Thursday, 8 December 2016

THURSDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2016

THURSDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 13 December the Government will look to complete the first reading of the Point England Development Enabling Bill, the second reading of the Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Bill, the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 2), and a number of other bills on the Order Paper. The House will rise for the year on Wednesday, 14 December at the conclusion of the adjournment debate, which will confirm the House sitting dates for 2017.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): If this does indeed turn out to be the Leader of the House’s final business statement to the House, can I thank him on behalf of the Opposition for his contribution, and can I also indicate to him that if he is looking for something to do in the new year, there is an opening on the parliamentary catering committee, and we could, in fact, use his assistance.

Mr SPEAKER: I will certainly enjoy the right of reply—the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I thank the shadow Leader of the House for that expression, but I have got to say that, like so many on occasions like this, sort of fuelled by the clouds of delusion about self-importance, I had not actually considered such a prospect.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update

1. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Finance: What announcements has he made showing the Government is on track to continue delivering surpluses and supporting a growing economy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Today I released Treasury’s Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update. Treasury forecasts a surplus of $473 million this year, including the expected costs of the Kaikōura earthquake. It forecasts economic growth to an average of around 3 percent, over the next 5 years—a bit higher than in Budget 2016—and growing surpluses.

Jami-Lee Ross: What are the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update forecasts for employment and wages?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Treasury forecasts that unemployment will drop from 4.9 percent currently to around 4.3 percent by 2020. It expects another 150,000 jobs to be created over that period, which looks a reasonable forecast given that over the last 3 years there have been 250,000 new jobs, and it expects the average wage to increase by a further $7,500, to $66,000 a year, confirming a pattern of moderate but consistent income increases for households.

Jami-Lee Ross: What are the main reasons for the improvement in Treasury’s forecasts since the Budget?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The economy is growing just a bit faster than was expected back in June. There are higher levels of construction activity, stronger tourism flows, a growing population, and ongoing low interest rates.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Governor of the Reserve Bank admits to a select committee, yesterday, that the growth rate is not 3.5 or 3 percent but, when you factor in 2 percent population growth, something like half of that, why cannot the Minister be honest with the country and say the same thing?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We can say exactly the same thing, because that is the fact of the matter. The difference between the Government and the member is that we think New Zealanders staying home is good and the New Zealand First Party seems to think it would be better if they all went to Australia.

Stuart Smith: What is Treasury’s advice on the impact of the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As that member would know better than anyone in the House, the earthquake has had a major impact on families and businesses in his electorate. However, the earthquakes are not expected to disrupt the overall momentum of the economy. Treasury estimates that the total cost of the extensive Government support to the affected communities and the rebuilding of transport links will be $2 billion to $3 billion. In this financial year the Government is booking a cost of around $1 billion because that is what we expect to spend before June next year, mainly on supporting Earthquake Commission (EQC) claims and on the immediate response and recovery.

Grant Robertson: Why has he not taken the advice of current and former leadership aspirants from the National Party to take tax cuts off the table?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government announced its policy at the last Budget. This week we are having a bit of an internal discussion over changes in leadership, and whatever the result of the leadership contest, the Government will consider those options.

Grant Robertson: In light of projections of almost no real wage growth in the next 2 years in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update today and house prices increasing by 13.5 percent, when will working New Zealanders actually see the real benefits of economic growth?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: They have been seeing real benefits of economic growth for the last 4 or 5 years. There are a lot different ways of measuring it, but superannuitants, for instance, have had consistent increases—almost double the rate of inflation—because their increases are tied to the average wage, which tells you the average wage has been going up faster than inflation.

Finance, Minister—Ministers’ Funding Requests

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement, “Ministers find it a little bit irritating” when asking for funding, and which Ministers was he referring to?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I stand by my full statement, which was: “All propositions … for the expenditure of significant public money … have to go through a thorough process. Sometimes Ministers find it a little bit irritating.” Probably all Ministers find it a little bit irritating at some stage. However, we know that that did not happen in the last Labour Government, because it just shovelled out money to any Minister who asked for anything.

Andrew Little: Did the Minister of Police become irritated when his—the Minister’s—underfunding forced her to break her election promise to maintain a police to population ratio of 1:500?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, I am not exactly sure what the member is referring to, but you would expect that in a Government that focuses on law and order and the safety of our communities, there is always discussion about how we can deal with those issues.

Andrew Little: Did the Minister of Police ask him in June for more funding for more police, and did he notice her irritation?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Minister of Police, like the Minister of Health and all other Ministers, I have found to be persistent and a strong advocate, not just for more money—fortunately, in this Government—but for the more effective use of public money to get results. That is how we all operate.

Andrew Little: Does he find it a little bit irritating that after he and Jonathan Coleman agreed to keep health $1.7 billion underfunded, Jonathan Coleman is now publicly complaining health is not properly funded?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure what the member is referring to, but, no, I do not find it irritating.

Andrew Little: Is he proud that his $1.7 billion underfunding of health has led to patients in Dunedin being served reheated slop that was cooked in Auckland?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I understand the provision of food in Dunedin, as tested by the Minister of Health, actually was not too bad. But, in respect of health funding, this Government makes it quite clear that it will fund services that make a difference to people’s lives.

Andrew Little: Did he find it a little bit irritating when Paula Bennett announced her relocation grants policy the day before the Budget without telling him?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. It is great to see Ministers taking initiative. And, in general, I do not get nearly as irritated as that member.

Andrew Little: Did he find it a little bit irritating to discover that Simon Bridges’ bridges policy had been invented the night before its release and against New Zealand Transport Agency advice that these bridges were not a prudent use of taxpayer funds?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. But the Government disagreed with the advice, and Northlanders are seeing progress on those bridges.

Corrections, Department—Corrections Inspectorate

3. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Corrections: What recent announcement has she made about strengthening the independent oversight of the Corrections system?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections): Since earlier this year, I have been working with the State Services Commission to strengthen the oversight of the Corrections inspectorate. Inspectors were established to provide assurance around the delivery of Corrections services. They visit all public and private prisons, investigate incidents, investigate complaints, and undertake thematic reviews. They produce reports and recommendations that are considered by the chief executive. However, there has not been additional scrutiny or visibility of these reports, and Corrections will now provide me with regular reporting detailing the inspectors’ recommendations and the chief executive’s response to those recommendations, as well as the dates of implementation of actions. I have also asked the State Services Commission to work with the department to look at potential options to enhance the powers of the inspectorate through amendments to the Corrections Act.

Ian McKelvie: How will these changes make Corrections inspectorate reporting more transparent?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The new policy will require Corrections to publish summary reporting in full inspectorate reports, when appropriate, with necessary steps to protect privacy and security. It is my view that, as appropriate in terms of safety, security, and privacy, public visibility of our prisons should be the norm. There are actually a lot of good-news stories coming out of our prisons: the efforts that go into rehabilitation learning are huge, and some of the results are outstanding. The staff are so committed to making a positive difference, and I do like to be able to highlight the positive when I can. But the reality is that things will and do go wrong at times when managing some of New Zealand’s most difficult people, and public transparency of the system, whether it is good or bad, is critical.

Sugary Drinks Tax—Evidence and Policy

4. JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Health: What is the name of the major global study on a sugary drinks tax by the Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology that he referenced in QWA 13827 (2016) and where was it published?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I saw that this question referred specifically to issues pertaining to Mexico, and so I talked with a newly launched Mexican research and consultancy group known as the Four Amigos. They advised me that the study referred to is available only online under the title Taxing Calories in Mexico. However, the same group strongly advises that a wall should not be built around the issue of emerging evidence from Mexico.

Julie Anne Genter: Is the Minister aware that this study, one of only two that he told me that he was keeping a watching brief on for evidence about a sugary drinks tax, has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal and has been described by a reputable science and medical journal as industry-funded?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, look, whatever journal it actually appears in, it is available online. It may have been industry-funded, but I have also sought advice from the Ministry of Health, which states that the study does not add any new evidence to the debate about whether to introduce a sugar tax. The ministry also says that it makes a range of assumptions, and it also goes on to say that although there was an initial report of up to a 12 percent decline in sugar-sweetened beverage sales in Mexico following the introduction of a tax, those reports failed to control for other factors likely to have contributed to declining sales, including active public health and education campaigns and improved access to safe drinking-water.

Julie Anne Genter: Does he stand by his statement about a sugary drinks tax in the House on 13 October that “I have talked to the Chief Science Advisor extensively about this, and he admitted that there was no clear evidence on the subject …”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes.

Julie Anne Genter: Can he confirm that the advice he received from the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor on 3 July this year actually said: “There is now a lot more compelling data from Mexico and Europe. From being sceptical of the value of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes and their impact on consumption, recent evidence suggests a surprisingly—to me, at least—large and sustained effect, particularly in groups most at risk of obesity.”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No, I obviously cannot confirm that, because I have not got the document, but there is no reason to disbelieve anything that the member says regarding that quote, so yes, she should table it.

Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table this letter to the Hon Jonathan Coleman from the office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, sent on 3 July 2016.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Julie Anne Genter: Does he accept the findings of the recently released, peer-reviewed, published study, also from Mexico, showing that the sugary drinks tax has modelled a reduction of nearly 200,000 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes, over 20,000 fewer strokes, and 19,000 fewer deaths, as well as saving its health system nearly a billion dollars over the next decade?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No, I have not seen that study, and you would have to look at the methodology and read the study fully, but what I have said to the member many times before is that there is a meta-analysis of all the evidence on a sugary drinks tax that will be available next year. It is being done, actually—there are two different centres: one is the University of Waikato and one is the University of North Carolina. I am always open to considering the emerging evidence, but just plucking random quotes out of studies and presenting them in Parliament, frankly, that does not tell anyone anything.

Julie Anne Genter: Does the Minister see that there is a difference between “no clear evidence” and “recent evidence suggesting a large and sustained effect, particularly in the groups most at risk of obesity.”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, what I see a difference between is a clear analysis of the evidence and just random quotes presented out of context in Parliament by the member.

Julie Anne Genter: Will he now commit to investigating a sugary drinks tax here in New Zealand, given the overwhelming weight of peer-reviewed, published, scientific evidence that a sugary drinks tax will protect the health of our children, or will he continue to believe the non-published, non-peer-reviewed, industry-funded research that calls into question the overwhelming weight of evidence?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Look, I would not advise anyone to do anything on the advice of a few quotes from Julie Anne Genter presented in Parliament, quite frankly.

Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table this peer-reviewed, published journal article called “Projected Impact of Mexico’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Policy on Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease: A Modelling Study”, which also states that the evidence that—

Mr SPEAKER: And is it easily accessible on the internet?

Julie Anne Genter: No, it is not. It is through the Public Library of Science Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal.

Mr SPEAKER: On the basis that the member is assuring us it is not easily obtained on the internet, I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular study. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Health, Minister—Health Funding and Leadership Campaign

5. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: What indication, if any, has the Minister of Finance given him for Vote Health in Budget 2017 that led him to say “I think we’ve got to be very careful before we look at tax cuts. We’ve got to make sure we are properly funding health and education to the level that people expect”?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): The member will understand that my excellent colleague Bill English and I have been busy on other matters, and I would like to say he will make a very fine Prime Minister one day—it might be Monday; let us see. But, look, every year—[Interruption] Listen to this, you will like this. [Interruption] Yes, one day, or Monday. Every year Mr English says the same thing to me. He says: “We will lift our investment in health, but only, Dr Coleman, if you guarantee not to cut electives by 2,200 when your budget has gone up by $3 billion; not to cut general surgery by 1,500; paediatric surgery by 1,000; plastic and burns surgery and ear, nose, and throat by 1,300, despite getting that extra $3 billion.” Then he says—bottom line—“We must not, absolutely must not, force over 440 patients to fly to Australia for basic cancer treatment. And, above all,” Mr English says to me, “do not let the media say, after 6 years ‘It is inconceivable that a Government could spend so much money and make the system worse.’ ” I do not know—who do you think that might have been about?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is certainly very long.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe the Minister said he was quoting an official document from the Minister of Finance, and I would like him to table it, please.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is very easily resolved. Was the Minister quoting from an official document?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I did not say that. What I said is that every year he—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am simply asking whether the Minister was quoting from an official document, and if he was—

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No.

Mr SPEAKER: Then that matter is easily resolved.

