Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill

I move, That the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill be now read a second time. During the course of the first reading, it became clear that there was one small matter that the cross-party group, when doing its considerations over the past 2 weeks, had probably not considered as well as it should have. It is a minor matter, but I am grateful to the Hon David Parker for the work with officials to sort that out, and it will be an amendment that comes in at the Committee stage, immediately following the second reading. I will not go into the details of that. I am sure that other speakers will want to cover that off.

This bill brings into force powers that can help communities in affected areas, as has been discussed over the previous few minutes. It has been the experience of this House that when it comes to emergency legislation, we do work together, and I again commend people for doing that. It is what our communities expect of us, and although we do not always get it exactly right, this is a very, very strong indication that this Parliament will move to make things as easy as possible for people in badly affected areas.

As I said earlier, the bill brings forward proposals that have already been unanimously agreed to by the Parliament, and it would be, I think, somewhat of a waste of time to go over all of those again. I simply want to say that I think the contributions in the Parliament so far have indicated, as I keep saying, the positive nature of things.

I do want to mention Minister Nikki Kaye, who is the Minister of Civil Defence. I am acting on her behalf at the moment. I know that this legislation is something that she is keeping an eye on and is watching, and she is beginning to think about how the future of the portfolio may shape up, as well. There have been a lot of good contributions that indicate a positive way of achieving some of the results that people would expect to be automatically in place at a time like this. I commend the bill to the House.

This is my first opportunity to take a call since the quakes, and I want to add my comments to those of my colleagues here in the House who have reflected on the loss of life—the two people who died in the quakes at Mt Lyford and Kaikōura. I also want to recognise the members of Parliament in the affected areas—people like my colleague Rino Tirikatene; Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura; and Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins in Wellington. I also wanted to mention the Labour candidate in Kaikōura, Janette Walker, who does a lot of work in the town of Blenheim, working with some of the most disadvantaged and displaced people whose lives have been upended by the natural disaster. She has been doing some amazing work.

As colleagues have noted, we come to this debate with consensus across the House that this is the appropriate course of action in the wake of a disaster like the recent earthquakes. There is, I think, unanimous, all-party support for the measures that we are debating in the House today.

These truly are the shaky isles, and the most recent quakes are, I think, a reminder that earthquakes not only make this country in a geological sense but also kind of make us who we are. There is no doubt that the experience of the Canterbury quakes, the thousands of aftershocks, and this recent flurry of quakes has made us. And there have been some really interesting reflections on how communities and people have responded to the disaster and how they have reached out to their neighbours—the efforts of marae and others in the community to look after their fellow citizens.

Notwithstanding the general atmosphere of non-partisan commitment to the recovery and transition, there are some serious questions that need to be answered, some of which we are debating with these bills. For example, why did so many modern buildings sustain such serious structural damage in the earthquakes? I was pleased to see the Hon Dr Nick Smith, Minister of Building and Housing, announce that there would be, I think, within a couple of days of the quakes, an inquiry into that. And so that is one of the really pressing issues, but there are others.

I think a lot of people around the country have been asking why we do not have, in a country that is so prone to earthquakes, a decent nationwide tsunami warning system. There has been quite a debate about Geonet and whether or not the seismic monitoring service should be better resourced so that it can provide 24/7 coverage. I suppose the other question is for all of the people whose homes and assets and businesses have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, and that question is whether or not the insurance companies and the Earthquake Commission have learnt the lessons of Canterbury, where there is no question that much of the pain and the protracted delays in the rebuild in Canterbury were a result of the insurance companies and the Earthquake Commission not living up to their side of the bargain. It is our hope that those hard questions will be dealt with.

So what does this bill do? It basically brings forward the commencement of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 by about 6 months so that as soon as it gets the Royal assent from the Governor-General, that Act will come in to force, and that is completely appropriate. What it does also is it gives powers for building owners to be required to carry out assessments and evaluations in the wake of a natural disaster, like one of these earthquakes, or a flood, for example.

