Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill

I move, That the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill be now read a second time. This legislation supports Christchurch’s regeneration by clarifying the law for locating legal property boundaries in Greater Christchurch. The enactment of this bill will mark another step forward towards achieving this Government’s commitment to Christchurch’s recovery.

First, I would like to thank the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee and its chair Scott Simpson for their work and thorough consideration of this bill. I also want to thank those people and organisations who made submissions on the bill. The committee received 11 written submissions and heard from five submitters. All except one of these submitters expressed their support for the intent of the bill. I do want to specifically start by acknowledging the work of the professional surveyors who have contributed to the development of this bill through various consultation processes from the very moment that this issue was identified.

My ministerial colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith noted, when he introduced the bill into the House on my behalf, that surveyors and other interested parties have been uncertain about the correct legal location of some property boundaries. This is because of the extraordinary scale of the land movement that occurred in Canterbury following the earthquakes.

The common law in this area has been quite difficult to interpret, and has had different interpretations because it is not directly on point with the types of land movements that were triggered by those earthquakes. There are generally accepted survey principles to date, and they have been that the legal boundaries do not move with the land. What this has meant is that it has been difficult for surveyors to identify and interpret the physical evidence of boundaries—all of which have moved with the land movement—in light of this principle. Unfortunately, this uncertainty has led to delays and surveys taking longer to complete, and with there being an obvious reluctance by members of the surveying profession to undertake surveys in the worst-affected areas where the movements have been the greatest. It has also resulted in more costs for property owners and delays in their building work.

The bill provides certainty to surveying and land titles and supports the regeneration of Christchurch. This bill also helps maintain public confidence in the cadastre, which is our official record of survey and related information that defines the location of property boundaries. This bill achieves its aims in three ways.

The first is that it provides for the legal boundaries of lands in greater Christchurch to be “deemed to have moved or to move with the movement of land caused by the Canterbury earthquakes”. As a result of this, after the commencement of this bill surveyors in greater Christchurch can apply the new “boundaries moved” principle with confidence and certainty.

Applying this “boundaries moved” principle can create conflicts with some surveys undertaken on the basis of the opposite principle, which is that the boundaries did not move. Since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has approved surveys by licensed cadastral surveyors on either basis—that is, either the basis that the boundaries did move or the basis that they did not move—provided the surveys otherwise complied with the Cadastral Survey Act 2002. The bill recognises the validity of all cadastral surveys and boundary determinations in greater Christchurch that have been approved by LINZ in the interim period between 4 September 2010—which is the day the first earthquake struck Canterbury—and the commencement of this bill, regardless of whether they were done on the basis of the first principle or whether the boundaries have moved, as long as those surveys were done in good faith and without negligence. This avoids unfairly penalising surveyors, property owners, and others who did act in good faith and who relied on the surveys that had been undertaken.

There might be a small number of boundary conflicts that arise from validating surveys in the interim period that were done on the basis of the boundaries not moving. However, we are confident that the existing conflict resolution mechanisms, like those under the Land Transfer Act 1952, will resolve these conflicts. In addition, Land Information New Zealand will work with surveyors and property owners to manage any conflicts on the ground.

Finally, the bill also provides for the Surveyor-General to issue guidelines for surveyors about the rules and standards made under the Cadastral Survey Act 2002. This guidance will assist with boundary determinations in Greater Christchurch and Canterbury after the earthquakes, as well as with achieving greater consistency of interpretations of, and, of course, improved compliance with, the Cadastral Survey Act more generally in the future.

Submissions, as I said before, generally agreed with the direction of these proposals. Submitters also made some proposed changes to the bill, which were to make the bill more effective and to ensure that the intent of Parliament was delivered through this legislation. I am pleased to see that, where appropriate, the Local Government and Environment Committee has recommended that the changes be made to the bill to reflect the submissions received.

I thought I would just go through some of the changes that were recommended by the committee in the select committee process. One of the key changes was the recommendation of the committee to amend the definition of “Canterbury earthquakes” to include any earthquakes and aftershocks that occur from 14 February this year to 14 February 2022. The previous definition recognised earthquakes only between 4 September 2010 and 31 December 2012, and any aftershocks in that period in between. The committee has recognised the Valentine’s Day earthquake, and taken a pragmatic approach to amend the definition of “Canterbury earthquakes” to include that wider period of time.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: But we don’t have to have them for the next 6 years.