Hon Annette King: Does the level of health funding that people expect include access to affordable GP visits, the latest and best drugs that Australians have been getting for years but New Zealanders are paying for, more than the miserable 1 hour a week home help for a 96-year-old, and eye treatment before people go blind?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, look, it includes lots of things, including the dramatic lift in elective surgery under this Government, the massive increase in first specialist assessments, the 6,000 extra doctors, and there is an absolute expectation on behalf of the public that we will do more, not less. They certainly do not want to have to fly to Australia for the basics of the health system, like they used to have to.

Hon Annette King: If leadership is the ability to make hard decisions, why did he take over a year before increasing the drug budget to fund melanoma drugs for cancer patients, many of whom died waiting for him to take action and to show some compassion and care?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Of course, leadership is all about hard decisions, and if that member was the leader, she would have decided to leave the Parliament years ago and get on with life. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Is this a supplementary question? [Interruption] Order!

Hon Annette King: Why has he decided to sabotage Bill English’s second shot at leadership by saying health needs to be properly funded at the level people expect, implying the reasons for the growing problems in health are not his fault, but the Scrooge-like behaviour of the Minister of Finance?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I think, actually, that one feature of what has gone down over the last few days is the excellent, collegial spirit in which the competition has been held. And I can tell you what, this is important—

Hon Paula Bennett: They can’t believe it, eh?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Because they are not used to this. But whoever comes out of that room is going to have the total backing of the whole National Party, and if—this bit is very important—it is Bill English, I will be 100 percent behind him. I will not do a Cunliffe to Goff. And Bill English, should he be the Prime Minister, will lead us to a great victory in 2017. You guys opposite will be there for a lot longer yet.

Hon Annette King: Is the real reason why he was so eager to stand as leader, apart from naked ambition, utu, because he agrees with Judith Collins that Bill English has held back funding from portfolios like health and education and has made him look like a loser?

Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is ministerial responsibility—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The only utu we are seeing in New Zealand is the 50 percent polling that the public is inflicting on the Labour Party because they are absolutely sick to death of that crowd over there and there is no way they ever want them back in Government. Quite frankly, they are unlikely to see a Labour Government back here for a good two or three terms yet.

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 6—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! A little less interjection—I am calling Jonathan Young.

Tax System Changes—Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

6. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Revenue: What recent reports has he received regarding the time, money, and effort that small and medium sized businesses spend on meeting their tax obligations?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Revenue): The Inland Revenue Department recently surveyed small and medium sized businesses to understand how much time, money, and effort they spend meeting their tax obligations. From the surveyed group of over 4,000 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the results show that, overall, these SMEs consider that compliance costs have reduced considerably since 2013 and that the time investment required has halved since 2004. Overall, the median time SMEs spend meeting their tax obligations was 25 percent less than in 2013. Because they are spending less time, the median value of their in-house costs has also reduced by 24 percent. A further 87 percent said that it required about the same or less effort as it did a year before.

Jonathan Young: What factors were identified by small and medium sized business owners as contributing to the overall reduction in compliance costs?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The survey outlined several things, some of which the Inland Revenue Department is already doing, but, notably, the promotion of the Inland Revenue Department’s reminder service that notifies customers when their filing payment dates have passed, an acknowledgment by email when all returns and payments are received by the Inland Revenue Department, less paperwork required, and better utilisation of digital filing channels. The survey findings reinforced the success of the actions that the Inland Revenue Department has been trying to do to make it easier for customers to meet their tax obligations.

Jonathan Young: What opportunities did the survey identify to further reduce compliance costs for small and medium sized businesses?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Several things: the promotion of the reminder service, as I mentioned; an acknowledgment by email when all returns and payments are received by the Inland Revenue Department; and improving the content and functionality of IRD’s website, like simplifying language. Furthermore, stage one of the Inland Revenue Department’s long-term business transformation programme will be implemented early next year, allowing customers to better self-manage GST through a modernised and simplified online tax system, making it even easier for SMEs to meet their tax obligations.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What on earth is wrong with the publication system within his office that a backbench member of the National Government has not been sent this review so that he has to get up in this House and tediously and boringly waste this Parliament’s time?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am quite sure that the member for New Plymouth not only received the review but read it in detail and, like me, wants to share very good news with the House and the New Zealand public.

Regional Economic Development—Northland

7. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister for Economic Development: Does he stand by all of his statements in relation to the Te Tai Tokerau Northland Regional Growth Study and Action Plan; if so, how?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): Yes, I do, and I am particularly excited that the member has asked that question today because one of the key actions of that plan is the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway north of Auckland, and today is a very special day. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport have launched the construction of the Pūhoi to Warkworth section, which is 18.5 kilometres of road that is going to help link Northland with Auckland. It is one of the most important projects in the plan. I want to thank the member for his question and for coming to the House to celebrate this great progress.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it not a fact, Minister, that after 8 years of this promise, as we speak, after 8 long years of this road of national significance, not 1 metre has been built?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I bring good news to the member. Starting today 18,500 metres of this project are being built—18.5 kilometres. It is a $709 million project. It is going to help tourism, it is going to help road transport, and it is even going to help the member get home to St Marys Bay after the day in the constituency.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What on earth happened, when he expresses today the Pūhoi to Warkworth highway, to his Pūhoi to Wellsford highway promise in the Northland by-election?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Only the member could be so negative the day the Government starts building a $700 million road to his constituency. He could be the only person to be that negative. But I checked, because I wondered whether he would be like that, and do you know, that member has put out 50 press releases on Northland this year, and literally 49 of those press releases have been negative about Northland? Literally one—this one I am holding—has been positive. I presume we can only expect him to come down here like the Grinch and decry a $700 million investment in Northland.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Can the Minister confirm that the press release he was just waving about was in fact celebrating Winston Peters’ election victory in his own seat?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is fair to say that he thinks he is the only good thing that has happened in Northland in 100 years, but, no, it was on something else. But perhaps one of these 49 negative ones might be about Winston getting elected.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the plans proposing a $300 million Ngāwhā wood processing mill near Kaikohe were a key part of his and the Government’s action plan to, using his words, “transform the region”, how come the Minister of Energy and Resource’s abject failure to rein in the Electricity Authority’s proposed power increases has seen that $300 million plan axed just yesterday?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Ngāwhā proposal was one of 58 actions in the Northland regional action plan. That is why it is exciting to talk about the road today, which is one of the other 58 actions in the plan. That is a $700 million investment in Northland. In terms of that particular project, it is not just about the Electricity Authority—and I understand, for the member, that it is going to release some updated proposals next week, so he should wait for those. It is primarily about perhaps not having enough wood resource at this stage in that part of the region. The good news is with a brand new road we will be able to bring timber in from south of Auckland, if he wants, to the new Ngāwhā processing plant.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Which does not exist after yesterday.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can we just have—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. That is not the way to rise to start a supplementary question. If the member wants one I might entertain it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How will wood be brought all the way up north on his superhighway to a complex that has now been shut down as of yesterday in terms of its planning, and could he tell us what he is going to do, for example, about extra power pricing increases for the Northland Strategic Irrigation Infrastructure Study, another big statement he made when he was bulldusting around Northland?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Steven Joyce—there were two questions there. The Minister can address either.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member would know something about power price increases, because when he was in Government they increased dramatically, and they are actually decreasing around the country over the last couple of years. But once again, “Mr Glass Three-quarters Empty”, the project is not going ahead at this point, but it may go ahead in the future. They have just put it on the shelf, because the bigger problem is lack of wood, as I pointed out. But, for the member, there is lots of other good news. There is the Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangarei the Government is helping; there is the Queensland Resort College’s Tai Tokerau Resort College in Paihia; there are the ultra-fast broadband projects. We have put in half the funding for the improvement of Whangarei Airport, which will open in the next couple of weeks—

Mr SPEAKER: Bring the answer to a conclusion.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —and, of course, there is the $700 million for the Pūhoi to Wellsford road. I am waiting for the member’s second positive press release of the year.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why would any halfway informed person say about Northland in respect of Ngāwhā that there could be a shortage of wood when there are football fields of wood being transported off overseas in the most raw form, which is Northland’s problem that he is doing nothing about?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member wants us to build a wood wall around Northland to stop the logs leaving.

Partnership Schools—Performance

8. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Does she believe that partnership schools should report NCEA results using the same methodology as state schools; if so, why hasn’t this been the case so far?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Kia ora, kia ora, kia ora.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Kia ora. It is not a question of belief; it is a question of fact. The member opposite is incorrect in stating that State schools are required to report their National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) results; they are not. Partnership schools have a higher accountability framework in exchange for a higher level of flexibility, and are, therefore, required to report their results. As there was no reporting regime for schools when the partnership school model was developed, the Ministry of Education provided an initial accountability model to take into account the point-of-time reporting regime required. As per the education report released under the Official Information Act, which the member has a copy of, the calculation has been reviewed, and round-three contracts that were recently signed calculate the performance measure for partnership schools on the same basis as provided on the Education Counts website.

Chris Hipkins: Why did she award performance bonuses to partnership schools last year on the basis that they had achieved their performance targets, given the Ministry of Education has now advised her that had their performance been measured using the Education Counts methodology, which every other State school in the country is measured on, at least two of them would not have met the criteria to get their performance bonus?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: They are not performance bonuses; they are an amount held back. They were awarded on the basis that at Vanguard Military School 91.4 percent achieved NCEA level 1 and 60 percent achieved level 2, and Te Kura Hourea o Whangarei Terenga Parāoa achieved 77.8 percent and 55.6 percent, respectively.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What about Whangaruru?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The Whangaruru partnership school did not meet its performance standards and has been closed. Partnership schools are characterised not only by their flexibility but by a requirement in the contract that 75 percent of their roll should be the kids who are least served by the existing education system. They are also characterised—as all other schools are—by choice. No parent is forced to send their child to a partnership school, but they do so because they fear that their children have not been successful in the other options. Their children are doing better, on average. There is more work to do. But if we looked at State schools as well—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Bring the answer to a conclusion.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: —we would also find failure there. We do not give up on any child.

Chris Hipkins: Why does she have confidence in the integrity of the information being supplied by partnership schools in their performance reporting, given that one school, which reported that 93.3 percent of its leavers had achieved NCEA level 2, found that its results dropped to just 6.7 percent when it was assessed using the same methodology on the Education Counts website that State school performance is measured on?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I want to answer that question in two parts. The particular school that the member is referring to failed. We have closed it. In terms of the first part, I have no indication that the sponsors are deliberately misreporting their results, and, secondly—

Carmel Sepuloni: Waste of money, and using kids as guinea pigs.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: —we have a unit in the Ministry of Education dedicated to working with them—and the member next door to the member asking the question should know that Pasifika kids are actually getting a good deal with these options.

Carmel Sepuloni: Really? Not many of them.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Really—ask the parents who have chosen to send them there, rather than having the Opposition deciding where they should be sent.

Chris Hipkins: Why does she have confidence in the performance information being supplied by partnership schools, when one of the partnership schools, which reported a 100 percent NCEA pass rate at level 2, and thereby exceeded its performance target in its contract, was reassessed and found to have only a 60 percent pass rate at NCEA level 2, and therefore had not met its performance contract?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The reason that the member can ask these questions is the utmost transparency with which we run all schools in New Zealand, and every 3 months we release this data. If the member looks closely at the table on page 6, he will see reported results—

Chris Hipkins: Yep—got it right here. Right there.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: —exactly right—and there is a further column that has those recalibrated against the Education Counts website. So I can assure the member we have a Ministry of Education working with sponsors to ensure that they are indeed reliable data and that they are comparable.

Chris Hipkins: Why should the public have confidence that partnership schools’ performance is being rated on the same basis as State school performance, when the criteria that she used to award their performance bonuses last year was different to the criteria that State schools are measured by, and schools that had been deemed to have met their performance criteria did not meet their performance criteria when assessed on the same basis as every other school?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: First of all, it is “different from”, but anyway, to go to the substance of the question, this is a model evolving, in the same way as other models—kura kaupapa, for instance, and ngā whanaketanga e pā ana ki ngā take mātauranga [about developments on matters regarding education]. We are developing performance data with them as well, to better capture it. I have confidence, and the public should have confidence, because we report very clearly on what is happening. We account for every dollar. Actually, partnership schools have a much higher accountability framework. They are contracted. They are required to report quarterly. We provide that information for the Opposition, because it is the only issue they seem to have questions on in education.

Disability Issues—Disability Strategy

9. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister for Disability Issues: What recent announcements has she made regarding initiatives that will help New Zealand to become a non-disabling society?

