Asia/Pacific News
MV Rena Clean-Up Cost the Tax-Payer $50 Million
New Zealand's opposition Labour Party Environment spokesperson Grant Robertson said today that the MV Rena clean-up operation has cost the tax-payer $50 million, citing official Information Act documents obtained from Maritime New Zealand.
The amount is twice that of the initial $25m clean-up cost estimate made after the containership sank after running aground on the Astrolabe Reef near the port of Tauranga, New Zealand on October 5 last year.
Robertson said it highlighted "the Government's folly of not passing legislation that would have seen the owners of the vessel picking up the tab."
"Kiwis have seen the heart-breaking environmental cost of the grounding. Now we know the total price tag for the clean-up will be $50 million, a large part of which Kiwis will be paying for," he said.
Robertson added that if proposed stricter liability laws had been passed, the "costs to taxpayers would have been significantly reduced."
If the Government does not want to pass the proposed legislation, Robertson says, it should introduce its own legislation, "Otherwise, if another accident happens, taxpayers will be forking out again."
"It is simply not good enough," he said.
Another politician calling for stricter liability insurance for shipowners and operators is Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver, Canada, who in May asked that by-law legislation be prepared requiring ship owners to have liability insurance sufficient to cover the clean up costs of any spill, plus compensation including loss of business in tourism, development, and fisheries.
Maritime New Zealand said today that this week saw the first sections cut and removed from the fore section of the MV Rena, a 3,351 TEU Panamax container ship owned by the Greek shipping company Costamare Inc., with the Bell 214 heavy-lift helicopter completing 14 separate lifts to the barge Kapua.
