Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill

In my 7½ minutes that preceded today’s debate, I outlined Labour’s support for this bill and the reasons why. I also made some observations about some further concerns that we had. I had not quite finished with those observations and I will do that now in the time left.

Civil defence should be a multipartisan issue, and we all in this House have an absolute vested interest in keeping our communities safe in times of crisis, and being able to respond quickly and effectively. One of the issues that remains to be dealt with in this country is the lack of a national disaster warning system—a public disaster warning system—and the importance of that. There are 16 civil defence emergency management groups around the country. There has been more than half a million dollars spent in the last couple of years developing technology that can act as a national public alerting system, but we are now at a point where that appears to have been put to one side. The Government is now embarking on another system that may end up costing many, many, many more millions of dollars—perhaps up to $55 to $60 million—based on cell broadcast technology, which I have heard is fraught with problems.

Why is this important? This is important because we are not having fewer civil defence emergencies. The potential for a major earthquake off the shore of New Zealand creating a tsunami is there, and New Zealand at the moment has no national public alerting system. If this Government is serious about a joined-up approach to civil defence emergency management, it needs to get its act together on this and it needs to talk to the community. It needs to engage with other parties, and it needs to sort this out.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. In this third reading debate on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill, I first want to congratulate both the sponsoring Minister, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, who is Acting Minister of Civil Defence, but also my colleague Nikki Kaye, who worked so hard on these measures. Of course, we miss Nikki here in the House today to see this piece of work going through, and we wish her all the best.

This bill amends the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002, the CDEM Act, in a number of ways that will positively enhance our ability to recover from the most frequent kinds of emergencies that we sustain here in New Zealand—that is, those of a small to moderate scale. It does this in a number of main ways. Apart from some relatively minor and technical amendments that improve the Act, there are three main pieces that innovate to create a better framework. These are the establishment of a legislative framework for the recovery management systems, which provides a mandate for recovery managers and requires high-level preparatory work to be done so that we have recovery plans in place. It also supports the seamless transition from the initial response phase to the recovery phase. It establishes a transition notice mechanism, and that makes some additional emergency powers available to transition managers for a specified period of time and with what we, particularly on this side of the House, believe are appropriate controls and mechanisms in place to ensure accountability. It also establishes a permanent legislative authority—that is, a permanent appropriation of funds so that councils and local bodies will know that when they go and spend money on a recovery, the Government will back up that spending and will do what it takes to help them recover.

It should be noted that this is the first stage of a wider review of the legislative framework. We have taken learnings from Christchurch and elsewhere, but this deals with small- to moderate-scale emergencies and is a positive set of improvements—and it is certainly a tribute to the hard work that the Hon Nikki Kaye put in initially, and the current Acting Minister, the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I commend it to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise to take a call on this bill. I did not sit on the select committee—the Government Administration Committee—for this particular bill but I have a strong interest, and I have taken note of the submissions that were made. I want to first of all point out the submission from the Rangitīkei District Council, which is in my electorate so I have taken particular note of that one. The Rangitīkei District Council is one of those councils that have had to deal with a number of floods over the last 11 years. I live very near a river, within 50 metres of flood zone, and I am very lucky that I do not get flooded, but all of my neighbours have been—some of them four times over the last 11 years. So I have taken a real interest in this bill.

I want to congratulate the Hon Nikki Kaye on the work that she did on this bill. I think, and I agree with my colleague Clare Curran, that civil defence is an area that all parties ought to be cooperating on. I know that when the Minister was in charge of this bill she made certain that she was talking to all parties about this particular bill. So I want to acknowledge that.

We in Labour are supporting this bill, but there are a couple of things that we have had concerns about. My colleague Clare Curran has already outlined those, but I want to pay attention to them, as well. So we have got unease about the imbalance of power in the authority that is exercising ministerial powers, against consultation with local communities—particularly in the recovery phase of an emergency. This is of particular importance, I believe, for those communities that are affected by emergencies when they happen, and the transition from dealing with those emergencies into the recovery phase. I think it is important that we acknowledge the concerns that those submitters have. I do want to acknowledge that there were some changes made during the Committee stage to the bill that we have before us right now. I think that they have made the bill better and stronger, and so I support those changes around that area.