This amendment futureproofs the legislation. No—we absolutely do not want there to be any more earthquakes in that intervening period—I do want to recognise that, touch wood! More important, the amendment futureproofs the legislation and provides greater clarity for surveyors in Christchurch by recognising that the Valentine’s Day earthquake resulted in ground movement of a similar nature to the earlier earthquakes and providing for the possibility of others—touch wood that they do not happen—in the future period.

Another key change that was recommended by the committee is to the bill’s “no liability” provision for interim surveys that were done on the basis that the boundaries did move or did not move. This change makes it clearer that the bill does not exclude any liability for surveys that were negligent, done in bad faith, or where there was misconduct or non-compliance with statutory obligations or professional standards. That is completely unrelated to the boundary movement issue.

The committee has recommended clarifying the bill’s wording around title conflict resolution under the Land Transfer Act 1952. The changes specify how that Act will operate to address a title conflict arising from an overlap between the approved interim survey and the survey that happens after the commencement of this legislation, for the purposes of correcting titles and for compensation under section 172 of the Act.

The committee has also recommended a change to the bill’s amendment of the Cadastral Survey Act 2002 to give the Surveyor-General the power to issue guidelines. Currently the Surveyor-General makes mandatory rules and standards under that Act and issues voluntary guidelines to support the rules and standards. The bill’s provision was intended to confirm the Surveyor-General’s ability to do so. The committee’s recommended changes make clear that the guidelines will remain voluntary.

The amendments that were proposed by the select committee have clarified the intent and scope of the bill. I am confident that this legislation will provide much-needed certainty for property owners affected by land movements as a consequence of the Canterbury earthquakes. The overall impact of this bill is that property boundaries will continue to be located where the property owners expect them to be. This bill will reduce potential future boundary conflicts and disputes that would have otherwise occurred in its absence.

The Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill that we are debating today will help in Christchurch’s regeneration, and I proudly commend the bill to the House.

I am really pleased, as the Minister indicated, to speak in the second reading of the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. It might sound a bit dry to some people, and that is not a reflection of the quality of the speech that the Minister gave; I just meant the topic generally. It is actually really important for Canterbury so I just want to acknowledge to anyone who is listening that if you think this is not important, actually, it is.

In Canterbury we had about 11,000 properties that moved at least 20 centimetres. That means that some people’s boundaries are not where they used to be—quite a lot of people’s boundaries are not where they used to be—and that has caused some problems, and so I totally agree with the Minister that this is an issue that needed fixing. In June 2016 we are fixing it—excellent. It could have been a little earlier, but at least it is done now.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston, who has just resumed her seat, not just for the contribution she has made in the debate but for the fact that she, not just once but twice, invited Canterbury members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to her office for a briefing that enabled us to get well on top of the issues, ask questions, and get answers before the bill was introduced. That is really appreciated. It is, as I said, a little bit dry, but it is actually very important to people who are affected by it, and for us to be able to get direct access to officials, ask questions and have them answered, made us more able to respond to questions from our constituents. That is what is important in the end: getting accurate information from this place, particularly about significant changes to the people who are going to be affected by it. So I really want to acknowledge both those briefings that the Minister provided us with, and say that I would recommend to her that she spread the word amongst her colleagues, because it would be a really good thing if we could do things, particularly those that do not have a political divide, on a little more collaborative basis.

The Minister indicated the number of submissions that were heard. I think that she did not indicate enough, though, how important some of those submissions were—I guess they were all important, but in terms of the organisations that were represented. One was from the Christchurch City Council—obviously a critical player—along with the Waimakariri District Council and the Selwyn District Council. In this space there have been the other elected representatives for the individuals who are affected by this mass land movement. Also, there was the Cadastral Surveyors Licensing Board, which did a written submission; it did not do an oral submission—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Spell it.

Sorry, Mr Bridges?

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Spell it.

