment minister Nick Smith called their "most significant maritime environmental disaster", with cleanup costing New Zealand taxpayers $50 million, according to officials.
Labour Party leaders said the cost of the disaster to taxpayers could have been averted if the government had implemented the bill's liability clauses years ago.
"It is an unobjectionable bill; it is just a little late," said Labour MP Phil Twyford.
"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."