I want to also talk briefly about the emergency management of strategic recovery plans, and acknowledge the submissions of those submitters who had some concerns that it did not specifically require which details needed to be in those plans. I think that although the bill does not want to be too prescriptive, they raised some clear points around that part of the bill before us.

I think an overall comment on this bill is that we all want a better way forward. I think the next phase in the review of the civil defence area is going to be critically important. This bill deals with some of the issues, but—as has been pointed out already—there is still more to come, and we look forward to that. I do not have too much more to contribute on this, but those areas—particularly around moving from the initial phase of dealing with an emergency into the recovery phase—need to be as seamless as possible. What is raised within this bill actually will achieve that. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

I will just take a short call. It is my pleasure to take a call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. Can I basically take the short time that I have to acknowledge our civil defence personnel and management around the country. This is an important bill. It relates more to small to medium sized - type incidents, but my own experience is that there is always risk in moving from a contingency-type environment into sustainment, or from emergency into recovery. This bill goes a long way in terms of the legislative framework in making sure that there is a seamless transition between those two.

I have to say that there has definitely been a lot of work and a heightened response taken in terms of how local communities are educated and engaged with civil defence. If I can just say, in my own electorate of Rodney we have had a couple of recent exercises in preparation for a tsunami event. I just want to acknowledge civil defence emergency management and all our civil defence people around the country. I think we are definitely moving in the right direction. This piece of legislation continues to support that. Thank you very much.

I am pleased to rise and take a call for the Green Party in the third reading of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. We are very pleased to be able to support this with the other parties in the House. As has already been stated by other members, it is really important in terms of responses to natural disasters and other emergencies that we are able to be in accordance with each other in this House, and that people in the communities know that we are listening and that we are putting their interests first. Having unanimity on this bill is really important. I would like to particularly acknowledge the Minister of Civil Defence, Nikki Kaye, who brought this bill to the House, and I wish her well at the moment.

I will also just restate how constructive this process has been. Being on the Government Administration Committee, there absolutely was a process. It felt as if everyone on the committee was actually listening and checking the implications of this legislation, to test it against the question “Would this help the local communities?”, rather than it being a battle between different parties’ interests. There were positive changes that were made through the select committee process and, indeed, in the Committee of the whole House stage, when the Labour member Clare Curran, I think, put forward the amendment to put in the requirement for strategic recovery plans to be in the legislation. That was, I think, a positive change. Although there was the feeling from some members on the committee that maybe that was not necessary, what we heard from different councils and other people with a stake in this was that the planning capacity in different communities varies significantly, so providing more direction in the legislation would be helpful to ensure a consistency in approach and, indeed, support for communities being able to respond.

At the heart of it, this legislation is put in place to help us, as a country, move on in natural disasters from the immediate response, which is not necessarily covered by this legislation, into recovery. At the heart of it, there is pressure from legislation to have extended civil emergency provisions going on longer than may actually be necessary. They give people the assurance that they can go and act in the way that they need to in specific situations, but carry on, probably, more interventionist limitations beyond that. This legislation actually gets more specific, so that we can have the interventions where they are actually needed, not the blanket interventions. I think that is really positive, because at the heart of our concern about this legislation was balancing the need for support from central government—for a community that may be in shock and in a state of dealing with something it has never confronted before—and supporting and enabling communities to be able to come together and respond.

We have seen this in Christchurch, we have seen it in Kāpiti, and we have seen it in Whanganui. We see it all around the country, actually—that communities often come together, provide support for each other, and know what is needed in a way that would never happen if a response was centralised. We needed to make sure that the legislation was enabling that community response, not getting in the way of it. We heard far too many stories from Christchurch, in particular, that the response we had there was at times of communities coming together, responding, looking after each other, and doing what was needed, but then central government systems came in—with the best intentions, absolutely the best intentions—and were getting in the way and actually shutting down those community responses. At the end of that, actually, the actions that happened were not necessarily what the communities needed, and people ended up feeling disconnected and disempowered by the process. That is not what we want in the recovery process because the recovery process, at the heart of it, is the environment and the people working together.