There are a number of issues that we need to tease out in this debate, and one of them is to just come back to the question of buildings and the fact that so many modern buildings sustained serious structural damage. I think is it appropriate that procedures are in place for a very speedy assessment—an appropriate assessment—of buildings that are damaged by earthquakes, but I also think we have to ask some hard questions about whether or not we have a problem in New Zealand with compliance with the building code and the standards within the building code. I am no expert on this, but I suspect we will find that the building code and the standards are in pretty decent shape but that there is a real problem with compliance and there are many buildings out there that are apparently built to code but, in fact, are exposed in an event like this as falling woefully short of the standards required.

There are other examples that we can see of this—the epidemic of shoddy building in Auckland that is going on at the moment is one example of it. In Masterton recently the local paper has been running stories about several buildings in the main township of Masterton that are falling unbelievably short of the standards in the building code and have major structural problems. That raises some pretty serious concerns for us, and they are exposed and highlighted in the event of a disaster like this. I think that the post-disaster period, when these assessments of buildings are taking place, is particularly important given that in a CBD like Wellington’s you had something like 60-odd buildings empty and cordoned off, and in fact 2 weeks after the quake they are still finding buildings that have sustained structural damage and pose a risk. When buildings are sustaining that kind of damage in an environment where there are repeated aftershocks, the potential risk to the public is massive.

Unless we are satisfied that we have a system in place that can adequately assess the risk posed by those damaged buildings in an environment where there are large numbers of aftershocks, how can the public have confidence that the streets and buildings of these city centres are safe? I think that one of the issues that we are going to have to deal with is we are going to have to test whether or not the standards for compliance are up to scratch in order to restore public confidence. We are going to be very interested to see the progress of Dr Nick Smith’s inquiry into why so many of the modern buildings in Wellington copped serious damage.

There are some other issues, I think, that emerge out of this. The assessments themselves need standards, and colleagues have already commented on how surprised they were that there were in fact no powers to compel building owners to undertake these assessments. So there is a huge gap here. This bill appropriately gives those powers, but I think we also want to see risk-based standards so that timely assessments can be done that will not be unduly expensive or time-consuming given the wide range of possible buildings and situations that need to be taken into account.

The information from the assessments will be critical, and that is about how we gather up the data that is generated by these assessments—it will be a hugely important source of data—and how we respond to future earthquakes. It is critical that we learn the lessons as the royal commission attempted to do in relation to the CTV Building collapsing in Canterbury. We have to learn the lessons from these earthquakes to ensure that we are constantly improving our system in order to give the public confidence.

I would like to start by actually acknowledging the Minister Nikki Kaye and the work that she has done on the Act—that was the bill, of course, before it came the Act. Unfortunately, she is not able to be here on this particular bill and the little bit of a tidy up.

Providing a power to require a building assessment, I think, is a really important part of this bill. I know from being on the ground that the interests of the person in the building and the interests of the person who owns the building are sometimes a bit clouded in the aftermath of an event, and they certainly need the rigour of having a very clear requirement that the building has an assessment, for the safety of everybody concerned. So I applaud that part of this bill.

I am not going to take any more House time up on that, and I would just like to commend this bill once again to the House. Thank you.

It is a privilege to speak to this bill, and as I rise, I would like to acknowledge the member who just sat down, Stuart Smith, and acknowledge the work that he is, obviously, doing in his electorate. I would also, obviously, like to acknowledge my own colleague Rino Tirikatene, who has spent some time in the earthquake-affected area. One of the important changes within this bill is the obligation for owners of buildings to get an assessment of the safety of the building after an event, whether that is an earthquake or another natural disaster.

There has been a very good process that has been had amongst all parties, and, in that spirit, there is going to be a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I think it is important that we do note that, and it was noted by my colleague David Parker and has been mentioned by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I will just make sure I get this right—in new section 26A, inserted by clause 7, in new subsections (2) to (8), there is the ability for an owner to appeal a request for an assessment of a property. The issue that David Parker has found within the proposed legislation as it stands now is that it should not act as a stay in the process of getting an assessment. So it is my understanding that along with the help of Mr Parker and also with the Government an SOP will come to this House to make sure that is made very plain and clear through that legislation—and that is a good process.