“I-T”, Mr Bridges. So there you are—the response of the week. I will get in the Labour notes for that one. That organisation represents the people who are responsible for drawing up the boundaries. It had a lot of really important issues to raise, particularly in terms of whether previous boundary surveys post-quake and pre-legislation would be deemed illegal, and the liabilities of such; also provisions about other activities that were negligent, basically, and to make sure that negligence was not captured by the removal of liability in this legislation. Those matters seem to me to have been captured in the main by the Local Government and Environment Committee, and I commend it on that.

In the Committee stage I will be raising one issue that has not been captured by the select committee as a query, because it was raised in the submissions as a major issue by the Christchurch City Council. I cannot find anything in the commentary or the amendments from the committee that refers to it, and that is the application of boundary provisions and watercourses that was raised by the Christchurch City Council as a major issue. It does not seem to me to have been responded to. I will just give the Minister a bit of a heads-up that when she is sitting in the chair during the Committee stage I will be putting that question to her. She might want to read the Christchurch City Council submission again—because that is where the issue was alerted to me from—and just figure out why that was not responded to. It would be really helpful to get an explanation of that.

The select committee has recommended a change in the time frame so that the definition of “Canterbury earthquakes” is extended to 14 February 2022. Some people will know that we had another significant quake on 14 February this year. It is not the way that most people want to be moved on Valentine’s Day—there are better ways of achieving that—but it obviously set a new time frame in terms of significant quakes. The fact that the time is now set out to 2022 is not an indication that we wish to have any more quakes till then; it just means that there will be security for surveyors, homeowners, and planners right up until that time. Obviously, if there are any more quakes between then and now it will give Parliament time to produce more legislation to push it out even further or to amend this legislation. I hope we do not need to, but I think the change that has been made was very good because it does give that certainty. I think a 6-year time period is sufficient in advance in terms of planning. Whether it is subdivisions or alterations to a home, or it is building a new property, it will allow all the key players the security to know that whatever they mark out as the boundaries will be the correct boundaries. The title conflict has been resolved, and that was another good change that the committee made that I want to acknowledge.

A lot of people said that there should be a dispute resolution framework. That is another point that I was a little surprised that the Minister did not talk about much, because we know that there are some properties that will be negatively impacted by this legislation. Quite how they resolve their disputes or how they get any compensation as a result of that does not seem to have been adequately addressed, and I thought the Minister’s contribution may well have clarified that. The dispute resolution framework was raised by a number of submitters, but for some reason the committee decided not to go ahead with that.

The liability for early surveys and boundary determinations was clarified. In what might be an interesting setting of precedent, the committee decided that the guidelines issued by the Surveyor-General would have no legal status, and I am not sure whether that has a flow-on effect to other guidelines that might be issued by the Surveyor-General or by another Government department or agency. For example, if the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment issued guidelines, would this set a precedent for them not having any legal status? I am not sure about that. A helpful definition of “landslip” was given by the committee, and that pretty well sums up the changes that were made to bring us to the second reading that we are now going through.

Although I commended the Minister for Land Information not just for her contribution but also for her process, I want to say I was frustrated at the first meeting—and expressed that frustration, and it was not resolved by the second meeting—in terms of the community organisations that were asked or informed or had this issue discussed with them. I think there were a lot of residents associations that would have appreciated the sort of briefing we received so that they could have made a considered contribution to the bill. Not many people would read the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill on the Parliament website—two unlikely occurrences—and think that it might affect them and they should make a submission, but residents associations are ideally placed to make that connection and involve the people who are affected by it. That was not done.

The Minister took the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s advice and consulted with the community forum. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is gone now—it has been disestablished—and the community forum has gone as well, but I want to say that that was not the appropriate body. We should remember, when we are trying to get information out to the public, that we do not need to create bodies; they are already in existence in our communities. They are well informed, nimble, and, I think, the entirely appropriate people to have responded. So we missed out on good community engagement. That may be the reason we did not get as many submissions as we may have, but that is a lesson to be learnt for the future.

I also want to acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee. From the outside looking in, reading its report and looking at the submissions and the way it responded to them, it seems to me as though it gave the issues in this legislation a great deal of thought and consideration. I think it has done a commendable job.