We are quietly confident that this legislation has got that balance right. But we did say, and I hope it is a sentiment shared by others in the House, that this is one of those things for which we need to test how it works and be really willing to bring legislation back to the House if it is not delivering in that way—if communities tell us that, actually, we did not get that balance right. We need to make sure that we are carefully listening.

I do need to put this in the context of how important climate change is, which I have done in every speech. We cannot talk about these small and medium sized disasters—which are, significantly, flooding disasters—in New Zealand without talking about climate change. Globally, in the 1970s there were on average 78 natural disasters each year—I think—recorded around the world. Now we have over 350 natural disasters recorded every year. This is something we cannot avoid. We need to be doing everything we can as a country to reduce our emissions and stop the runaway climate change that will make it just unimaginably bad.

But a significant amount of climate change is already locked in. We are feeling the effects of it already. We have to take steps to be able to respond to that and protect our communities, as the sea level rises and as storms and floods come more frequently. We know that in New Zealand we are already seeing between $1.2 billion and $2 billion spent every year on cleaning up after these small and medium sized natural disasters, so the thinking that says that we cannot afford to take significant action on reducing our emissions—that we need to put the economy first—is really just short-term thinking, which seems to be missing the reality of what we are facing right now. Climate change is already impacting on communities and families and our national Budget. We need to get serious about this and go beyond legislation that just helps us to pick up the pieces. We urgently need to move on preventing worse disasters in the future. Thank you.

It is great to be here on a Thursday afternoon, talking to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. It is very nice, I have to say, to sit in this House—or to stand here, and sit here—and listen to this House fully supporting this bill and expediting it, because I think it needs to be expedited. New Zealand First has certainly been a very proactive supporter of this bill. We would also like to send our thanks to the Minister, the Hon Nikki Kaye, and her office, for the way she has conducted herself in putting this bill through this process. She has been very, very open and very, very helpful and has extended her offers to us to submit ideas and even amendments, as and when it has been required. So that just shows the collegiality of it.

We see the importance of it, and it is very refreshing to be standing here in the House, talking about something that will make the lives of New Zealanders affected by these incidents, if you like—weather incidents and earthquakes—a lot easier to go through the tidy up, as well as dealing with the actual disaster itself. It is about the six p’s, but we have dropped one of the p’s out because it is probably a little bit of a profanity and should not be spoken in the House, but it is about perfect preparation prevents poor performance—we dropped out that p in the middle there—because, of course, that leads on to the five r’s that it affects: the risk, reduction, readiness, response, and recovery.

This is a two-part review. This is the first part. It will be coming into effect, after today, in just a little bit over 6 months’ time. We would like to see that hurried through because, of course, as has already been lamented by Jan Logie, this is a time of change. The weather is very, very unpredictable and we are seeing far more weather incidents that are affecting a very, very wide range of communities right from the far North to the deep South. But the second part of this review is absolutely essential, that we actually speed this up to get that into this House to put some frameworks and legislation around major events—the catastrophes of the like that have seen many, many people lose their lives, their businesses, their homes, and have their families certainly jolted with the likes of the earthquake in Christchurch.

Even this week we had a shakeup here in Wellington. We have had them off the East Coast of the North Island up around Whakatāne and Gisborne, and we are always—I suppose by the nature of New Zealand’s land and where we are situated in the Pacific—going to be under that pressure of potential earthquakes and tsunamis. It is also very important to remind everybody that we really have not actually got—although it is on the front of our minds I suppose, and we have had earthquakes that have created tsunamis around the world—a tsunami warning system in the Bay of Plenty, in Papamoa and Mount Maunganui specifically. Those residents in the Bay of Plenty and Tauranga are crying out to actually have a warning system that will give residents plenty of time to evacuate the area safely. I think the civil defence emergency management groups and the planning from the civil defence emergency management groups will certainly go a long way towards establishing a recognised warning and sounding alarm that would help raise people and get them out of their beds and off to higher ground.

