Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: I move, That the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill was introduced in November 2015. I would like to start by acknowledging the Hon Nikki Kaye. She was the one who developed this bill and did a huge amount of work towards it, and I am sure she would have liked to be here today for its final debate. Before I start, I would like to thank parties across the House for their support of this bill. I would particularly like to thank the Government Administration Committee, chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson, and all the members of that committee for their work on this bill. There were a number of changes recommended by the committee that have, I think, strengthened the bill.

The bill recognises that more legislative tools are required to enable communities to recover from emergencies more efficiently and more effectively. The bill meets this need, particularly in regard to small and medium events, and, of course, these are the most frequent events and emergencies that we experience in New Zealand. But the bill is not limited to small and medium types of emergencies, and can be used on a large-scale emergency—although, hopefully, we will not need it—until any bespoke legislation is created.

The bill sends a clear signal that planning for recovery is important, as historically the focus has been on preparing and responding to an emergency. Planning, of course, is extremely important, and it is only with good plans that we can underpin good recovery.

To summarise the key provisions, I believe that they significantly support local communities. Firstly, the bill provides for local civil defence emergency management groups, made out of local councils, to initiate formal transition periods. During these times, group recovery managers, on behalf of the community, have access to powers designed to assist the recovery phase. These powers include things like the ability to close roads, the ability to keep areas clear of the public, and the ability to carry out any necessary works.

Secondly, the bill emphasises the need for civil defence emergency management groups and their communities to discuss and plan for recovery. Of course, planning for recovery should always occur prior to an emergency, and communities need to be part of that planning conversation. The planning for recovery requirements were strengthened during the Committee of the whole House debate by an amendment by Clare Curran, and that was supported by all, so I thank Clare Curran for that. The bill now provides that civil defence emergency management group plans must include strategic recovery planning. That makes it expressly clear that planning for recovery must be undertaken.

There are also additional supporting provisions, such as the ability for the Minister of Civil Defence to become involved if local communities lack capacity. Transition periods can also be initiated at a national level.

The next steps: once the bill has been passed, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management will actively support the implementation of the bill and work with local groups and communities to make the most of its provisions, in both planning for and responding to recovery activities.

Finally, I would like to thank all of those who have been involved in the development of this bill. It is a sensible approach. It is focused on increasing community resilience and on speeding up recovery after an emergency. It puts more tools in the tool kit for local communities and the Government, and I commend this bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to speak in the third reading of this bill, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. I too would like to acknowledge the Hon Nikki Kaye and her work in this area and in general in civil defence, and the work of the Government Administration Committee. I also want to acknowledge the good work of the officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. There was good work. I do not say that every time I get up to speak on a bill, but there was good work done. I think that the bill is better for it, and the New Zealand public listening or watching tonight can be a little bit more reassured that New Zealand is more prepared for emergencies and for the recovery phase in emergencies. It was a very good committee.

I am going to give a very short recap of the key elements of the bill and how we approached the bill on this side of the House in the Labour Party. We supported the intent of the bill, right from the beginning, which was to improve the way that communities recover from emergencies and for there to be a seamless and timely transition from response to recovery. Of course, that is a no-brainer, but we did end up with some concerns during the select committee process, when the bill came to the Government Administration Committee. Largely, those were concerns focused around the balance between ministerial powers and consultation with communities, and the ability for local governance to be able to exercise decision making without being overridden by ministerial powers, and around how that communication could work better. I think that the bill is better for the work that was done in the committee on that.

We also noted that the bill is the first stage of a wider review being undertaken into the legislative framework in this whole area for recovery. This bill focuses on small to medium sized events, and I do not want to diminish the importance of those, because they still have huge impact in the communities that they affect. Every year there are several events that occur in different communities around our country that have lasting impacts, and this bill will make dealing with them and recovering from them better. But this bill does not address the bigger events and the work that we need to do around that. My message tonight to the Government is that we need to hurry up and get that process started, and to ask how that engagement with the community happens—engagement right across the community with all of the important stakeholders.

I really do urge the Government to give us a bit more detail about that. I know that during the Committee stage the Acting Minister, Gerry Brownlee, gave us a little bit of a clue and said some positive things about that, so our ears are open. We are ready to have discussions on that and to ensure that all of our communities are.

We did retain some concerns about the bill when it came back from the select committee to the House, and we proposed a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which the Government supported, as did all the other parties. It was generally a good decision and a good agreement. That SOP required the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan prepared by a civil defence emergency management group to state and provide for strategic recovery planning. This was originally in the bill at the first reading, and then it got taken out during the discussions at the select committee on the recommendations of officials. We have put it back in again. Although it is not specific about what those strategic recovery plans should include, it is there as a strong signal, and we believe that is important.

Basically, there were other matters that we discussed a lot in the select committee—the inclusion of a permanent legislative authority, which we described as a sensible mechanism after having heard from Treasury about how that works in other areas. It is a flexible mechanism for reimbursement of expenses during an emergency and for providing ongoing authority for such expenditure.

We are pretty happy with this bill. I want to make a couple of observations, and I know that I will not get through, I am sure, all of them before the end. There is more work to be done, and, as I said, we hope that that engagement will begin soon as to how the next phase of this work will occur. Right around the country, there are 16 civil defence emergency management groups. There is work to be done in ensuring that they are fit for purpose. This is not to be critical of them individually, but the world is changing. The way that our New Zealand communities operate has changed. The old style of civil defence emergency management, where in some areas that turned into personal fiefdoms, has changed.

It is absolutely critical that every single one of those 16 civil defence emergency management groups is modern, that they have quality people, the relationships and the networks that they have—that there are living plans and not just plans that have been written and then put on the shelf, because this is about more than words on paper, that those living plans are tested and retested, that there is the utmost professionalism, and that they have the resources that they need when things go pear-shaped.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.