I want to just conclude by saying that the submitters have really helped in this process. It is obvious from the amendments that were made that the submissions contributed to a better-quality outcome of the legislation. That is, I guess, the process that Parliament should aim for. We should say: “Well, obviously, the bill that we get at the start is the best that we thought we could do, the best the Minister thought he or she could do, but the select committee and the submitters can really improve it.” So, as a result of that, we have got a better bill to discuss in the next stages. People of Christchurch will welcome this, giving them some certainty after a period of a lot of uncertainty. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. I say that because many of my colleagues do not think I am a Canterbury MP but, in fact, the Kaikōura electorate is, actually, a little bigger than the State of Israel. It extends from the Marlborough Sounds right down to the Ashley River, which is just north of Christchurch. Many of my constituents were affected by the earthquakes directly, and some have properties in Christchurch that have been affected by them. I also have quite a few constituents who have moved north out of Canterbury into my electorate, and I run into those people quite often and, in fact, have advocated on their behalf in many earthquake-related matters since the earthquake.

I think this bill really touches on one of the main tenets of our society and that is property, and property that we all hold very dear. One thing we expect with our property is that it is all set in our boundaries and the boundaries define our property. Generally, it is accepted that property boundaries are fixed and do not move. In fact, surveyors generally accept the principle that boundaries do not move at all, except for gradual, unnoticeable water boundary movement, which, I guess, stands for erosion. In fact, as has been pointed out, over 11,000 properties, it is estimated, had their boundaries move by at least 20 centimetres, which is significant by anybody’s measure. The difficulty is that the surveyors and residents generally expect that boundaries are fixed, so something had to be dealt with in the law. I was quite surprised that only 11 submissions were received on the bill, as has been alluded to before, but I accept that some of those represented bodies were quite significant, in being the council and other bodies.

I think it is quite significant too that some of the recommendations that came out from the Local Government and Environment Committee were quite significant in taking note of the aftershocks and earthquakes that have occurred since—particularly the one that has been mentioned, on Valentine’s Day of this year—and extending out this bill to take account of that right through to February 2022. If you look back in history after significant earthquakes in New Zealand—and we have had quite a number—the aftershocks and earthquakes do go on for a long period of time, particularly after an earthquake of the magnitude and the ground accelerations that occurred in Christchurch. So that is quite a prudent matter for the select committee to touch on, and I think that will be a very welcome addition to the law.

A number of submitters thought that a dispute resolution mechanism should be put in the bill itself, but there are, however, existing processes under the Property Law Act 2007 and also the Land Transfer Act. The select committee felt they provided quite adequate mechanisms for dispute resolution, and, of course, the various parties can always get through a dispute like that on their own. The select committee came to the view that it would add complexity that was unnecessary and so, therefore, it decided not to follow those submitters’ recommendations.

It also recommended amending clause 10 to specify that it provided specified criteria to be met and that there be no liability for surveyors and boundary determinations done in the interim period between 4 September 2010, the first earthquake, and the commencement of this legislation, which is on its assent. I think that is a very good move. It takes away any liability from those people and the decisions they have made in good faith, but that will be with no liability for any negligence, bad faith, or misconduct, or non-compliance with statutory obligations and professional standards.

So I think this is a really good bill. It is necessary. It is a shame we have to do these things, but given the uncertainty thrown up by the earthquakes, this is very necessary. It is with great pleasure that I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

I rise to take a brief call in support of the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. I am doing so as Labour’s land information spokesperson. It is a role that I am relatively new to, and, therefore, I was not in attendance during the select committee hearings on the bill. However, we are in possession of a very useful committee report, so I acknowledge the chair and all members of the Local Government and Environment Committee who have contributed to that.

Like the member who has just resumed his seat, Stuart Smith, I have a connection with Canterbury. In my case I grew up in South Canterbury, in the beautiful little town of Pleasant Point. For a teenager growing up in the Point, Timaru was the, sort of, big smoke and Christchurch was the really big smoke. That road has been travelled many times. I have a particular affection for Christchurch, and still do.

Like all New Zealanders, I was gutted to see the horrific earthquakes of 5 years or so ago and, like the people of Christchurch, I have been watching and waiting and doing what I can to support the rebuild of our second-largest city and something that is a jewel in New Zealand’s array of urban living. Canterbury people whom I speak to say they just want to move on. It has been so long. They want the remaining hurdles to being able to get on and settle down and live a normal life to be behind them. They cannot understand why it has taken as long as it has to rebuild the central business district, to get the infrastructure in place, and to get final agreement on things like the conference centre. They have witnessed the argy-bargy between local and central government.