It is an important process, because I think it must have been an issue for many building owners and members of Parliament in the Wellington region on the day after the quake. I know that a lot of people on the Monday were asked to stay away from their workplaces and their offices. On the Tuesday, as my staff went back to work, I went and saw my landlord and asked him what the situation around the structural safety of the building was. I am lucky because he has acted in good faith. He has seen the importance of making sure that an assessment is done. He has had a very quick one done, initially, and he has committed to making sure that another one will be done when time allows and when the availability of a structural engineer allows, to make sure a proper assessment of the building is done.

This piece of legislation does create an obligation, other than the current health and safety legislation requirements, for an assessment of a building to be made to make sure that it is structurally safe. In those hours on Tuesday morning, when I wondered whether or not my staff would be safe in the building, I wondered what the obligations of a building owner are. I am glad that that has been clarified in this piece of legislation.

As I acknowledged, obviously, Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura, I would like to send my condolences to the families affected by deaths there, and, obviously, to the community of Kaikōura. As a youngster I spent a lot of time in South Bay of Kaikōura. I had some very good family friends there at the time. Sarah Bradbury—now Sarah Thompson—was in Kaikōura at the time, and I was very happy to see via Facebook that her family who live in South Bay now, Ian and Bev, are safe and well. I wish them our love, as well.

The other issue I wanted to raise—because I do not want to take up my full 10 minutes—is the issue of preparedness. There was some confusion, especially, I think, in the Wellington region, and especially in my area of Mana, around the tsunami warning system and some of the confusing messages that were sent to the public. We were first told when the notice came out on RNZ National that the tsunami alert was for the eastern areas of New Zealand. Then we were told that it would be widened and also included Wellington. That did not specifically cover the areas of my electorate. I live in Tītahi Bay, quite close to the beach, so I, like many people, was confused by some of the messages coming out on the radio. We were not sure whether Wellington included us. If we can learn some lessons from the 7.8 quake that we had recently, I think it is that kind of thing that needs to be sharper.

The other issue that has certainly been raised by constituents in the areas that are coastal in the electorate is a tsunami warning system—that is, whether or not there are tsunami sirens in our area. After speaking with the senior manager of the Wellington Region Emergency Management Office in Porirua yesterday we were told that there is no siren—and that is a good thing to know, as a definitive—because there are not the back-end processes or systems in place for there to be an effective tsunami warning system there. My colleague Grant Robertson has mentioned it already, but I think a big lesson that we need to learn from this is that we need to take a serious look at making sure that we are as prepared as we possibly can be, and we need to have a Parliament-wide discussion about warning systems, such as a tsunami warning system, where people can get the message nice and early when there is a local earthquake event where minutes make the difference.

I know the Government has mentioned that there could be the ability to have a text message service that is specific to specific areas, and I would ask that that be expedited, because that is the kind of thing that I think people who are a little bit anxious in low-lying areas, certainly in communities that I represent, would like to see happen. Another example is a simple nationwide system where the local volunteer firefighters’ alarm can be sounded continuously and people know what that message is. The system around the country at the moment is patchy. I understand there is a siren in the likes of New Brighton and such in Christchurch, but there is no system in Porirua. I think one of the learnings is that we need to make sure that we take a decent and thorough look at a tsunami warning system where people have good, clear messages about who is going to be affected, what the messages are about when the alarm sounds, and where to go. Thank you.

This bill does a number of things that I think will help our businesses that have been affected, particularly here in Wellington. I did note with interest a couple of quotes in the media from business owners, including one from Greig Wilson, who manages bars down in the central Wellington, entertainment capital of New Zealand, down on Courtenay Place. He said that he had been advancing loans so that staff were able to meet their rent and food costs—their basic living costs. Obviously, the business package that the Government has brought in is useful for maintaining this.

In the longer term it is important that we move from the emergency response to the recovery and restoration phase. This bill does a number of things that will allow those cordons to come down and those businesses such as Mr Wilson’s to resume functioning, so that their staff can start getting their proper pay cheques in before Christmas and so that people are not going into that holiday season in the sort of bleak situation that might be there if this bill did not allow us the flexibility to embark on recovery and allow some of the powers that are required in order to make sure that that recovery happens.

I think that for those reasons this is a very, very sensible, timely bill. Obviously, the basic legislation that it amends was passed by this House only recently, but we had no appreciation that such a major disaster was about to befall our country so soon after its timely passage. It is very important that this bill is enacted as soon as possible, so that those recovery actions can be taken, and so I am not going to take up any further time in the House, other than to commend it. Thank you.