This bill does four things. I think they are very, very good things. In fact, the first thing it does is it mandates the roles and responsibilities for emergency service providers during an event. So it is about who does what. The second thing it does is it strengthens the recovery planning. It is about how we do it. Then it moves on to providing a framework to ensure a seamless transition from the response to the emergency, to the initial recovery period—and we are talking about transitional notices here. Those transitional notices, whether they be local or national transitional notices, are very important—particularly around an event where you have got the powers of conservation of fuel. You can get the police or, if it is required, the army or such to actually intervene, to block off areas, to strengthen buildings that might be unsafe, and the ability to remove people from those areas of high-risk where they might not be thinking, necessarily, quite rationally.

We can, now, under his legislation, enable those people to be mobilised, secure areas, ration fuel out, and do those sorts of things, which is very good. I think probably one of the most important things is it gives some framework around who pays for it and how that funding is going to be applied to these local areas that are affected in an emergency.

Looking around and looking into this bill, a few things have popped up and one thing that I thought is worth mentioning here is that some while ago they had a memorandum of understanding between Airbnb and the Auckland civil defence group, providing free accommodation through Airbnb for those people affected by a civil defence emergency, such as displaced families or even the workers and people who are coming into an area to actually help with the recovery and the clean up of an incident. These are the sorts of things that the civil defence emergency management groups can actually build into their planning stages and, certainly, taking a model out of what has happened in Auckland would be a great start. New Zealand First would be recommending that this is actually put on around the country, because it does absolutely make sense. New Zealand First does support this.

We would like to have a consideration around a ministry of emergency services. I think we are at a position in time where we could amalgamate these emergency services and bring them together under a single ministry. I think with the likes of the role that the civil defence plays in an overarching way, of fire as well as police and ambulance, that perhaps that framework would put it in underneath that ministry with special powers that fit within this bill, to actually put it into a position to direct in a moment of emergency. New Zealand First is doing work on that. It is in our policies that we have a ministry of emergency services and, of course, part of that would be the police, the fire, the ambulance, and potentially some other pillars that would come down underneath that.

To wrap things up, New Zealand First supports this. We would like see it run through nice and easy, as I am sure it will tonight. We look forward to after the Royal assent in 6 months’ time, having it implemented as I am sure New Zealanders all around the country would be happy to see.

I rise in support of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill in this its third reading. This bill will improve communities’ recovery from small to moderate incidents—those most commonly experienced in New Zealand. In fact, if we look back to June 2015 there was the event in Manawatū and Whanganui, which helped to inform not only the need for these changes but, indeed, the actual nature of the changes that are being enacted, hopefully, at the end of this debate.

There are three main features of this bill. Firstly, of course, we will put in place a legislative framework for recovery management: one that provides a mandate for recovery managers and also will require high-level preparatory recovery planning. Secondly, and very, very importantly, it is going to support a seamless transition from the response into the initial recovery phase. That definitely came from learning from the Manawatū and Whanganui event, one which was hampered very much in that phase of the recovery. Thirdly, it will establish a permanent legislative authority to give effect to some of the provisions in the bill. This is going to go a long way to helping us be better not only in our preparation but for the recovery phase of small- to moderate-scale emergencies—those that occur most frequently in New Zealand. As others have said, we will work on a separate phase that also deals with larger scale emergencies. This one is targeted at a specific area, with very, very good measures. I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. I call Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a short call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill for the Green Party, and also to record my appreciation of the work done by the many volunteers in civil defence that was obvious in the large-scale event of the Christchurch earthquake. There was huge cooperation with the local volunteer fire brigade, and the volunteers were working really hard to provide for people’s immediate needs for water and some sense of reassurance in the immediate aftermath of that huge disaster.

It is true that this legislation helps move from the immediate response phase to the recovery. There was quite a lot of concern in submissions about the need to ensure that there were the right safeguards around the exercise of emergency powers. We were very pleased to see the changes made by the Government Administration Committee that require greater consultation with affected councils in terms of their mayors and with the relevant civil defence emergency management groups where there is a transition notice being put in place or being extended. It was certainly the experience of Christchurch, as Jan Logie has noted, where central Government responded in that recovery phase by saying that emergency powers were still needed. Those emergency powers continued for far too long. They were far too extensive. Then it undermined recovery, because people felt alienated. They did not feel that they were involved in key decisions about the city’s future.