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister for Disability Issues): I recently launched the new disability strategy, which will guide the direction of Government agencies on disability issues for the next 10 years. It was developed after nationwide consultation with disabled people, their families, whānau, and supporters. More than 1,130 people attended workshops across the country, and 770 submissions were received.

Barbara Kuriger: How does the new disability strategy differ from the 2001 New Zealand Disability Strategy?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: The new strategy will have teeth, and it will be backed by supporting documents that will give tangible outcomes. It will work in conjunction with the Disability Action Plan and a new outcomes framework, which will develop specific targets and indicators to measure the success of the strategy. Furthermore, a disability data and evidence plan is being developed to ensure that the Government’s decisions are based on the best possible evidence.

Police—Resourcing

10. STUART NASH (Labour—Napier) to the Minister of Police: When she said in an interview with Paul Henry yesterday that the “over-engineering and overthinking that can happened when a government or a party has been in government for quite some time” means “it is really important just to get on with the job”, was she referring to the fact that she has been working on a plan since June for more police but still nothing has been delivered?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police): No. I was referring to how this party is going to win the next election in 2017.

Stuart Nash: When she stated yesterday that her vision for New Zealand is that “I need more police, and I need them now.”, does that mean her vision is not currently shared by the Minister of Finance?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Not at all.

Stuart Nash: When she stated in the House on Tuesday that “We will soon see, will we not.”, in regard to whether the Minister of Finance has given her all the funding she needs, what exactly did she mean?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Exactly what I said.

Stuart Nash: Does she believe that the Police have enough resources to handle an increase in the youth justice age, given that she stated in 2008, of any increase, that people would “think we were a bunch of wussies” if it were to increase?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: If the member wants to go ahead and make an Official Information Act request for the Cabinet papers, he will see that that matter has been dealt with.

Stuart Nash: Now that she has delayed her bid for the leadership of her party until later next year, can Police expect 6 more months of inaction on increasing police numbers because of Bill English’s love of committee after committee, as she so rightly highlighted yesterday?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No.

Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill—Māori Children

11. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Social Development: Is she still intending to introduce the second amendment to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 this year, now that the Māori Women’s Welfare League has filed a claim in the Waitangi Tribunal challenging the proposed changes?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Yes, I am committed to ensuring that children and young people and their safety and well-being is at the heart of the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki. The second stage of the changes tabled today will do this by allowing young people to remain in care or return to care up to the age of 21, with transition support and advice available up until 25; establishing an information-sharing framework to keep vulnerable children safe from harm; and, as I announced yesterday with Minister Adams, including low-risk 17-year-olds in the youth justice system. The proposals would also amend the purposes and principles of the Act to give explicit recognition to key Māori concepts of mana tamariki, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga when working with tamariki Māori.

Jan Logie: Does the bill include any of the changes to the whānau, hapū, and iwi provisions that prompted the Waitangi Tribunal claim?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, my first answer would be that the member should read the bill; it is on the table. But as I have said from the very beginning, and will continue to say, the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki will put the safety and well-being of children and young people first, above everything else. The very best outcome for all tamariki is to be with their family, their wider whānau or hapū, in a safe, stable environment.

Jan Logie: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it is probably pretty obvious—I asked whether it included any of the changes to those provisions that were outlined in the Cabinet papers and prompted the claim.

Mr SPEAKER: No, but it then went on to add whether those potential changes might have prompted a claim to Waitangi Tribunal. I am not sure how you could expect the Minister to know what prompted the claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. It has been addressed.

Jan Logie: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I have made a ruling, but I will listen to the member.

Jan Logie: Thank you. I am seeking—because it was clear in their claim that they were prompted by the Cabinet papers that spoke explicitly about changing those provisions. So that is not up for debate, so I really was asking for an answer about those—

Mr SPEAKER: What I will do to move the matter forward—being generous on a Thursday—is I will give the member the opportunity to ask an additional supplementary question. She may be advised to rephrase the one that she just tried.

Jan Logie: Does the bill include any of the changes to the whānau, hapū, and iwi provisions, as outlined in the Cabinet papers, that prompted the Waitangi Tribunal claim?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Not knowing what prompted the claim in the eyes of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, what I would suggest to the member is that those were three papers of about eight that were taken to Cabinet to propose the wide raft of changes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. I refer the member to bill No. 2, section 13, parts 2A to 2L, which goes through, consistently, all the issues that need to be taken into account when any intervention with whānau is considered. But, I repeat, the bill makes it very clear—and I am very clear in my mind as the Minister promoting the bill—that the very best place for tamariki is with their whānau in a safe, stable, and loving environment.

Jan Logie: Actually, I am going to ask the same question again, because the Cabinet papers specifically—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. I gave her an opportunity. The member has now asked that question twice. I consider that it had probably been addressed the first time; it has certainly been addressed the second time. It is over to the member how she phrases her own questions, but supplementary questions are an opportunity for her to quiz a Minister. There seems little point in being repetitive, but it is the member’s opportunity to ask supplementary questions.

Jan Logie: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Were you just clarifying to me that I can use my supplementary questions in any way that I wish?

Mr SPEAKER: Absolutely, provided it is within the rules of the Standing Orders, the member has the ability. I guess I am giving her some advice; it is over to her whether she takes it.

Jan Logie: My question is around the provisions in the Cabinet papers that explicitly talked about removing and changing provisions to the whānau, hapū, and iwi parts of the Act. Have any of those changes been included in this bill?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: My answer is, largely, as I have given, and I refer the member to that section 13. But to help her and to help the House, there is a list of things that have to be taken into account—that have to be considered—when making decisions about a child, and they include that, wherever possible, the relationship between the child or young person and their family, whānau, and usual caregiver is respected, supported, and strengthened; the relationship between the child or young person and their siblings is respected, supported, and strengthened; and the family, whānau, hapū, iwi, and usual caregiver have a voice and a role in decisions made about the child or young person. As I said in my answer to the primary question, we have included those terms that give particular recognition to key Māori concepts of a child—mana tamaiti or tamariki, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga—when working specifically with tamariki Māori, so that means that we have extended the provisions that were in those original first three Cabinet papers.

Jan Logie: If the Waitangi Tribunal agrees to consider the claim, will she delay the bill to ensure that the reforms do not breach the Government’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have tabled the bill in the House today.

Forestry—Afforestation Grants Scheme 2016

12. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Associate Minister for Primary Industries: How is the Government supporting the planting of new forests?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): Recently I announced the results of the Afforestation Grants Scheme’s 2016 funding round. I am pleased to report to the House that more than 5.5 million seedlings will be planted next winter. With the approval by the Ministry for Primary Industries of 81 applications for 4,818 hectares of new forest, this is a fantastic result for forestry in New Zealand. That is 1,900 hectares more than last year’s funding round. The member will be pleased to hear that 333 hectares of new forests will be planted in the Marlborough region.

Stuart Smith: How has increasing uptake of the scheme benefited regional New Zealand?

Hon JO GOODHEW: Forests are a vital part of our economy, whether it be for carbon absorption or reducing land erosion. This scheme is making a real contribution. Uptake for this scheme has nearly doubled, and new forests will be planted in regions all around New Zealand, providing a welcome source of new economic growth and employment opportunities through the $6.2 million investment. Regions that will benefit from new forests include the following: Hawke’s Bay, 555 hectares; Manawatū-Wanganui, 755 hectares; Northland, 440 hectares; Taranaki, 594 hectares; and Waikato, 547 hectares. They are but some of the regions that benefit.

David Seymour: How did the Government decide that New Zealanders are planting an insufficient number of trees, and how does the Government know what the correct or optimal number of trees to plant is?

Hon JO GOODHEW: What the Government knew was that we had a previous Afforestation Grants Scheme that was very, very popular. It encouraged, often, farm forestry exponents to plant trees in small lots on highly erodible land. They would otherwise not have done this. This is good for the climate, this is good to prevent land erosion, and it also gives employment to other people. This is a scheme that has a lot of positive benefits for New Zealand, and that is why the Government is doing it.

Bills

Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill

Second Reading

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): I move, That the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill be now read a second time.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Committee stage of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill to be taken as one question, with multiple calls, given the process that has been used to develop it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I think that the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee, who have sat on this over the last week, are just about asleep on their feet, so were wanting someone else to take the first call and cover the general, and then just pick up the little rats and mice that were left. Could I begin by thanking Minister Brownlee. Minister Brownlee came to the committee yesterday to try to resolve the issues that were left outstanding after our deliberations, and was very reasonable in his dealings with the committee, and I think that is why we have got to the point when there is near-unanimity around the terms of this bill.

Could I say a few things about it. Firstly, the content of the bill is informed by the experience in Canterbury and by the report of the Regulations Review Committee, pursuant to the inquiry that Parliament requested the committee to do into how far regulation-making powers ought to go if you have emergency legislation following an earthquake.

The central proposition of the Regulations Review Committee, which reflected an earlier finding from years back from the Law Commission, is that it is actually impossible to have legislation passed in advance that covers all of the potential eventualities arising from a large disaster like an earthquake unless the empowering legislation is so broad that it would potentially confer, in the event of a disaster, powers to the executive that are broader than necessary. And for that reason, when we have an earthquake, it is necessary to have bespoke legislation to address the powers that are needed.

As I said in the first reading of this bill, my view on these sorts of powers is the same as it is in respect of taxation—as little as possible but as much as necessary. So the philosophy that I and the Labour Party took to this select committee is that we needed to give the executive as few powers to override primary legislation as is possible but as many as are necessary. With that in mind, I think we have largely achieved that. There are two aspects that I do not find perfect, which I will refer to—we are not voting against the bill on that basis—but in the main I think the select committee, with the help from officials and submitters, has got to a reasonable place.

There are some changes that have been made by the select committee that are detailed on Supplementary Order Paper 255, which has now been tabled by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. Because of the pressure of time, there was no time for the Parliamentary Counsel Office to prepare a revision-tracked version of the bill and, therefore, the changes proposed are set out on a Supplementary Order Paper. A lot of them are pretty technical. Denis O’Rourke made some useful suggestions for changing the purpose clause. That has been incorporated in the bill.

Officials, with scrutiny from the select committee, found that there were a number of Acts listed in schedule 2 that did not, in fact, need to be in there. I should at this point say in respect of that list that the way in which this legislation deals with it compared with the Canterbury legislation is that instead of having a list of a few Acts that cannot be overridden, like the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and then saying that anything else can be, this bill is more restrictive in that it sets out a list of the Acts in schedule 2 that can be overridden, but it still has a list of a few Acts, like the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, that never can be.

The two areas that I was not completely convinced by at the select committee were also raised by some of the submitters, like Professor Andrew Geddis and also, in one case, the New Zealand Law Society. The first of those two is that I do not think there is a need to oust the jurisdiction of the court. It is true that there is a residual ability of the courts to hold illegal an Order in Council overriding statutes that are plainly outside the terms of this bill—so that would happen, for example, if the Minister attempted to override an Act that is not on the schedule 2 list.

But I, personally, think we should not be at all limiting judicial review rights. The bill does limit judicial review rights around process decisions and other decisions that the Minister takes under the Act. I do not think that was necessary. There is already a very wide discretion for the Minister. The test of his decision making is a subjective one—it is not an objective one—which gives him great latitude, and I do not think we should be scared of the courts having a judicial review function that is not proscribed in any way.

For example, some of the concerns that you would get an activist court, I think, are misplaced. If there was an application to challenge the validity of a Minister’s decision under this legislation, that application does not stop any process. It is only if the court grants a remedy that it would stop a process. Even then it is unlikely that the remedy would be an injunctive one if the Government was saying: “Look, this is necessary in the face of an emergency or a situation post-earthquake.” In any event, the select committee has gone so far as to clarify that there is a residual judicial review right; it is just not as broad as I would have liked.

The other issue—before I sit down—is the geographic breadth of the legislation. It includes already the Wellington region. The geographic impact of this bill is potentially from the Waitaki River to the north of the Wairarapa. When the serious parts of this earthquake sequence have been around Kaikōura, it seems to me to be an unnecessarily geographically broad area—a number of submitters made that point. I would have preferred that we narrowed it. If you are going to have such a long list in schedule 2, as we have got, it is hard to see why those powers should be conferred in respect of the Wellington area.