I rise to take a call on this, the second reading of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill, which is normally the time where we feed back contributions that have been made in the select committee. Obviously, there is not the opportunity to do that, because of the need for urgency and the fact that we have covered the substance through the recently passed Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016, but I would just like to note for people who may be listening that there has been external consultation on the bill. That shows up in the departmental disclosure statement. There has been input into this from a wide range of ministries.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet undertook consultation and provided a draft of the bill to “the Ministry for the Environment, the Departments of Conservation, Internal Affairs; the Earthquake Commission; the Inland Revenue Department; Maritime New Zealand; the Ministries for the Environment, Primary Industries; the Ministries of Business, Innovation and Employment, Culture and Heritage, Defence, Education, Health, Justice, Social Development, and Transport; the New Zealand Defence Force; the New Zealand Fire Service; the New Zealand Police; the State Services Commission; Te Puni Kōkiri; and the Treasury.” Affected parties were previously consulted in the passage of the earlier Act. Although it is always uncomfortable, I hope, for everyone in this House to pass things through under urgency, there have been a number of eyes on this bill.

Yet still we have an amendment coming in the Committee stage thanks to the sharper eye of Labour member David Parker. He will, I understand, be adding an amendment to clarify that the intent of the bill is that the recovery manager or controller is able to require an assessment on a structure and that that assessment will be done in a timely manner and returned to them within that time frame. The owner or owners of that structure can appeal that request for an assessment, and that can go to a District Court. But the intent of the legislation, as we had discussed it before it came to the House today, was not for that appeal to be able to stop the assessment. It was only that if the court ruled in their favour, they would get the costs of the assessment back.

The provision in the bill that I think was intended to deliver that policy intent, new section 26A in clause 7, says at the moment “Any relief that may be granted under subsection (6) is limited to the reasonable costs associated with obtaining the assessment.”—i.e., reading from that, the relief would not be relief from being required to undertake the assessment and follow through on delivering it. I would imagine we will be supporting the amendment in the Committee stage to just make that that much clearer, because I think that is absolutely the policy intent in this bill and it is good to be clear on that.

I also would just like to touch on, for people, that this is bringing forward the commencement of the legislation that had its third reading on 10 November—the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016—which creates a part of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act that specifically looks at recovery and helps move local communities from a state of emergency to a formalised—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

As I was saying before the dinner break, we are bringing forward the ability to start the recovery phase, which is what the legislation we passed just 3 weeks ago set in place. It was a process that was developed, I understand, in light of the learnings from Christchurch, which recognised that the legislation that we had covered us well for immediate response to significant events but did not support people moving into a recovery phase. So that legislation provided a framework for planning and managing recovery efforts. In particular, it provided the powers to support transition from response to recovery. It did this by providing a mandate for roles and responsibilities that apply for the duration of the recovery from an emergency. It re-strengthened that planning process and ensured—we hope it will ensure—a seamless transition from the response to an emergency to the initial recovery period by ensuring that the appropriate and effective powers and arrangements are available for those people on the ground, because we have learnt from Christchurch that those systems were not well supported by legislation and were not necessarily clear.

What the bill does provide is the power to require information, the Minister’s power of direction if needed, evacuation of premises and places, entry on to premises and places, the closing of roads and public places, the power to give directions, and for a person exercising emergency powers to provide proof of identity as well as recording—it is all within this legislation that we are bringing forward. The hope is that Kaikōura, Hurunui, and Marlborough will be in a position to be able to move into recovery and away from immediate response soon. We do not want the state of emergency prolonged unnecessarily, and that is part of what these clarifications in the bill enable—moving from that state of emergency into recovery.

There has also been some mention in the House this evening about the stage that needs to go alongside this, which is not covered by this legislation but is about the importance of preparedness. In some ways, that is part of what giving councils the ability to get assessments of buildings is about; it is about preparedness for significant aftershocks or other events. But I did note the comments from the Labour MP for Mana, Kris Faafoi, about the need for a consistent response around tsunami alerts, and I do recommend to people in the Mana area that they check on his Facebook page the interview that he did yesterday with the civil defence people on the ground there about that system and what is in place in the community.