Others have commented that this is the first stage of a significant and larger-scale review of the provisions around large-scale events. Well, there has been very little transparency around that. We had the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment at the Local Government and Environment Committee this morning, and we were questioning her about her report on sea-level rise and the recommendation in that report that a working party be established, of Government officials and stakeholders like the insurance industry, to look at how we respond to sea-level rise and how we are prepared for that. Treasury has only spent an hour talking with the parliamentary commissioner, even though she has done a substantive report about sea-level rise.

We need to be looking in a much more comprehensive way at how we respond to natural hazards and how we prevent some of the worst effects of the more intense storm events and the more frequent flood events that we will get with a changing climate. That is, of course, as well as doing so much more to actually reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We have not seen the Government dealing with that issue of natural hazards. The Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, seems to think that if you put natural hazards in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill as a matter of national importance, that will deal with the issue.

But communities are really struggling with how to control development in areas that are at risk of flooding and that are at risk of coastal erosion. If councils do seek, as Kāpiti and Christchurch sought, to control that development through rules in their plans, property owners do not like the decline in property values. They push back. So there is a very limited ability to prevent development in areas that are prone to flooding.

It is avoiding effects that we are concerned about in the Green Party, rather than just responding to effects. There needs to be a much wider national conversation about how we adapt to climate change, and the Government is utterly failing to show any leadership there. We have not even had the Government being open about its plans to review the Earthquake Commission legislation and whether there is scope there for setting up an insurance scheme for the effects of other natural disasters that are related to climate change.

This bill is a good bill, as far as it goes, but it does not deal with the much greater severity of flood events or the impacts of sea-level rise and coastal erosion that we are going to get because the Government is failing to do our fair share in relation to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

I call Poto Williams—5 minutes.

It is a pleasure to rise to take a short call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. I just want to make a few points, and they do come out of the Christchurch experience and ensuring that we do not miss the opportunity to ensure that we take the learnings out of that experience when we are preparing legislation. I know that this legislation is really not designed for the large-scale events that we saw, but there are a couple of things that we can learn from Christchurch.

I know that this bill looks specifically at the definition of “recovery”, but the important thing to note is that recovery is about more than just the provision of essential services. Those civil defence workers are required to have a range of knowledge and to support a range of experiences. As you may be aware, Mr Assistant Speaker, when you turn up to a particular event you are never quite sure what you are going to find. It is important to ensure that the workforce development is up to scratch. It is more than just ensuring shelter and that people are protected from immediate danger. There are some longer-term impacts that our civil defence emergency people are important in supporting.

One of the real lessons that has been learnt, that we have not really taken full cognisance of, is that around strategic recovery plans there are some things that we have really missed. One of those is around business continuity. What happened in Christchurch is that in the initial phase there were some plans put in place to ensure that businesses could continue in the short term, but we did not fully take into account what happens in the longer term for businesses. For example, every time in Christchurch a road is dug up or a walkway is cordoned off for some works, that impacts our local businesses. There are many businesses in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch that month after month after month have had to put up with disruption, particularly to traffic and foot traffic, that severely impacted their long-term viability as businesses.

Although that might not sound important it has been hugely important to them, because, as soon as you disrupt the ability for customers to get to a business—if you do that once, they are unlikely to return. It has been our local businesses in Christchurch East that have really suffered a huge impact, because the level of disruption has meant that their long-term business viability has really been impacted. So when we are looking at strategic recovery plans after an event or a disaster, we must look at business continuity not just in the early days and weeks but longer term—particularly when we are in the recovery phase—when we are looking at the disruption that might occur.

There was a submission made by the Christchurch City Council—it made three submissions—and this one in particular talks about local control and ensuring that we have adequate local control. That is one of the lessons that I think that we have not learnt in Canterbury. Local people know their environment. They certainly have the expertise. They should have the ability to be able to effect whatever plans they need to in terms of the recovery of the city and the community that they know so well. We were very disappointed when we were unable to effect local democracy back through Environment Canterbury. We are really hopeful that the Government will see sense and restore local democracy sooner rather than later, because our communities actually know what is best for them.