I know that there are people concerned that we could yet have another large earthquake in the Wellington region and they would like to have the capability to invoke those powers should that terrible thing happen. I think you wait until that sort of thing happens before you confer those powers rather than confer them in advance. However, as I have previously said, I accept that the Minister who has had broad powers under the Canterbury legislation has not misused them, and with those comments I note that the Labour Party members will be supporting the bill.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I am pleased to take a call on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill. I will just say before starting that the Green Party is thinking of the many people in Indonesia’s Aceh Province. Certainly, there has not been the destructive tsunami that there was in 2004, but hundreds of people there have lost loved ones and a lot of people have suffered serious injuries, so we are really thinking of the people in Indonesia suffering as a result of that massive earthquake.

I think too of the people of Kaikōura, South Marlborough, and North Canterbury as they are struggling with their damaged homes and with how to rebuild their businesses without State Highway 1 and the visitor traffic that that provides. Can we assure them that here in Parliament we have been dealing with this legislation, trying to get it through as expeditiously as possible, and the select committee and officials have worked very hard on that.

I would certainly like to recognise the work of officials in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the officials they have consulted with from the Ministry for the Environment and others, the select committee staff of the Local Government and Environment Committee, parliamentary counsel, and everyone who has put a lot of energy and very careful thought into this bill. Not least, I acknowledge the Minister and his preparedness to engage with the select committee as a result of our consideration of our submissions and thoughts around the bill. I think that this bill, even though it went to select committee for only less than a week and submissions were open for only a working day or so, highlighted once again the value of the select committee process, because the bill has come back to the House through the Supplementary Order Paper process with a number of changes as a result of submissions and as a result of the committee’s consideration.

As Mr Parker noted, and as the Regulations Review Committee discussed in its report, some have certainly suggested that it would be desirable to have legislation around recovery from a national emergency prepared as much as possible in advance. Certainly, superficially, that is attractive because it means that the issues are considered in a reflective and a measured way, but I think the shortcoming is that because such legislation is generic, it would have to provide very broad powers and, potentially, larger powers than are needed. So, even though it means that people are working under pressure, I think with this bill bespoke legislation is better because there is focused attention on the powers that it should provide and the situation that it should respond to.

I certainly acknowledge the Green Party’s appreciation of the work done by the Regulations Review Committee in finalising its report Inquiry into Parliament’s legislative response to future national emergencies. That was a very good series of recommendations that I think assisted the Local Government and Environment Committee, particularly because it built on the work done by the Law Commission.

The Green Party has considered this bill very carefully. Like everyone, I think, in the Parliament, we are reluctant to support legislation that allows the executive through Orders in Council to modify, suspend, and override primary legislation with no opportunity for parliamentary debate, public submissions, or scrutiny and consideration by a select committee. As noted by submitters, particularly constitutional lawyers and also Dr Ann Brower, breaching constitutional norms, as Dr Ann Brower said, is a bit like eating fish and chips—if you are going to do it, it had better be worth it. I think certainly the Kaikōura-Hurunui earthquake sequence—the huge damage that it has done to the land there and the access that it has cut off to Kaikōura—means that emergency powers are required.

We acknowledge that the bill as introduced by the Minister did improve on the Canterbury emergency legislation in response to the earthquakes there, with additional safeguards including the fact that the Orders in Council that are made by the relevant Minister must be necessary or desirable in terms of the proposed purpose and that they cannot be broader than required. This bill has a list of Acts about which Orders in Council can be made, rather than the bill being a much more blank cheque, as with the Canterbury legislation. Those “Henry VIII” provisions, as they are called, were rightly criticised in the Canterbury earthquake recovery legislation because of the very considerable powers that they gave to the executive to suspend and modify Acts of Parliament. There, the executive was able to override all but a handful of Acts in relation to constitutional matters, and custody and detention. So it is positive that we have schedule 2 in this bill and the list of, I think, more than 40 Acts that the bill applies to. They, themselves, are very broad Acts. They include things like the Resource Management Act, the Conservation Act, the Railways Act, the Maritime Transport Act, the Land Transport Act, and others.

In the select committee we inserted some additional safeguards in recognition of the concerns that were raised by submitters, and also in recognition of our own concerns. Like the Labour Party, the Green Party would have liked to see a protection of the ability to take judicial review, because the courts provide, through their scrutiny of Ministers’ exercise of the Order in Council power, an additional check and balance. But we are pleased that the changes have been made in proposed clause 8(4) and clause 16(4), I think it is, where there is a provision that nothing in the Act, except as provided in the clause, prevents the court from determining whether an order is authorised by this Act. What that, effectively, means is that if an order is ultra vires—if it goes outside the purpose and the scope of that purpose—then there is the ability to invoke legal action and ask the courts to examine that. So that is certainly making that much clearer than the provision in the bill as introduced.

We are also pleased in terms of clause 16 that where the Minister wants to use an Order in Council in relation to Acts that are not in schedule 2, then the Minister must put the proposal for the draft order to the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament with the reasons he or she wants to make that order, and he or she has to be satisfied that there is near-unanimity from the parties that the order should proceed. So, although it is not coming to the Parliament before the order is made, there is quite a deal of political influence in that provision. And, of course, in this clause, if there are Orders in Council made that bring in and affect additional Acts to those listed in schedule 2, those Orders in Council have to be affirmed subsequently by the Parliament.

In the Green Party, we would have liked to see that affirmative resolution procedure applied to all Orders in Council as an additional check on the Minister’s powers and a safeguard against abuse, but we will be supporting this bill, and we are not using the fact that that is missing from the bill as a reason to oppose it. That is partly because of the additional safeguards around Orders in Council; the composition of the review panel, which has a number of people with specific expertise on it; the fact that the Minister must have regard to the advice and consider the advice that the review panel provides; and the fact that there is now a process for seeking some public comment—and my colleague Jan Logie may talk further about that. These additional safeguards have, I think, put better checks on the Minister’s powers.

The other major improvement that the select committee made was in relation to allowing additional local authorities that have not been affected by the Hurunui-Kaikōura earthquake sequence to have Orders in Council imposed there. Clause 16 has been amended and that provision about the Minister specifying one or more local authorities where orders could apply has been removed, so it is very much restricted to those local authority areas that have been affected by the Hurunui-Kaikōura quake. Nevertheless, as Mr Parker has said, the ambit of this bill does apply to a large geographical area, from the Waitaki River right through up into the Wairarapa, even though—

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): When a bill goes through a good process, you tend to get good legislation, and I think that this has been a good process, even though it has been a truncated one. In the end, we have got a good bill. The submissions, I thought, were particularly well focused, as they tend to be when you get a truncated process, and many added a valued perspective and some really quite useful suggestions.

All parties worked very well together on the Local Government and Environment Committee, so that after a lot of hard work, I might say, consensus was reached on virtually all of the changes to the bill. That was very ably assisted by Scott Simpson’s very capable chairmanship, and I do not think the consensus would have been so easy without that. I also want to express my appreciation of Minister Brownlee’s willingness on this occasion to listen, to discuss in person, and to accommodate changes the Opposition parties had sought. But my special thanks go to the officials and to the support staff, whose really hard work late at night was very sincerely appreciated, I am sure, by all of us.

Going into the consideration of this bill, New Zealand First did have three areas of concern. These have now been addressed in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) changes that we have before us on SOP 255. The first of those that I raised was the purpose clause, which clearly did need some work and some clarification, especially around the need to facilitate the restoration of the environment, as far as practically possible in the circumstances, of course, and a new clause was added to that purpose.

I am relieved, actually, that no attempt was made to define what we mean by the term “environment”, because I think these days that is clear enough. The clause also covers economic recovery, planning and rebuilding, and the economic, social, and cultural well-being of communities. The expression of purposes in the bill is actually very important, because it is referred to in other provisions in the bill relating to the scope of the powers under the bill and their checks and balances.

The second issue that we thought was important was clause 16, which has now been deleted and replaced with something else. But that related, firstly, to the addition of new council districts and regions, and that will now no longer be possible without new legislation. That is appropriate when you bear in mind that paragraph (c) of the definition of the term “earthquake-affected area” in clause 4 includes “the areas of other districts or regions that contain transport or other infrastructure”. That means you could actually go quite some distance beyond the defined areas covered by the bill, provided it relates to effects on transport and infrastructure. So it is actually quite a wide-ranging area for the bill.

This is not generic legislation, and the areas actually covered by it are already vast, so it is appropriate that new legislation should be obtained if significant events or effects arrive later in areas outside those listed in the bill. So I think that we have done the right thing with regard to this piece of legislation as far as the addition of other districts or regions is concerned, which would require new legislation.

The second issue was that other Acts in addition to those listed in schedule 2, which already contains more than 40 enactments, cannot be added to except if the near-consensus of all political parties is obtained. I think that was a very good compromise that was suggested by Minister Brownlee, and it was readily adopted by the select committee.

The third issue was the limitation on appeal rights. We had expressed concerns, as other parties had, about how broad subclause (3) of clause 8 appeared to be. That has been addressed pretty well, I think, by new subclause (4), which has been added so that it is clear that the courts are not prevented from determining whether an order is authorised by the Act.

I have only a few more comments to make, actually, because those are the three main areas that New Zealand First had concern about. As I have said, they have all been addressed, and properly addressed, in the amendments that we see before us on Supplementary Order Paper 255. There were a number of other worthwhile changes made, which New Zealand First also supported, especially around the all-important panel to review and advise the Minister, because that, I think, is in fact the most important of the checks and balances provided for in the bill. It was important to get that right, and I think we now do have it right.

So with all those changes, New Zealand First is now very satisfied with the bill. We seek no other changes, and we will vote in favour.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to make a contribution at this stage of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill, and, on behalf of the good people of Kaikōura, I would like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee and its able chair, Scott Simpson, for the collegiality of the select committee in working very hard on this bill. I know that the members sat for very long hours, and the officials and advisers who did all the work around that as well should also be thanked for their hard work. I know they burnt the midnight oil to ensure this bill was before us today. I can tell you that it means a heck of a lot to those people.

I was in Kaikōura this morning. I got back just in time for this afternoon, and they are already asking questions about when this is all going to be able to be enacted and when they can start the recovery phase. I know that it has been over 3 weeks since the earthquake and that a heck of a lot has happened, but if you are the people living in it, it seems a heck of a long time. So they are really very grateful that things are moving. I told them that I was coming back here today and that this would be passed today, so I really do thank everybody across the House on their behalf. I think that all of this work you have put into this bill—particularly, as has been alluded to, the advisory panel—really does make this bill a good step forward in the management of the recovery. I think that had it not had that panel—that was really the icing on the cake, if you like, or the final check and balance along the way.

It was talked about earlier by one of the previous speakers about perhaps having an on-the-shelf piece of legislation, but when you look at this incident compared with the Christchurch earthquakes, they have quite a different profile in terms of the damage and what areas were affected. I suspect that each event will have its own nuances, and a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation would have to be so broad that we would run into all the sorts of issues that have been the points of debate around this particular bill anyway. I think that although a lot of work has been caused for the Local Government and Environment Committee and officials to get this through in a quick and timely manner, I cannot see any other way of handling a recovery bill like this.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone concerned. I cannot add any more on the technical details as I was not on the select committee, but, as I said earlier, there are a whole lot of people watching and listening to this today who are very keen on this getting passed. So I will not delay it any further. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the Green Party in the Committee stage of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill, which the Green Party is supporting. I too want to add my voice of thanks, along with the other members of the committee, to the select committee staff and the officials, and to the Minister Gerry Brownlee, indeed, who put in a huge amount of work to enable us to get to this point. It is very clear, as the mood in the select committee indicated, that we all want to get this right—that these are extraordinary powers that are being handed to the executive, and that is something that should never be taken lightly, or done in a sense of panic or emergency, without very proper consideration.

I have been encouraged that there has been a significant amount of thought about what checks and balances we could practically put in place that would help good decision-making, because at the heart of it those checks and balances are about preventing a misuse of power but they are also about making sure that we get good decisions for communities that are already in a really terrible situation. We know that in those times of extreme stress—and there is no doubt that people in Kaikōura and Hurunui must be feeling extreme stress at the moment, and will be for a significant period of time—there will be a temptation to just get things done, but sometimes that may lead to poor decision-making that will have irreparable consequences. Part of this process is putting in some checks and balances to prompt a second thought following that first option and idea that we may all be compelled by.

Some of the changes that happened within the select committee process were that there has been a reduction in the number of Acts that can be changed easily by Order in Council, and I think there are eight fewer Acts on that list. That also shows that the ministries that are thinking about what might be needed in these areas have gone through and thought a bit more carefully than their first take about, actually, how could we do this—how could we support these communities, where could we do it within the existing law, and where might we need a bit of override of current legislation?