But this is not a time for party politics; this is a time for focusing on this particular aspect of being able to move forward. So to drop down to the content of the bill, the issue is, of course, as others have noted, that some 11,000 properties have had their boundaries moved because the land has moved by 20 centimetres or more. That is significant. If the boundary peg was in one place on a GPS, then it will be in a different place after that movement. This bill, therefore, sorts out an argument about whether the true boundary is where it was on a GPS basis or on a peg or marker basis. It basically says that the legal boundary of the property will move with the peg or the marker as a result of the earth movement in the earthquake. That is a sensible, practical way to deal with this.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all rule in a disaster of this magnitude. You can contemplate, for example, properties in the Sumner area, some of which ended up over a cliff because the ground fell away. So there is a case where this bill deals with things like landslips and provides now, I am pleased to say, a dispute resolution mechanism, whereby if there is an unintended consequence people can get around a table and sort it out so that we actually get a reasonable result for the people of Canterbury.

This is, I think, an example of Parliament working cooperatively. There are no partisan politics in this bill. Members have worked assiduously around the select committee table and they have addressed themselves to a number of technical issues, which we will deal with in more detail at the Committee stage. But to just briefly note, the definition of the Canterbury earthquakes has been broadened to include significant aftershocks. That is important because boundary movements continue to occur. There are mechanisms to address title conflicts and dispute resolution, and ways in which liability for earlier surveys and boundary definition can be sorted out, including cases of negligence and bad faith. It clarifies that guidelines issued by the Surveyor-General will have no legal status, and deals with landslip situations.

I would like to acknowledge Scott Simpson, the chair, and other members of the select committee on the Labour side—my colleagues Megan Woods, David Parker, and the team. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to this bill. We look forward to further discussion at the Committee stage and send the message to the people of Canterbury that we stand with them. We hope that this bill will enable them to get on with their lives, as one remaining uncertainty is removed.

It is my pleasure, too, to stand in support of the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill in its second reading. Having been in this 51st Parliament for only a few months, I have not been involved in this bill’s select committee process, but I can see that it has been a very cordial agreement across the parties to reach this point in this legislative change.

This bill aims to provide certainty regarding where the legal boundaries are. As we have heard, the land shift in Canterbury during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes has been significant. It has caused some problems in identifying those legal boundaries. This bill aims to give the surveyors and the property owners certainty about the correct location of those legal boundaries. We all know how severe the impacts of those events in Canterbury were for everyone, and 5½ years after that first big shake we find ourselves at this point of regeneration. This bill aims very much to support that process.

The problem, or the generally held principle, this bill sets out to address is that legal boundaries do not move. But given the extent of that movement in Canterbury, we find ourselves in this position where we are looking at this legislation. It has created some difficulties, given the extraordinary scale of that land movement. For instance, some neighbours could find themselves now legally harvesting fruit and vegetables or picking the flowers out of their neighbours’ gardens, simply because they now encroach on to their boundaries. We could find people arguing about parking cars in someone else’s garage because it legally is across their boundary. Potentially, there are problems with set-back rules with the Christchurch City district plan. Encroaching on those set-back rules is through no fault of the property owners, and it would be a nonsense for any correction to be forced upon those property owners.

This bill, as I said, recognises that those boundaries have moved through the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, and it also takes account of aftershocks. The bill applies a very common-sense approach to correcting the legal boundaries. It is going to put them where property owners would expect them to be. It is not going to be a definitive result; it is going to be a cordial result, and people will reach common-sense outcomes. This bill is going to recognise that there have already been surveys, and it is going to give validation to those surveys that have already been undertaken—that provision is also made in this bill.