In the few seconds I have left I do want to make one final comment, and that is about ensuring that we have the ability to have an alarm system and the warning system for everybody in our community—and that includes the vision-impaired and the hearing-impaired. I want to acknowledge the petition that has recently come to the House to ensure that those of our community who are hearing-impaired have the opportunity to have the alarms, which they do not currently have, to warn them to get out of dangerous situations. Thank you.

Just before I call the next member, could I just mention to the member who has been on his phone, if you want to use the phone that is for the lobbies—not for in the House.

It is a pleasure to take a very brief call on this bill. Suffice to say, I will be talking about the Rangitīkei electorate for a moment. We have a history in this area in that we were the first region to suffer a civil defence and emergency disaster under the first of the regional civil defence and emergency management plans that were designed for this. We then, some 10 years later—and Adrian Rurawhe touched on it—suffered the same problem with it, with a second disaster of a similar nature. For both of those, the recovery was a very important part. This bill goes a long way to improving those processes, and the experience of Christchurch obviously helps improve those processes as well. It is a continual improvement, in my view, and I have got a great deal of pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

I was really interested in the member Ian McKelvie’s contribution, and then it suddenly stopped. I would have thought, given his extensive experience in civil defence matters, that the House could really value his contribution, but perhaps he will have another go at another time. He will not be able to on this bill, because this is the third reading.

I am really pleased to continue Labour’s support for this bill, and also to acknowledge that, right up to the Committee of the whole House stage, Parliament seemed to be working collaboratively, to the point where Supplementary Order Paper 237 by my colleague Clare Curran, who is Labour’s spokesperson in this area, was accepted and adopted. That was really the final improvement to the bill. Our committee, the Government Administration Committee, I think worked really hard and thoughtfully.

We had some high-quality submissions. Poto Williams, my colleague from Christchurch East, acknowledged the submission from the Christchurch City Council, and that was an excellent submission, but it was, actually, one of many that really helped us think not about the theory of the bill but—of course, as is really important with civil defence—about how that theory was going to be turned into practice, and about what happens on the ground.

We learned a lot from the Canterbury situation, and that is why I was keen to hear from Ian McKelvie, because I have not heard quite so much about the Manawatū and Whanganui flooding issues, and I am sure that they learned a lot from that. One of the big issues that we learned in Canterbury was that people want to put their hands up to help. When they see other people in trouble, New Zealanders’ first instinct—and it was certainly the case in Canterbury—is to ask: “What can we do to help?”.

Admittedly, the February 2011 quake was so serious and severe that civil defence was really pushed to get it right, but it did not know what to do with volunteers—it had no idea of how to engage with volunteers. I remember Sam Johnson, who, at that time, was heading the Student Volunteer Army. I remember Sam being so frustrated because, as he said: “We have hundreds of students who can’t go to lectures during the day because our buildings need checking to make sure they are safe. We are young, fit, and able, and we want to help. We want to do something.” And civil defence said: “Go away. We do not know what to do with you.”

Sam, fortunately, did not take that as the last response. He said: “We know that people, particularly in the east, have silt up and down their driveway. They can’t get out. They can’t move around their streets. The streets are covered in silt.” And the silt was a metre high at that stage. They just got on and did it. The volunteer farming army—Farmy Army, as it is called—did the same. It did not wait to be organised and approached; it just got on and did it. It is a fantastic New Zealand attitude.

What we do have to ensure is that people who do put up their hand to help are connected with a proper civil defence response so that we get the best out of everyone and so that we never put any volunteers into a situation that would do more harm, either to themselves or to anyone else. Of course, they would not do that intentionally, but, if they did not know what was going on, they might do it. Communication between the formal civil defence organisation and volunteers is critical. I do not think that we have got it right yet. It involves a culture change. It involves ongoing communication between the various sectors that respond to an emergency situation.

Even through the last stages of the select committee, we were still waging a bit of a battle with the Hon Gerry Brownlee about how much engagement would be directed as part of the legislation. The select committee, in the end, was successful in its negotiations with the Minister. I want to acknowledge the fact that the Hon Gerry Brownlee has shepherded this bill through the last stages, but I also want to particularly acknowledge the Hon Nikki Kaye, who is on sick leave at the moment, and I really hope that she is back soon. She did an excellent job in preparing this bill, not just in working with the officials but also in working with people from other parties and territorial local authorities, which are critically involved in this. She listened to people on the ground, as well. Throughout this entire process, the Hon Nikki Kaye has really responded to the submissions that the select committee heard—the voices of people inside and outside Parliament—and worked in a very open way to give us the best bill possible, and I want to commend her for that.