We had some concern at the beginning that there is a provision in here that enables additional Acts to be added to that list. That remains—additional Acts can be added—but for an Act to be added, the Minister needs to send a draft of the intention to do that to the leaders of all of the parties in Parliament, and there needs to be near-unanimous support from those party leaders for that to go ahead. That is giving some of that power back to Parliament, which is a check and balance on the power of the executive. That seemed to us to be a good compromise, because we do understand that we cannot anticipate what might happen—or, indeed, what is invisible to us at the moment that may only become clearer later.

There was also concern from us at the beginning that a provision of the bill as it went to the Local Government and Environment Committee said that—and I cannot remember the exact wording—things could not be challenged in the court. There was a very real concern from the committee that that meant judicial review of any of the Orders in Council was ruled out—that there could be no scrutiny of these Orders in the Council by the courts. That seemed concerning, to put it mildly. So there has been some clarification of that, and there was a negotiation in that process. However, the committee was not unanimous in support of the point we got to, and we would have liked to see, possibly, an ability for a review beyond whether an Order in Council is authorised by this Act. However, it is a compromise point that all parties could live with, at least, even though the Green Party would have gone further.

There was also a part in the Act that talked about the fact that if there was another quake that happened—or a significant event or tsunami—that impacted on affected areas, then Orders in Council could be applied to those other areas. The example that we discussed in committee was if there was an earthquake in Hawke’s Bay, or a tsunami, and that affected one of the regions in New Zealand that was covered by this piece of legislation, then actually you could use Orders in Council in Hawke’s Bay or up in Auckland just by virtue of this bill. The committee and the Minister agreed that that was a step too far—that if there was an event of that nature, then Parliament should reconvene to consider exactly what bespoke response was needed to that event, and that that should not be able to be dealt with by this piece of legislation. And that is a good improvement, I would say.

We also had a bit of concern—in the initial draft that we had seen before it came to the House, there was the ability for affected people to be able to provide comment into the process. Then the bill that came to the House did not include that, and we were concerned about that. It was an interesting discussion in the committee, because we asked Professor Geddes whether he supported that provision through the submissions, and he said: “Well, actually, if you specify it needs to be ‘affected people’, then, actually, you’re opening to a legal challenge on the basis that you didn’t identify all the affected people.” So that actually seemed a reasonable point and a reason why we would not want “affected people” locked into the legislation.

But what we have—and I thank the Minister for it—is a provision that in drafting an Order in Council, if it is practicable, the Minister either will give a copy of the draft and reasoning to people whom the Minister considers will be affected by the legislation, or will publicly notify it. So there is an opportunity for people in those communities to be able to have a say, potentially, in that drafting phase of an Order in Council. We strongly believe that that input will help make good decisions. It gives the Minister the opportunity to get more information to be able to weigh up the different potential impacts of an Order in Council, and we thank the Minister for adding in that provision.

We did also have, I guess, some concerns about how wide the purpose of the Act is. There was debate about that within the committee. It has been tidied up from where it was initially, and I thank Denis O’Rourke for his contributions towards that. I do recognise that it is a very difficult balance between making the purpose so wide that really nothing is challengeable in the courts, and making it too tight and being unable to respond to the events that arise that you cannot foresee. I think we were willing to accept where it got to on the basis of it actually being a really difficult decision to make. It is probably one of those things where I hope there will be an evaluation of how this works after this time is over, so that we can consider whether the purpose scope was too wide or not. We look forward to that discussion in the future.

I see that my time is running out on this, but I really do just want to say that it was a very constructive process that reflected the concern right across the House for the people and the communities that have been affected by this quake.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Spare—Mr Chair—

Carmel Sepuloni: Time to go home.

MEKA WHAITIRI: —time to go home—and members, greetings. Like the member for Kaikōura, I do not want to prolong this debate, but I do want to stand in support of this bill. Clearly, issues have been transferred—look, my mind is going now. Clearly, issues have been dealt with by all the members on this side. It was a bill that needed the urgency of this House.

Of course, we did have some issues, which I think have been ably addressed in the select committee process, particularly around the purpose clause, which others have spoken about, and trying to get that balance between the economic recovery and it not happening at the expense of any adverse effects on the environment. Of course, the statement we have put in, on Supplementary Order Paper 255, adding new clause 3(a)(v), probably was not to the liking of the Green Party in terms of “facilitating the restoration of the environment”, but, clearly, in order to support a bill to aid and abet recovery in both Hurunui and Kaikōura, we needed to have those checks and balances.

I am confident that in the process that we have undertaken at the Local Government and Environment Committee—one of the hardest-working select committees in Parliament—we have addressed as best as we can those relevant checks and balances. I do not really want to go over them, but definitely in clause 8, where we have talked about ensuring the Minister takes regard before he makes the order, clearly we have introduced the review panel. Can I just say, on that particular point, that in clause 11 the committee made some changes inserted by Supplementary Order Paper 255 where we want the convenor to be a former or retired judge; before, we had a judge or a lawyer of 7 years. So it is recognition of a retired judge’s capability in that we wanted the convenor of the panel advising the Minister to be a former or a retired judge of the High Court.

Of course, the other check and balance is that once the draft order has been made by the Minister, he shares it not only with the review panel for comment but also with the Regulations Review Committee, and, of course, if the House is not sitting, then the expectation is that those orders will be shared with the political parties of Parliament. It is good that we have also made amendments around giving a time frame of 3 days in which those particular panels and the Regulations Review Committee or political party leaders have to provide feedback to the Minister. That is all very good. Of course, clause 13 around the function of the panel again gives some guidelines for the Minister before the order is actually made.

I do add my voice of acknowledgment to the hard-working role of our officials and, obviously, the chairmanship by Scott Simpson. I think this bill, in the time frame in which we have had to operate, is a fairly good piece of legislation, which I am happy to be supportive of. Of course, the acknowledgment as far as I am concerned is to the officials who supported the select committee—many of whom are sitting behind you, Mr Chair—and, of course, to the able support of the clerks of our select committee.

I look forward to the third and final reading of this bill. Kia ora tātou.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 255 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 256 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 10 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Noes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): I move, That the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill be now read a third time. The Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill is the last of three pieces of legislation created in response to the emergency that began with the earthquake on 14 November of this year. It is worth noting that that was one of the biggest earthquake events in the world for 2016, so that should indicate some of the necessity for this approach. Firstly, before we go too much further into the content of the bill, I do want to acknowledge the work of our officials, who have responded very, very well to the needs that they could see on the horizon for the many places that are affected by that event. I also want to thank the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee, who engaged incredibly constructively, I think, to a point where it can very much be considered Parliament’s response to the needs of the Kaikōura/Hurunui district and right up into the Wellington district here as well.

The bill allows for specified lists of legislation to be amended by Order in Council for earthquake-affected areas, but only where it is necessary and desirable for recovery. It is a little open-ended, but, as I said when I introduced the bill, it is just not possible in the early stages to know the full range of responses that might be necessary to move people’s lives forward. The bill facilitates recovery without needing to anticipate every power or statutory provision. This process is generally used only in exceptional circumstances, and there is, I think, a strong argument to suggest that this is a very definite exceptional circumstance.

Although it was short, the select committee process was well used by all political parties and by many who had an interest in where we might end up on a bill that has such broad powers. So I am very grateful to those who supported the committee, as I said before, but also to those who submitted to the committee, and the changes that their submissions brought about. Those changes have improved the bill, and I recognise that when you are having a piece of legislation that allows the suspension, altering, or changing of other pieces of legislation, there is a necessity to have some constraint within it.

Firstly, the bill is limited in its geographic powers. Although there was initially an idea that we might be able to put other areas in, through the select committee process there was the persuasive argument offered, particularly by the Hon David Parker, asking why that would be necessary when, if these events happen, Parliament comes together so quickly to do something for affected areas. I accept that that is a very reasonable position.

The greater Wellington region has been significantly affected by these events, and it is only right that there be some flexible mechanism to support effective recovery here in Wellington. It is not as evident here, because the roads are working, the sewers are working, and the water is working. The issue here is, potentially, in the safety of buildings that so many Wellingtonians either live in or work in. Anybody would want to be able to do something to ensure that they have the ultimate comfort that comes from knowing that the law itself will do whatever is necessary to protect their interest.

The bill is not a catch-all for all possible future natural events. As I said before in the discussions with the select committee, and as acknowledged by many and as highlighted by the Hon David Parker, if there is a future event, there might be a future response. Generic legislation, I think, would be a very dangerous thing in these circumstances. It is important that this still does not mean that Orders in Council will be necessarily made for all the Acts that are listed in the schedule. It is very broad, and a lot have been put in there trying to anticipate circumstances where it might not be possible—predicting them might be impossible at the present time. In any event, there is a process now—quite prescribed—where a Minister choosing to use this provision will need to engage in appropriate consultation, and will need to have good and justifiable reasons tested against the purpose of the bill for advancing that legislation.

In addition, there will be an independent review panel to look at those orders and to make a similar test, and to make some recommendations to the Minister. That panel will be convened by a retired High Court judge, and it will include people with a range of relevant skills and experiences, including in Māori traditional knowledge, protocol, and culture, as well as environmental protection and the nature of the communities within the earthquake-affected areas.

One additional step added by the select committee stage is that the relevant Minister will now have to provide the review panel with a draft reason for seeking the Order in Council alongside a draft order. It might seem that that is an obvious thing to do, but it was, perhaps, a little overlooked in the initial drafting of the bill itself; it is now there.

The relevant Minister also needs to seek and consider appropriate public comment, as I indicated before, on any proposal, unless there are exceptional circumstances that make that an unviable option. Draft orders will also be provided to the Regulations Review Committee, or to the leaders of political parties during adjournment, for comment, and the relevant Ministers must have regard to comments received.

The provisions of the bill are time-bound. The ability to make orders, and any orders made under this bill, will expire on 1 April 2018. There have been, though, some exceptions to that: we have made it possible for three specific pieces of primary legislation—for Kaikōura, Hurunui, and Marlborough districts only—to be extended. This will accommodate expected delays in revaluation of properties and associated audits of those councils, so the expiry date for orders related to those matters will now be 30 June 2021.

The select committee also discussed the importance of considering environmental concerns. In addition to the reference in the purpose statement to the role of the Resource Management Act, environmental matters are specifically highlighted as requiring consideration as part of developing Orders in Council. I might add here that I do not anticipate that this will be anywhere near the problem that some might think. So far, as the road south is being opened up between Kaikōura and Christchurch, there have been appropriate steps to ensure that there are people onsite, in fact, who have an understanding of, firstly, tikanga Māori, and how that might affect the area, but also people who are sensitive to what might happen to other people’s livelihoods if spoil, etc., is not dealt with in an appropriate way.

So I do not have some of the fears that others may have in that regard. It is certainly not a prohibition on people doing what is necessary and provided for by way of the powers in this bill. I think, then, that the bill does contain sufficient balances to make the necessary checks on it. The question of judicial review did arise, and I am sure that that may come up again in this afternoon’s final area of discussion on this bill, the third reading. But, in the end, I think we have got to a point where we can be comfortable that there is a lot to guard against the irresponsible use of a bill like this.

The bill is an important step in helping us to support and promote recovery from the earthquake sequence in the districts affected, and we need to ensure that people can get on with getting on with their jobs, and getting their communities up and running again. It will not be an easy task for them. It will not be a short task for them. This will not be the end of either this Government’s or this Parliament’s concern to ensure that those people are supported. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I think the Minister has very fairly described the checks and balances that are included in the bill. There is a discrete list of Acts to be overridden. There are real restrictions on it being able to be extended as to the scope of Acts that can be overridden, including an affirmative resolution, effectively, eventually being needed in this Parliament. I would have preferred Parliament making that decision in the first place, but I think that is a reasonable place to land.

I referred to the geographical area of the bill in the Committee stage and I do not want to say anything extra, other than to record that the Hutt City Council recorded that it already has the powers it needs under the Building Act to take the buildings down that it needs to get taken down, following the earthquake. I do accept that there is the possibility that there could be other buildings where the owner is reluctant to demolish them quickly enough, even though there are safety risks caused to other buildings that might necessitate some override of existing legislation. So, on that basis, I am not going to make anything more of that.

I add my thanks to my fellow select committee members—I think we all worked well together—and to the officials. They were very, very professional. I think the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has served the Government and our country well, as have the other agencies that supported it.