It is essential that the people of Canterbury whose property boundaries have been affected by the earthquakes and the aftershocks have certainty over their property rights. I believe this bill achieves that. It is another step in the regeneration of that region, and it also complements the $17 billion that this Government has committed to the initial response in Canterbury. It is one of the most ambitious programmes in New Zealand’s history. It is for that reason that I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

I am pleased to take a short call on the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. The first time I came into contact with any surveying was in Hokitika, in the then Department of Lands and Survey office there. There was a dusty storeroom, and it had the notebooks of Charlie Douglas, or “Mr Explorer Douglas”, who in the late 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s was roaming and mapping South Westland. He was employed by the survey department, I think, through the 1880s and early 1890s. His notebooks of those surveys included some absolutely beautiful watercolours; he was not only mapping but describing the areas as well. That was my first exposure to surveying.

The matters in this bill are slightly more technical. I learnt the difference between accretion, where legal boundaries in relation to land and water move gradually, and avulsion, which is a much more sudden movement. But this is a very practical bill because, as others have said, the significant number of properties in Canterbury that were affected by the earthquakes, some 135,000 properties, moved. Most of those were within the tolerance, but there were about 11,000 that moved by more than 20 centimetres, and there was some confusion.

There were guidelines that Land Information New Zealand put out, and some of those surveyors who were working on the ground were making a practical interpretation and ensuring that boundaries actually did move with the land, as most people would expect. But the guidance did not clarify the situation, so it is appropriate that we have had a bill through Parliament that makes it clear that—rather than being fixed, as they are in the law; rather than being where the survey mark is, where the pegs are—if boundaries have moved more than that tolerance of 20 centimetres, then the boundaries go with the land movement. I think the bill, as others have noted, is also providing more certainty to people in Canterbury because it is ensuring that the boundaries from those surveys that were done in that interim period where they were approved by the Surveyor-General will stay where they were surveyed—and I think there were some 3,500 of those—so people can continue to rely on the surveys that were done there.

There were 11 submissions, and three of the organisations that made submissions were professional organisations representing surveyors. The major one of those, the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, which involves some 1,300 professionals, was supportive of the bill. There were concerns raised around a disputes resolution process, and, yes, the select committee has not amended the bill to implement that. It has instead said that people have to have recourse to the provisions in the Property Law Act, and that may involve going to court. There is also provision for compensation, of course, in the Land Transfer Act. A bill to reform that Act is currently before the Government Administration Committee, ably chaired by Ruth Dyson. There have been quite a few submissions on the provisions around compensation, which may benefit from clarification in that separate select committee process.

This bill is a sensible one. The Green Party is supporting it, and we hope that it progresses promptly through Parliament. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Denis O’Rourke to take a short call on the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. New Zealand First agrees with the purpose, which has two main points, as has been mentioned previously. The first is to clarify the law. In any case, really, to clarify a law is a good thing and New Zealand First agrees with that. With regard to this piece of legislation, it relates to locating legal property boundaries of land affected by the movement of that land as a result of the 2010 and 2011 earthquake sequence in Canterbury.

The other part of the purpose is to provide the guidelines that are to be issued about standards, to assist with boundary determinations so that surveyors can do their job properly and people can rely on what they do. As has already been mentioned, there have been around about 11,000 houses that will be affected by this legislation, obviously in a good way—not only for the homeowners of those 11,000 properties but also for surveyors, who will be able to do their job. At the moment the surveyors have been finding it very difficult to do their job, especially with identifying and interpreting the actual physical boundaries of the land, which include surveying pegs and the like that moved during the earthquakes.

This bill addresses that problem by attempting to provide people, landowners, and surveyors alike with some certainty about their legal boundaries. It does that by providing some flexibility around the general rules that usually apply to the location and the identification of boundaries, and by providing for practical solutions. The Surveyor-General will issue guidelines for surveyors so as to maintain standards and technical consistency. That is consistent with usual practice and the bill simply reinforces that in relation to these special circumstances.

The select committee has made some sensible changes, especially to the definition of the earthquakes for the purposes of this legislation, and also in allowing 6 years for the entire sequence. New Zealand First also agrees that there is no new dispute resolution process that is needed, because there are already adequate provisions. New Zealand First supports this bill and we look forward to discussing this further in the Committee stage. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise. I think this is the first time since I have been in Parliament that I have been able to speak on a bill that is related to trying to put things right in Christchurch. Often our Christchurch MPs, or the Local Government and Environment Committee MPs, have had this task, and it is, I guess, in some small part, by speaking in support of this bill, my opportunity as a parliamentarian to be able to contribute something towards helping to improve the lives and the ongoing livelihoods of those in Christchurch.