I noted that the Government Administration Committee had worked hard on this, but I also want to particularly acknowledge the officials. They got a lot of hard questions. They were asked to do a lot of additional work: to contact people who had submitted to see what they would think of the committee’s initial response to their submissions. They did a fine job. They are a credit to the Public Service and this bill is better for their work, as well as for the way that the Minister and the select committee worked, and for the quality of the submissions. And so it should be.

I want to echo the words from my New Zealand First colleague Clayton Mitchell, who noted how good it was that all of Parliament had contributed to and felt part of this process, and that we have got a very good bill as a result. When you are talking about civil defence and emergency management responses, that is exactly the way that Parliament should respond. We should not have grenade throwing or cheap, petty comments as part of that; we should do the best job possible—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’s right.

The Hon Simon Bridges has just agreed with me; I might change my mind! He is the expert at cheeky, petty comments. The only time, actually, that the Minister Simon Bridges is praising is when he is looking in the mirror, and then he is highly praising. I said to him the other day in the corridor: “I’ve heard a rumour that you’re going to be the Minister of Education. Is that right?”. He said: “I haven’t heard that, but I’d make a very, very good job of it.”

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: To be fair, that is what I said.

It is, too. It is exactly. That is word for word.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Truth hurts.

No, no. I am sure you could not do worse, actually. That is what I would say, but that is not particularly high praise.

Just going back to some of the concerns that were raised and that I think have been mentioned in previous contributions to this bill—this bill is only part one of parts two and three. We were keen to hear about what might be comparable in this bill, in terms of the structure of civil defence and the way it liaises with local authorities. The way it liaises with volunteers is the next stage, which deals with much bigger events. It is going to be on a parallel path to this, in terms of the structure.

The officials could not really answer that, so I assumed from their response that the policy work has not yet been done or signed off by Cabinet. That was a bit frustrating, because we want to know that the work and effort that we put into this is passed on to the next stage, so that that structure is as robust as possible. We were not given a time frame for that next bit of work, either, and that was immensely frustrating to the committee. We felt that if this was going to be a path of quite significant change in the way we respond to civil defence emergencies, the least we could expect was to have a timetable from Minister Brownlee. But we were not able to get that, either.

I would also like—I do not usually praise these guys—to acknowledge the insurance companies.

💬 Grant Robertson: What?

Oh, I acknowledge them, rather than praise them. They bear the financial brunt of these situations. Of course, in some of the more significant ones—the Manawatū and Whanganui floods that we discussed earlier, and the Canterbury series of quakes—we have had a lot of financial costs. The insurance companies, when speaking to mitigate the risks that they were exposed to—and so they should, as that is their role; that is their business—also, I think, made a very thoughtful contribution to a much broader range of policy issues than just the narrow business focus of mitigating their risks. I want to acknowledge and thank them for their contribution to that.

As I said, this is a really important bill. I think the way that Parliament responded to it is to our credit, and that is not always the case in the way we respond to legislation. The submitters and the thought that went on, right through to the Committee of the whole House, have made this a bill that I am really proud to support. Thank you.

I rise to take the last call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill in its third reading. All the speeches throughout this third reading of the bill have been in support of the hard work that has been conducted. I suppose, as with anything, what one looks for in a civil defence emergency management plan is reliability and responsiveness, and that has been a critical part of the development of this bill.

In my brief contribution I want to talk about just one thing in particular that was not mentioned, and that is the transition notices. These will enable the civil defence emergency management plan officials to carry out critical work such as clearing roads and public places. Hopefully, those who are listening will see that those transition notices are critically important to the pragmatic logistics of support and responsiveness in the event of an emergency, as well. Also, the declaration of a state of emergency is not necessary for the issuing of a transition notice. The transition notices, in particular, are a critical component of this bill. I commend this bill. I think it is a bill that has wide support right across the House. We look forward to the Royal assent and its implementation in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.