A final thing, in respect of the roading issues, I agree with Minister Brownlee and I do have some trust in the roading authorities. When they came before us at the select committee, they noted that they have various protocols that they use. They are aware that they have got to minimise the fines going into the marine environment. They also note that they are already going in from some of the existing slips that are continuing, and will continue, to erode the foreshore and seabed area if they are not remedied. So there can be wins there, as well.

I have got nothing further to add. I commend the bill to the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is fantastic to be at the third reading of this Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill. As I said a little earlier, the people of Kaikōura are really anticipating this moment, getting this bill through. I thought I might take a moment to reflect on some of the issues that are affecting daily life in that area. For example, only just recently, dairy farmers had cowsheds that were destroyed in the earthquake and their cows had to walk some distance to be milked, which affected their production. It caused some real questions about animal health, had that needed to continue for some time. Those cows have now been able to get out of the Kaikōura area and are being looked after elsewhere. That is a huge relief to those farmers and the people of Kaikōura.

I can say that a couple of weeks ago, when I was down there, talking to one of the farmers, he was extremely stressed about the animal welfare issues that he was facing and all the extra work that was occurring. To not have the road open—it took some understanding that, actually, people were not taking any silly risks. I am pleased they did not, but at times it is difficult to understand why these things are not happening. It really comes down to communication, but it is difficult to get all these things lined up in such a short time. As I said earlier, it is just over 3 weeks since the earthquake, and so much has happened in that period of time. But if you are in there, living it, it seems like for ever and that not much is changing. But things are changing rapidly, and that is starting to dawn on the people of Kaikōura.

Today I got around and spoke to a few business people in Kaikōura. One of the things that is concerning them is getting supplies in and out, because of the convoy nature: in and out, at different times of the day. Getting trucks to take stock out and back in the same day is not possible, because of that convoy system. It can only be a truck that goes out; it cannot be a truck and trailer. So to get all the stock that are coming up to the peak selling season off the farms and out of Kaikōura is a real challenge—a very large challenge. I know that people are being very patient.

I actually would like to take time to acknowledge Downer Construction, which is working on the roads—State Highway 1 from the south, and on the inland road. They have gone the extra mile, well and truly, to speed up that work. They have done a tremendous amount of work on the roads. They have exceeded expectations to date. It is the nature of that work that they could run into something today in trying to clear that road that might delay them for quite some time. I know people are quite frustrated because they do not know when the roads are going to open, but I think it would be unfair to make a prediction that, inevitably, is going to be wrong, and then disappoint people, or mislead them by putting on a date that is well past when the work is likely to be finished. All they can have is an indication. I think people are coming to those decisions.

I would like to acknowledge and thank Simon Mackle, who is a dairy farmer in Kaikōura and quite a leader in the community. Simon has rallied the farmers around. He has been a great point of contact. He, like other people, has been working extremely long hours, helping other farmers out. I know his father Ron is supposed to be retired, but he has probably never worked harder, trying to get the water systems up and running again that have been destroyed by the earthquake; again, just adding more work to what is a really difficult situation.

I would also like to thank the deputy mayor, Julie Howden, and her son Matt who were kind enough to provide me with transport in Kaikōura. Despite the fact that there are a lot of rental cars stuck in Kaikōura, a lot of them are not suitable to go on the roads, and, also, once the early stages of recovery started, there were lots of people trying to hire them to get around within Kaikōura itself. So I would like to thank Julie and Matt. They have been a great support for me and, indirectly, for the recovery. And, of course, Winston Gray, the mayor of Kaikōura, has really stood up and led a really good, strong team. They have only 20-odd employees in the Kaikōura District Council but, boy, have they performed, and I think they really need to be congratulated. They cannot ease up yet; there is a lot more to do.

But back to the bill itself, I think there was a lot of concern about pushing stuff into the sea. I think that is only really a bit of colourful language to illustrate that we are going to speed things up. It is truncating a process; it is not usurping our environmental obligations at all. In fact, the people of Kaikōura rely on the pāua and crayfish fisheries, and those fisheries rely on the inter-tidal zone, where the juveniles really harbour. It is really important for the safety of that fishery that that area is preserved. No one is going to be irresponsible in this recovery, and there will be all due care taken—I am absolutely confident of that.

I think, although we tend to be focusing at the moment on Kaikōura, Hurunui is where the epicentre of the earthquake was, particularly in the Waiau area. I know there are some severely damaged buildings in that area—wrecked cowsheds, among other things—but also significant shifts in land. Those scars will be there for many years to come, before they start to heal over a little. This bill will enable the work to go on that is required to get those roads open. As I said, I think the effort that Downer Construction has made has been phenomenal, but the Hurunui District Council has also stepped up—another small council, and I am pretty sure they are the council with the most kilometres of road per ratepayer in the country, and, you know, they have got this tremendous burden now to try to fix those roads. They are doing a really good job.

I drove down the Leader Rd, I think it was last week; it might have been this week—I am not sure what day it was now—but they will just about have that road open next week. In fact, it was Monday, now that my memory has finally come back. They have gone in and blown that whole road out and fixed it within a very short time, so people can get on and they can get things done. That is just all about application and the will of the people. It makes it pretty difficult to drive along that road, and, fortunately, most people are staying off it—it is not closed but it is preferred that traffic does not go down that road until it is finished.

I called at the Waiau School, also on Monday, and spoke to Mary, the principal there. It is amazing how quickly things have turned around in that area, but, boy, there is a long way to go for a lot of people. This earthquake is really about communication. It is about the roads and the ability to get in and out. I note in some places they are now running fibre-optic cable across the ground. Water pipes are going to be run across the top of the ground for the Kaikōura domestic water supply. That is a much quicker way to get its water supply up, and it increases the security of that for the local people in that area.

But, of course, the earthquake went right up into Marlborough, which also has some significant issues. In fact, yesterday I was out with Doug Avery, who is well known for his work in the mental health area. He is organising all of the kind offers to help people. When these organisations ring up people, people say “Oh no, we don’t need help. Ring someone else.”, but he has gone and taken it on himself—driving around, organising people. Helpers are bringing their own lawnmowers and hedge trimmers, and coming in and mowing their lawns and trimming their hedges. It sounds like a little thing but it is a huge weight off people’s minds, people who do not have the time to do that.

So, as I said, this is going to be a very welcome piece of legislation. It really marks the start of the recovery, and I commend the bill to the House.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. It is indeed my honour and privilege to rise and take a call on this third and final reading of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill. The bill creates a power for Government Ministers to override primary legislation in their portfolio area to assist the recovery from the Kaikōura earthquake.

This legislation is similar to that passed after the Christchurch earthquake, but much more limited with a number of checks and balances. Orders in Council can be related only to the earthquake and the purposes of the legislation. The powers and orders may expire on 1 April 2018. Only legislation listed in schedule 2 may be amended without Parliament’s approval. A review panel must be consulted on the legislation, and the Regulations Review Committee will receive orders prior to being implemented and will be able to move that they be disallowed. Finally, an order cannot impinge on human rights.

It is a great day to stand in this House and do our small part to help the communities of Kaikōura and Hurunui, particularly, in their recovery. This bill, clearly, is an enabler to assist that. Labour is pleased that the Government has implemented many of the suggestions made during the select committee. We acknowledge the Minister and his attendance at our committee, the Local Government and Environment Committee, yesterday, and taking on many of those suggestions. I do not want to prolong the debate. It is an important bill. I know that for the people of Kaikōura, particularly, anticipating this will help somewhat on that road of recovery. Again, I want to acknowledge the officials who supported us.

Just in closing, to the member of Kaikōura, Stuart Smith and, obviously, our member here Rino Tirikatene, please take our warm wishes from this House to the communities that you represent. We are thinking of them, particularly as we go into summer and Christmas. They will be doing it hard and they definitely will be in my thoughts—best wishes to them as we see in the new year and, particularly, Christmas. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a real pleasure to stand in this third reading debate on this bill, which members of my committee have been working so hard and diligently on for pretty much the whole week. If you do not mind, I seek the indulgence of the House just to tell an interesting story, because this has been, by any measure, a momentous and historic week for Parliament and also for New Zealand.

On Monday morning when this bill was being worked through diligently by the Local Government and Environment Committee, Government members, at about 12.15 p.m., having done several hours work on the committee, received text messages from the whips inviting us to attend a teleconference call, which was due to take place in a few minutes. So we suspended the meeting, with the leave of Opposition members, I might add, who were very curious to know what the purpose and the portent might entail. So what happened was that Government members retired to a neighbouring committee room. We put a cellphone on to speaker mode and we heard the news—which now, of course, is very well-known to us all—that the Rt Hon John Key was going to resign his role as Prime Minister of New Zealand after 8 years.

So then we were in an interesting position as committee members because we then had to return to the committee room, apply our very best poker faces, and sit before Opposition members as we continued to go through the fine detail of an important piece of emergency legislation. For Government members the real interest came about half an hour later when Opposition members’ phones started pinging and going off. We thought that was quite interesting. We did have the good sense, I think, to suspend the meeting a little early for lunch so that members could go and attend to the new world that we found ourselves in.

The committee has worked really diligently over the course of this week, and I too want to join with other members who have, in the Committee stage of the debate and earlier in this third reading part of the debate, thanked very sincerely our officials and our committee staff for their work. They really did push the boat out and burn the midnight oil, and all those sorts of metaphors for going a very long way, more than was required of them. I think it is symptomatic of our Parliamentary Counsel Office staff, our select committee secretariat staff, and our advisers, in this case from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

We in this Parliament are very fortunate to have the dedicated, professional support of such a wonderful team of very committed professionals who do extraordinary work for us as parliamentarians, sometimes at very short notice, but also, ultimately, for the people who will benefit from the passing of this legislation; the people who have been affected in Kaikōura, Wellington, and other parts of the country as a result of the earthquakes that took place—I guess it is getting on nearly a month ago now. These are people who took time, in some cases, to make submissions to us—both orally and in writing—at very short notice, and who put aside some of the work that they and their colleagues were doing to take time to submit to us, and I am very grateful to them for doing so. They added immeasurably to the ultimate bill that we are debating this afternoon.

The bill is, actually, constitutionally quite important. It seeks to do a number of things that are an extraordinary extension of the powers of the executive by Order in Council. But they are an extension of those powers for extraordinary and unusual circumstances. I think that there was absolute unanimity around the select committee, from members across the House, on the need for this legislation. Nobody thought for one moment that this legislation should not proceed. But as a committee what we were keen to test and ensure was that the safeguards—the appropriate and relevant safeguards—could be incorporated into the legislation in a sensible, pragmatic, and meaningful way that meant that the legislation could achieve the legislative flexibility that is required from it, but at the same time provide the constitutional safeguards that a bill like this really demands.

I heard the Hon David Parker speaking earlier in the Committee stage about his lack of support for so-called generic legislation—a piece of legislation that we might be able to have on the shelf ready for some kind of future national crisis or emergency and then just flick a switch and turn it on. I share the concern and the reservations that the Hon David Parker has about that kind of legislation. I do not think that we as a Parliament could set aside a piece of legislation that would actually be all-encompassing and to meet every situation, every criterion, of an emergency—civil, natural, or whatever—that might confront us. But I think that what we have learnt as a result of the situation that occurred 5 years ago in Canterbury and Christchurch, and now as a result of what is known technically as the Kaikōura sequence of earthquakes, is that we as a Parliament have actually come quite a long way in getting our heads collectively around what is required to provide quick, rapid response legislative initiatives to ensure that the people on the ground, the business people and all those affected, can get back on their feet. What this Parliament needs to do is to ensure those things can occur in a speedy, prompt, and efficient way. This is the third piece of legislation in a suite of legislative initiatives that assists those very good and proper objectives of assisting the people of Kaikōura and beyond.

I took particular note of the very good contribution of the local member, Stuart Smith, earlier in this debate. I think as we sat in what was, effectively, a cloistered bunker in the bottom of Bowen House, while all sorts of momentous and historic political events were swirling around us, the committee needed to hear the sorts of words that came from Stuart Smith and the sorts of things that I suspect we will hear from Rino Tirikatene shortly—words about what it means to people on the ground: real stories, real people, and real situations. The committee needed to hear what it means to individual home and property owners, what it means to individual businesses, what it means to communities, and what it means to those who are providing emergency services—both first response and also civil. We heard great submissions, for instance, from an invited and selected small group of submitters. They were able to, at short notice, give us some really useful information on the ground that was practical and that was helpful to us in our deliberations.