This is, I have to say, an incredibly sensible bill, and I guess a number of speakers have already said that. The level of support that this has right across the House, I think really iterates to me the level of support that there is for wanting to find solutions to some of the difficulties that are being experienced in Christchurch, and have been experienced since the first earthquake in 2010, and the subsequent earthquakes. There has been such a vast array of difficulties that people have faced. Of course that was highly publicised early on, with people being without water, people being without sewerage, roads being a mess, people having houses that were uninhabitable, and the issues have gone on for a very, very long time.

The general public of New Zealand, I think, were initially very supportive, and are aware of ongoing issues that have made the headlines, and have been widely circulated. But this is a particular issue that has significant impact for homeowners, making it difficult for them to be able to move on—I mean, you basically need to know where your property begins and ends, in terms of what you do with it. This is a problem that has not been widely known by the people of New Zealand. It has not been widely talked about, but it is a significant problem none the less for those people who are experiencing it. So it is beholden upon Parliament to take some action and rectify the situation, to put things in place to give people that level of certainty. From my perspective, I think my understanding of this bill is that it does just that.

In particular, it is about taking a really practical approach to this issue. It is very difficult when you have had ground move—not necessarily in a uniform way—for surveyors to be able to follow any of the old boundary lines, because earthquakes do not necessarily move in a straight line. So boundaries will not be, or are not, where they once were, and are not easily defined. The provisions in this bill, I think, are great. There is going to be a sense of “common sensibility” applied across this so that surveyors will now be able to come in, look at a property, assess it, and essentially exercise a level of common sense; so that property boundaries will largely be where property owners expect them to be. I think that is really crucial.

If you think of the types of problems that people have had with boundaries over the years without earthquakes—often you will see a fence that has been built where someone did not expect it to be; you have all manner of issues with hedges, and all sorts of difficulties that people have with their neighbours over boundaries—it is really an ongoing issue and has been for a long period of time. Instead of getting down into, sort of, really nitty-gritty problems and definitions of where boundaries should or should not be, for surveyors to be able to apply some common sense and get stuck into this issue to ensure that where there has been this lateral movement—the spreading or sideways movement of land—boundaries are where people would expect them to be is, to my mind, incredibly sensible, incredibly practical, and will help bring some resolution to these issues.

As usual, the select committee—and it is a very hard-working select committee of course; the Local Government and Environment Committee has had a lot on its plate recently—put a lot of time and energy into this particular bill. I want to commend all the members of that committee, especially the chairman, Scott Simpson, who I think has done a fantastic job in steering this bill through this process to ensure that we get a good outcome. There have been some amendments that the committee members made along the way that, I think, are entirely appropriate. They have taken what was obviously a very good, practical, sensible bill in the first place a little bit further, and ensured that there have been some improvements.

I guess, in particular, I want to draw attention to the amending of clause 10 to specify that provided the specified criteria are met there will be no liability for surveys and boundary determinations done in the interim period between 4 September 2010 and commencement of this legislation. As we all know, it was not just one earthquake: there have been a number of earthquakes subsequent to those particularly devastating ones in September of 2010, and February 2011. So it is important that we actually recognise that this has been an ongoing issue for a period of time since then, as well.

But of course this is not a blanket waiver of liability. Very sensibly, the committee members have looked at it and said that they obviously recommend the amendment to this clause, in terms of the exemptions of liability—but it does not exclude things like negligence or bad faith or misconduct or non-compliance with statutory obligations and professional standards. So this is not a blanket waiver of liability for surveyors; this is just to ensure that where they have made their best endeavours to do the best that they can between September 2010 and now, and where those lines that they have drawn have moved through subsequent earth movements, they are not being held liable for that. I think that is eminently sensible. It is a practical approach, as I have said a number of times already, right across the board in this bill.

I do just want to commend the Local Government and Environment Committee on its work, and commend the Minister on bringing forward something that, in a small way, is going to help to bring some more resolution to homeowners in Christchurch, who, without doubt, have been having all sorts of challenges over the last 5 or 6 years. This is a way that we can help them to put some things right. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you to the last speaker, Jono Naylor. I want to add a little bit of clarity to your speech on this, but I want to start with actually acknowledging the work that the Minister for Land Information has done on this bill. She was very open in encouraging the Christchurch MPs to get involved in discussions early on, when the bill was being put together. We all have an expectation that our property boundary issues will be resolved, and there was a very real danger that, unless we could agree on a way forward, there might be some discussion and dissension and debate. I want to acknowledge the fact that she got the parties into the room with the officials to talk through some of the key points about this bill.

As a matter of background, as some of the previous speakers have said, what happened was that the earth and the property boundaries were impacted by things such as lateral spread. When the earth stretches and potentially stretches your boundary it also has the impact, in some places where the earth lifted, of shrinking boundaries. So in order to be fair to property owners, in order to be fair to the ratepayers of Christchurch, something had to go in place to ensure that boundaries could be—if they needed to be—redrawn, but could be in an equitable way, so that it could minimise whatever dispute between boundary neighbours. This bill was put together in order for that to be accomplished.

As a very visual kind of representation of what happened, we have a large section of the Avon River flowing through my electorate and a large part of the red zone is actually bound on either side of the Avon River. What happened was that one side of the river dropped and the other side of the river spread. So when you drive down places like New Brighton Road, for example, on one side of the road you are actually below the waterline of the river. So there are impacts upon you as a property owner. Large tracts of that land have been red-zoned, so that is taken out of the equation—that is not covered by this bill. Immediately up against the red zone, of course, are the properties that are still zoned as being able to be habitable, because the land is still relatively OK. So it is those properties that are up against the red zone or up against those areas of land that have been significantly impacted that this bill will apply to.

What I do want to clarify in the previous speaker’s speech is the issue around interim surveys. Surveys were conducted on normal properties prior to the earthquake. You have a survey. Then the earthquake happened, and then we have a period before this bill takes effect. The surveys that were conducted from the time after the earthquake sequence and before this bill will take effect—this is the interim period for the survey. Those surveys will be quite different in many cases from surveys that were done prior to the earthquake sequence. It is these surveys that may provide some contention and some dispute amongst neighbours.

So that is where the submitters actually made the major contribution to this bill. The New Zealand Law Society provided quite a comprehensive submission on that, dealing with the issue of what an interim survey actually was, and then with its suggestions on how parties who might be in dispute actually could resolve those conflicts. It is those key concerns that the Local Government and Environment Committee looked at and reviewed. So when the bill came back to the House, the select committee had considered those particular issues and the mechanism with which those parties potentially in dispute could resolve those disputes.

It also provided the mechanism that may provide compensation for some property owners who will be disadvantaged by any new boundaries that may be drawn. At the end of the day it could be that some boundaries go into areas that might be at the edges of rivers or creeks, for example, and the boundaries are no longer appropriate. So there are opportunities within this bill to provide some remedy for property owners in that regard. We have had a lot of zoning done to us, as Canterbury property owners, so we are really pleased that this bill addresses some key concerns. Some of the concerns will be around property value, of course, but they are mostly around ensuring that people feel that there is a fair process, that they are going to get a fair deal, and that if they have decided to stay on their properties then those properties are going to be identified and titled appropriately.

Without wanting to hold up this bill, we do commend it. It is a good piece of legislation. The select committee did work well on addressing those issues of the interim survey and how the remediation could be put in place after the bill is actually enacted. We do commend it to the House.

Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. I am pleased to stand in support of the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill for its second reading. I am also pleased to be ending my week here in Parliament talking about yet another common-sense and very, very pragmatic bill that the Government is putting forward.

The other thing is that when we look at this bill—Rūaumoko, the Canterbury earthquakes, came and one of the results of this upheaval was the moving of property boundaries. This has made the job of surveyors harder as they try to determine the current legal boundaries of properties affected by the land movement from earthquakes. When we look at this bill, it really does clarify the legal status of these properties by asserting that their legal boundaries have moved with the movement of the land. You only have to watch Neighbours from Hell to know that when there is uncertainty about boundaries of property, there is great potential for conflict.

This bill provides a certainty that surveyors and landowners need—it is about that certainty—and it settles this issue in a very, very fair way. I would like to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Bill read a second time.