The working of the committee, I am pleased to say, was collegial, and I think epitomised the very best of our Parliament. It is a piece of work that very few people will have seen, and most New Zealanders never get to see that kind of work that occurred in the Local Government and Environment Committee this week. It was further, and helpfully, facilitated by the willingness and preparedness of the sponsoring Minister, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, to actually speak to the committee, and I, as chair, was very grateful for him doing that. It helped us cut through some stumbling blocks that we had got to—little roadblocks that we had got to—and in a very short period of time we were able to remove those roadblocks in a very practical and useful way that was helpful to the committee and has helped us produce the bill in the form that it appears before us today.

This is a very good, sensible piece of response legislation. It is measured in its effect, it is limited in its power, but it does give us and the communities that we are trying to support the flexibility that is needed to help them get back on their feet. I absolutely and very proudly commend it to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak at this, the third reading of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill, which the Green Party is pleased to be able to support. I will recognise that we supported this bill on its introduction, at first reading, and to select committee. There was a moment in the select committee when we were considering where we were at and we were not sure whether we would be able to support it through the stages of consideration, because it is such a significant power that is being handed to the executive. But it is really, honestly, with a sense of real relief that we are able to support this legislation.

We feel ourselves accountable to the people in the affected communities and to those other New Zealanders who hold dear the rule of law and the process and the power of decision making of this Parliament. We hope that people will look at what happens from this critically, and provide feedback at any point where they feel it is going awry. But we do hope that this will be seen as an improvement on the processes that have gone before; that is the point we have got to with it.

I do want to just spend a bit of time—and I do realise that if anybody is at the point in the affected communities of watching this debate, they will probably just be wanting us to shut and up and pass it. I recognise that, but I would just like to spend a few minutes talking to those other people about exactly, or loosely, what this bill does. It enables a Minister, or Ministers together, to be able to put in an Order in Council, and what that is, in effect, is an amendment to or an override of a piece of legislation. So if a community has found that the legislation that we have passed collectively through this Parliament is actually providing a barrier to its ability to respond urgently to the needs of its community or to promote the recovery of its community, then there is the ability for that Minister to come up with a distinct solution that is not consistent with the law that was passed in this House.

So that is a very, very significant power, but it will need to be for the purpose of response and recovery, and there are specific points in the purpose clause of the bill that give more detail to that. It needs to be necessary, desirable, and not broader than required to solve the community’s problem. This applies to areas that are included in the bill, which are the areas of the Hurunui District Council, the Kaikoura District Council, the Marlborough District Council, the Wellington City Council, the Hutt City Council, the Canterbury Regional Council, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council area. So, in effect, from South Canterbury right up to Masterton there are areas that are covered by this bill, where the Minister has the ability within that scope to be able to override legislation to meet their response needs.

There was certainly some question about whether Wellington and Greater Wellington should be included in this bill, and it is a very difficult call to make. The Hutt City Council supported this legislation. Conversations I had with Wellington City Council were that it was supportive—the Mayor of Wellington was supporting this legislation and having it cover Wellington, although the Mayor of Hutt City did say that, actually, at the moment the Hutt City area did not need it. So it was a bit of a judgment call. But I do recognise that, actually, in Wellington there are so many businesses that have been affected by the quakes and, although there has not been an interruption to telecommunications or water systems, a lot of buildings are uninhabitable and people have been put out there. So some of the ability to provide relief around filing for tax returns may actually be welcome for those businesses in this area, and that is within the scope of this bill—to give them that relief or delay. So, on the balance of things, we went with being able to accept the broad geographic area and we are very pleased that additional geographic areas were not able to be added to this.

When the Minister decides, if it crosses different areas, that an Order in Council is needed they will talk and they will start talking about what the solution might be. We have built into the legislation a requirement, if at all practicable, for that Minister or Ministers to contact affected people or to notify them publicly so that people can provide input to help make sure that the view of what the problem is and what the solutions might be is not too limited. Then that draft order and the reasons that the Minister thinks that it is necessary will be sent to a review panel. That review panel will be convened by a retired High Court judge and the members on that review panel will have specific expertise. Initially, they were going to be representative positions, but now on the advice of submissions from Local Government New Zealand—I think there was another submission also supporting that—it has become more based around expertise, including mātauranga Māori and tikanga Māori and local government and public administration.

That review panel will also have the ability to get comment from other people, and within a specific time frame they will be required to feed back to the Minister and provide advice on any possible improvements to that order. That advice will need to be made public as well. Then or simultaneously the draft Order in Council goes to the Regulations Review Committee of Parliament, which includes most parties—sadly, at this moment, not the Green Party. So we do hope that in the Standing Orders review that the Green Party is included on the Regulations Review Committee, so that there can be proper parliamentary oversight of these draft Orders in Council that represents the full representation of parties within Parliament, because we do have some good contributions to make—representing the people that we do.

Then the Regulations Review Committee comments will also, obviously, be public and will be reported back to Parliament. Then the Minister will need to have due regard to those comments reported back, and they will be public. Any Order in Council that is put in place through this process will be time-bound until April 2018, if not finished before that because it was no longer needed, which does create an impression that councils or people, if they believe there is no longer a need for that override of the legislation, could, I guess, make pleadings to the Minister for it to finish early.

There has been an exception again: Local Government New Zealand, through the submission process, asked for an extension of that time-bound nature to 2021 for specific provisions around the Local Government Act and ratings requirements, because of the experience in Canterbury. When there is a massive effect on and damage to property, and ongoing aftershocks in particular, that damage can go on and it can be very hard to do the rating assessments and get them happening in that time frame. So that seemed to be a sensible change, though we do hope that it will be kept very much within scope.

So that is roughly the outline of what this bill does, and we hope it meets the needs of the balance of checks and powers and the ability to support communities.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Kaikōura coast, especially from Kaikōura itself to Cape Campbell, is one of the fastest mountain-building regions in the world. Although that makes the area extremely beautiful, it also means that earthquakes are going to happen all too often, and therefore this Parliament needs to be ready to take appropriate action to deal with the effects of those earthquakes effectively and quickly. When Parliament gives special or extraordinary powers to the executive, as we are asked to do in this case, particular care is needed to define and to limit those powers, especially when the time for consultation is so short and especially when public consultation is so truncated. We members of Parliament get only one go at this and so we do have to get it right. I am grateful to all the members of the select committee who have worked so hard to do just that.

The checks and balances—necessary, but extraordinary in this case—have to be effective and clear while at the same time providing adequate powers to address all the needs that there are. So it is a very good thing that we should at this stage review once again what those limitations on those powers are. The powers in the bill are extraordinary, because they allow a Minister to exempt, modify, or extend the provisions of a number of enactments—in fact, over 40 of them, and across what must be close to a third of the whole country, so they are indeed extraordinary.

But the most important of the limitations is that the order must be necessary or desirable. Nobody can say exactly what that means, but it is nevertheless a very important principle upon which this bill is really built. The Local Government and Environment Committee has paid particular attention to that, and that has been a good thing. Another limit is that the powers given must not be broader than is reasonably necessary. That is the sort of thing that can be challenged in court, should the Minister, with those Orders in Council, go too far.

However, I think the main check is through the advisory and review panel. The committee paid a lot of attention to who can be appointed and why, and the important thing here is that they are appointed for the skills and the expertise they have, not to represent one particular group or one particular area or another. It is important to remember that. Their advice and their recommendations to the Minister must be had regard to properly and fully by the Minister, who has to give reasons. So that is an important check and balance. Another is the fact that the draft of any order has to go to the Regulations Review Committee or, if it is not possible to get that together in any particular circumstance, then at least to the leader of each of the political parties represented in Parliament.

Another important thing is that there is an engagement process provided for in the bill for each Order in Council that might be made. I think that is particularly important, because it relates not only to substantially affected persons but also to the public generally. As we saw in the Canterbury earthquakes, unless that opportunity is given, people feel disengaged from the process and tend to not have much confidence in it. So it is good to see that that is there. I am also pleased to see that the changes that were made to the bill during the select committee process now mean that no new districts or regions and no new Acts can be added, at least unless there is a near-consensus by all party leaders to do that.

In addition to the list of all of the checks and balances that I have referred to, this legislation, of course, has very limited duration. The orders under it will be revoked on 31 March 2018, although there is provision for some orders, such as those relating to local government, to rating valuation, and to local government financial plans, to get longer, and that is appropriate.

So, overall, we in New Zealand First, having taken part in the scrutiny of this bill to make sure that the checks and balances are adequate, are actually fully satisfied that that is the case. We accept that this is absolutely necessary legislation, but we are also satisfied with the checks and balances that are in it.

I also want to, at this stage, add some thoughts, as other members have, about generic legislation. I actually do not agree that we should discount the possibility of, in the relatively near future, considering some generic legislation, because, as I have already said, the kinds of events that have given rise to this legislation do actually happen quite commonly in New Zealand because of the physical nature of the country that we live in. I believe that we could consider some high-level, generic legislation without the sort of detail that we have got in this particular bill or that is in the Canterbury earthquake legislation. It could be something along the lines of a template so that there would be some guidance for future events and for future legislation that is necessary in response to those events. It could be a single piece of legislation rather than the three pieces of legislation that have been necessary in this case. I think it would tend to speed up the process, and you would also still need a special bill, so the generic legislation would be in addition to, not instead of, the sort of legislation you would have here, but it would guide that legislation. It would make it simpler and easier to pass.

So I think that there is still some scope for us to look for the possibility in the future of generic legislation. I think it would still be useful. I think it would still speed things up. Yes, a special bill to deal with a particular event that has occurred, tailored to the area which it would apply to, would still be needed, but then the more limited legislation would be easier to pass and an easier thing to do altogether. After all, we should not have to reinvent the wheel every time there is a major event. We should be able to learn from this event and from the Canterbury earthquakes legislation and incorporate the ideas behind that legislation into a piece of generic legislation that could be the underpinning legislation for future events. So I would like to see that happen in the not too distant future.

Lastly, I want to say this: after a very good process, we now have a bill that the people of New Zealand can be confident is going to provide for the Orders in Council that are going to be necessary, but, at the same time, they can be satisfied that there are appropriate checks and balances and limitations on the executive powers, which are extraordinary and are given in this bill.

It remains for me now only to say on behalf of New Zealand First that we wish all of the people of the affected areas the speediest possible recovery. I hope that this legislation will help them do just that.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise in support of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill in this, its third reading. Given that this House is in consensus at this time in respect of this bill and that there have been some very good contributions, I am not going to concentrate on the technicalities of the bill. I am simply going to focus on the people and say to them that across the Government and across the House there is support for the recovery of Kaikōura and Hurunui, hence we are doing everything we can to assist that.

We must remember that these people are living day to day with the challenges that a significant event such as an earthquake brings, and we cannot underestimate what they are living with. The reason I raise this is that we are in December now and we are moving into the Christmas period, and most of us will go away. We will go away on holiday and we will do our thing with our friends and family, and that will be all very nice, but, of course, the people in North Canterbury and Kaikōura will still be living with the effects of that earthquake. It will take some time to repair and get Kaikōura and the other surrounding areas on track, so we should spare a thought for them over the December period, the Christmas period, and make sure that these people are still on our minds.

So, look, this is a good bill. It is designed, through Orders in Council, to allow the relevant Minister to make assessments in conjunction with the independent panel about what is required to be done on the ground, and to execute that expediently with the checks and balances in place. With that, I just again congratulate my colleague Mr Stuart Smith on the work that he has done on the ground, the Government on the work that it has done coming in behind the people of Kaikōura and North Canterbury, and I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): In the Committee stage, I outlined the general provisions in the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill and some of the Green Party’s thoughts on those, so in this contribution we would just like to focus on a couple of specific things.

I was disappointed that the truncated Committee stage meant that we did not get to consider Supplementary Order Paper 256 in the name of Jacinda Ardern, which, I think, was aimed at putting some initial safeguards in the bill around heritage. I think the major task of the Local Government and Environment Committee in considering the bill was actually looking at the adequacy of the checks and balances on these extraordinary powers that the bill is giving to the executive, to Ministers, to override primary legislation. The Supplementary Order Paper in Jacinda Ardern’s name was drawing, I think, on the experience in Christchurch, where the Orders in Council there that overrode the Resource Management Act—and the provisions in that Act, which normally would provide that where a listed heritage building was going to be demolished, there would be an opportunity for the public to comment on that—led to the loss of huge numbers of our buildings with heritage values in Christchurch, even where there was the ability for those buildings to be restored and where they were not affecting public safety.

I think that heritage provision would have ensured that the Minister could not have amended the Resource Management Act where it affected heritage buildings that had the highest listing of category 1. But I think, in the Committee stage, we did get another safeguard in the bill around the Resource Management Act, which did require that where an order was going to affect the Resource Management Act, the effects on the environment had to be considered.

The Acting Minister of Civil Defence said that some of the concerns of members of Parliament, particularly I guess in the Green Party, about the environmental effects of some of the work that is going to be done in recovery may not be as significant—were being overstated, perhaps, I think he was suggesting. We are very concerned about the work that is done in the name of recovery—for economic recovery—given that Kaikōura has got nature tourism as the centre of its tourism attractiveness, and given that areas like the Lewis Pass highway go through the Nelson Lakes National Park and the Lewis Pass National Reserve, where there is a significant landscape character in those highways that adds to people’s experience on the highway. We are concerned that those values are recognised. Congratulations, Mr Acting Speaker Foster-Bell, on your elevation.

We were reassured slightly by the evidence that the New Zealand Transport Agency officials presented to the select committee. They provided a number of documents about the process that they go through when they are doing major works, and they said that they have quite strong social and environmental objectives. There are environmental and social management plans prepared around major works. There is a landscape master plan. They have a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Conservation. They also provided us with a copy of their public engagement policy, which I think is still in draft, but is being developed.

So the goal of a lot of these documents appeared to be to minimise conflicts between the State highway network and, in the case of conservation lands, the protection of conservation land, and to actually minimise adverse effects. We would certainly encourage the transport agency to use all of the procedures that it has, because we want to see the recovery works proceed while protecting the livelihoods of pāua fishers, crayfishers, and others who depend on the marine environment, and protecting the landscape values of our national parks and conservation lands in order to protect the qualities of the State highway that make driving along parts of the State highway an experience because of those dramatic landscapes. We hope that some of safeguards that the select committee has put in the bill will not only act as a check on the Minister’s powers but encourage agencies to make every effort to act in accordance with the statutes, even though they do not have to if there is an Order in Council.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Lindsay Tisch, and I acknowledge all of your colleagues, including the acting Speaker, Paul Foster-Bell, who has just vacated the chair.

This is a very, very short call to reaffirm Labour’s support for this bill, thanking the members of the select committee and their staff, who worked so hard. I reiterate our condolences to all the good people of the Hurunui-Kaikōura area who have lost either loved ones, in some cases, or possessions. We realise that recovery is going to take some time, particularly with the munting that the State highway and the railway lines have had. We are all united in this House in goodwill and support for you.

This legislation is a good piece of work. It draws on the experience of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act. I wish to acknowledge—perhaps unusually—Minister Brownlee for his work in administrating the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act and for the cooperative spirit that both he and the Attorney-General have brought to the deliberations on this legislation. It has drawn, in part, on the report, which has been a unanimous effort on behalf of members across all parties of the Regulations Review Committee, on its inquiry into Parliament’s legislative response to future national emergencies. That made, essentially, three rules of thumb.

Clear as a bell, coming off the Christchurch experience, the first was that executive powers to override enactments should exist only in so far as is necessary in order to deal with the emergency itself and should be exercised only for that purpose—that is, no more special powers to the executive than are absolutely necessary and for the most narrow and limited of periods and processes. The second key point is that emergency legislation should incorporate safeguards—and we will come on to some of those—and the third key one is that recovery starts on day one, as the previous speaker, Eugenie Sage, has mentioned. I think all members of the Local Government and Environment Committee have had that perspective in framing up this legislation, and it is a good piece of work, it seems to me.

The controversial issues were really around the override of existing enactments. I am very pleased that the advice of the Regulations Review Committee was taken on board and that members of the Local Government and Environment Committee required the executive to justify the presence of each and every one of the Acts that it is seeking to have the power to override by Order in Council. It has deleted, from the list initially proposed, eight Acts that are now no longer—and I will not read them all out, but most notably including the Public Finance Act. I think that that shows that the Local Government and Environment Committee has done its work by consensus, with great diligence, and I really appreciate that the executive has been open enough to that process to justify the inclusion of the Acts that it wanted to override.

The tricky part too is what happens when you want to add by Order in Council a further Act to the list. The committee has helpfully clarified that you would need the near-unanimous support of party leaders and an overview by the Regulations Review Committee if that was going to occur. That seems like not a perfect compromise, but a reasonable compromise. It is not too rigid, and it allows for the fact that something might happen when the House is not sitting, and rather than call the House back, it provides a backup process that does not require the House. So that was about as far as members were able to get on that.

For the various other checks and balances most of the best practice has been adopted. Probably the only thing that I draw attention to is at the top of page 4 of the report where there was a suggestion by some members that clause 8(3) and clause 16(6) be deleted. Those clauses limit judicial scrutiny and, unfortunately, they have been retained. I think as this evolves—God forbid we get any further emergencies—those will eventually probably pass into history. That is all I wanted to contribute.

This is probably my last contribution before the Christmas break. I wish all members the very happiest of Christmas and holiday good wishes. There has been a lot of cooperation in the House of late, and I think it is a good omen for the new year. Thank you very much.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa, e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa. In briefly taking a call on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill, I want to acknowledge the excellent constructive collaboration we have had with members of the Opposition. This is not a completely unique experience for me in this House, but it is a relative rarity that we have had absolute commitment from, I think, all parties in this House, to see that the people of Kaikōura, in particular, but even further afield here in the Wellington region are well supported in the recovery phase of this process, as we recover from the Kaikōura sequence—the series of earthquakes and subsequent damage that has resulted.

I do want to point out that there were a few areas of contention between Government and Opposition members. I personally felt quite strongly that the powers did need to be broad enough in their geographic scope, given consequences of the earthquake that may even now not be fully known or understood—for instance, here in the Wellington region we have challenges around the port of Wellington. It is built on land that is often described as reclaimed; much of the port land, in fact, was thrust up out of the ocean in 1851 during that last massive earthquake we had here in Wellington. The land is unstable and there are several operational difficulties that the port still faces. I was quite keen to see this legislation broad enough in its geographic scope. Notwithstanding the constitutional concerns of certain academics, I wanted to make sure that this bill was broad enough in its geographical scope to be able to ameliorate the port, get it back working, to be able to see the exports flowing out of our region overseas to the benefit of New Zealanders—in particular, residents of Wellington Central and the wider Wellington area, which I am delighted to live in.

This is an important, necessary, and urgent piece of legislation. It has been very responsibly handled by this House. It has gone through the Local Government and Environment Committee, which has been masterfully chaired by my friend and colleague Scott Simpson, the honourable member for Coromandel, but I do acknowledge across the House the collaboration from other parties, along with Mr Simpson, Sarah Dowie, Joanne Hayes, Nuk Korako, Matt Doocey, and myself as the permanent Government members of the committee. This is something that we should actually collectively be proud of achieving for our country. We are a mature and responsible democracy, and this bill is evidence of that.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to speak in support of this bill at its third reading. As the Māori electorate member for Hurunui, Kaikōura, Marlborough, and Wellington, it gives me great pleasure to tautoko this bill. I do not intend to traverse all of the details, but I would like to just add my thanks to Minister Brownlee, the Local Government and Environment Committee, and the officials who have been working tirelessly these past few weeks to draft up and tease out all the issues within this legislation. This is the third in the trifecta of bills that we are doing to address the issues raised by the Kaikōura earthquake. So I do acknowledge them for their work, especially this week, and, in particular, the Government members who, while working on the bill, had to deal with their own earth-shattering news, but stayed focused. They stayed focused on the task this week, and they were able to come up with a well-examined bill, which has some very useful amendments.

This bill is temporary. It is tailored and it is tightly defined. We are talking about override powers, so we would expect those constraints to be put in place. I believe that the select committee has done a very good job to put those parameters in place with this piece of legislation.

Like I said, it does cover a broad geographic area. I am particularly pleased because one point I raised at the first reading was the issue around a single iwi representative on the review panel. I noted the difficulties given the actual number of iwi that are involved in the affected areas, from the North Island right through to the South Island. I am pleased that the committee has taken that on board and made the requirement less prescriptive, so that it is actually just ensuring that there is one representative on that review committee who is familiar with tikanga Māori and mātauranga Māori. I believe that is a sensible way of dealing with those sensitive issues that may arise when a Minister is proposing an Order in Council, so I do commend the committee for coming up with that very constructive amendment.

Just to conclude, tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. there are some buses leaving Christchurch. Those buses will be taking back whānau who have been evacuated by the earthquake. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu is putting on those buses to take those whānau back home. I believe, from my discussions with the whānau, that they are very proud of the way that Parliament as a whole has responded. They are very grateful for what we are doing here as a Parliament to pass this legislation, because this directly impacts those people. But I think that their jumping on that bus tomorrow morning is a sign that the recovery is under way. It is a positive sign for Kaikōura, and for the hapū as well, that those families have had a bit of rest and respite and now are up to making the trip back home, to start the work that will need to be done to get their lives back to normal, back home in Kaikōura.

That is what this legislation is all about. We want to see those affected communities back in business again, up and running again, and this legislation is an important part of all of the suite of legislation that will be needed to do the work that is required. It is not going to happen overnight. It will be a day-by-day thing, and it probably will stretch into some months, even years, before all of the work is completed. But this is a really important first step, and I am very proud to be a member in this House when we have worked so collaboratively, in a cross-party sense, to work on all these pieces of legislation over the past 2 weeks. Yes, I am very proud, and I am looking forward to seeing those works continue and to those families getting their lives back together, back in Kaikōura, so that we can see that thriving community up and running and back in business once again. Without further ado, I will commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i Te Whare nei e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa. I am the last speaker in the third reading of the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill. Speakers before me have very much critiqued a lot of the technical points of the bill, and also the very quick journey that this bill has had through the House from the first reading.

Can I first of all just acknowledge and remember the two people who actually perished during this terrible event. I acknowledge their passing and also the terrible trauma following that, particularly for their whānau. I also would like to acknowledge all of those who were injured and those who have lost property and possessions and all of that.

I want to also acknowledge the previous speaker, my whānau, my whanauka, Rino Tirikatene, because I know that along with Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura, he was there right at the beginning of the emergency and continued through. I also want to take the opportunity in this House to again acknowledge those emergency workers, who worked tirelessly, and even my own whānau up in Takahanga Marae, Ngāti Kuri, who, along with a number of other services up there, opened their doors. That is a true reflection of who we are and what we do as New Zealanders.

The other thing, though—as part of a quick reflection on this bill—is what a great country we live in. We are world leaders in a lot of different aspects of things, and I think back to giving our women the vote first, or race relations, or Treaty settlement processes. One thing we have become particularly renowned for, unfortunately, because we actually live along the ring of fire, is our incredible response to earthquakes. What is becoming quite well-known across the world is the way that we have developed legislation within our Parliament to address those things that need to be addressed, through emergency, through recovery, and through actual rebuild. This bill reflects the ongoing work that parliamentarians do from all sides of the House. Looking at the way that this bill was actually shepherded through the various processes of this Parliament, it was a pleasure to be able to sit here with all parties and be able to contribute as we did collectively, in collaboration, to come up with this—what I think, again, is a fine piece of legislation.

The other part of this is that we have to think back to everyone who goes and helps victims of any sort of major event like an earthquake. We have to think about when that emergency part is finished, and I think that those coaches going back north to Kaikōura from, I would believe, my own marae, Tūahuriri, in some ways signals the end of the emergency, but, actually, what it does is it heralds the beginning of the recovery. It is during that period, when the media focus and all that leaves, that the people are left—well, not left, but they then go back and pick up the pieces of their lives after the event. We are thinking of them at that time, particularly around Christmas and New Year—you know, that Christmas cheer. That particular community, right across there—North Canterbury, Kaikōura, Marlborough—is resilient as well. And we know something about resilience, being Cantabrians, because we have been through this and we know what they are going through.

On that note, I am honoured to be able to be the last speaker here, and to just talk a little bit about the journey of this bill, and the reflections of people who really did give—volunteers; these are the real soul of our communities—to actually help people who are victims of this event.

This may be my last speech in the House before Christmas. Can I just say to all of my colleagues from both sides of the House: meri Kirihimete, ngā mihi ki Te Tau Hou. Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Nō reira, I have a great honour to commend this bill to the House. Ngā mihi.

Bill read a third time.

The House adjourned at 5.02 p.m.