Thankfully, living in Cannons Creek, up in the hills, I do not need to worry about the risk of tsunami; because of quality property up on the hills, we are OK. But I do understand that those people down on the shores and closer to the beaches are feeling unsettled, and it is good to know what the systems are and to get some sense of security. The key message for all of us is to get prepared because we do live on unstable land and we do not know when or if something might happen. So the best way to gain a sense of confidence again after the quakes is, particularly for those in the Wellington region, to get yourself prepared so that you do not have to have that added uncertainty of not knowing what you will do or if you have got what you need. So, on that note, I will finish this second reading contribution because there will be more speeches to come. Thank you.

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: Mr Speaker.

Damien O’Connor. I was expecting someone—

💬 Ron Mark: Mr Speaker.

Ah, there we go. Ron Mark.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: I’m just keen.

Well, he is very keen, and that is the thing about the West Coast: you have really got to stay alert—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: As long as you did not think I had forgotten your name.

—because they get the jump on you, do they not? So that is why he is the dynamic MP he is and he does so well on the Coast, we continue to hear.

I am very, very conscious and aware that the second reading always follows on from a select committee hearing and a select committee report to the House, and this bill has not been to a select committee. I guess we could say, though, that it has had its select committee hearing at the cross-party discussions chaired by the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

I am going to start by saying: if only all legislation was as easily managed into the Chamber. What we saw in that process was all of us coming together around the table, with the officials and advisers there, a narrowly focused bill, and some clear statements from the Minister that it was not the Government’s intention to introduce legislation such as we had seen in Christchurch and that the bill requirements were narrow and focused, and, hence, we have already had the bill read a first time. The Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Emergency Relief Bill, which focuses on Resource Management Act matters, was read. This bill focuses specifically on a matter that has clearly fallen through the gaps when it comes to civil defence legislation and empowering territorial authorities or local government.

Of course, it is clear that when earthquakes of such magnitude hit, as this one has—and this one is quite unique in that it did not affect just the Kaikōura area; it has hit us here in Wellington. It raised some interesting issues, which were discussed in those two cross-party meetings. New Zealand First—being, as we are, very focused on rural and provincial New Zealand and also very aware of the realities that face us in metropolitan New Zealand, such as here in Wellington—did take the opportunity to express to the Minister a couple of concerns, and we are very pleased that those concerns have been accepted and have been catered for in this legislation.

I will touch on a couple of them. Firstly, some of the phraseology, the wording, that was used in sections 26A and 26B in clause 7 we did not believe was definitive enough and specific enough, and you know how we in New Zealand First like to be quite specific. We are very happy that words such as “obtain” were—or I will go back to the original wording. What was there—“arrange”. They are words that were used in section 26A(2)(a) and (b) in the first and second drafts. The Minister and his staff decided that we were correct, and so that wording was changed to the word “obtain”, which makes it much clearer as to what the owner or the owner’s agent is required to do under that section.

But the one area where we had some discussions—and I have got to say at the outset that people were maybe just a little dismissive of our concern, but as this conversation has moved on, so too did the understanding of what New Zealand First was trying to express. Our concern—and I do need to put it into the Hansard, so that those who might be engaged in litigious action down the line, who wish to then refer back to the readings and the Hansard, might have an understanding. New Zealand First was a little bit worried about the conversation around ordering assessments to be done. It is fair to say that the notion of a zealous inspector requiring a wide-ranging number of buildings to be assessed, particularly in rural New Zealand, where those buildings might be one or two storeys, might be wooden, might be on piles, might be on ground that is not prone to liquefaction, and might have actually withstood the 1942 earthquake in the Wairarapa and withstood the 1855 earthquake and, indeed, have come through this November 2016 earthquake totally unscathed—I guess our concern is about what the position would be for that landlord, that owner, if a zealous officer was to demand that an assessment be done.

When we started looking at some of the buildings that are affected out in places like Culverden and Waiau, out in the hinterland of rural New Zealand, there are many such halls, and I can relate them specifically—Akitio, to community halls out at Tīnui. These halls are single-storey, wooden, and on piles, and, as we said to the Minister, it would seem incomprehensible if a community was asked to have an assessment done on that building because a zealous controller or officer decided that that was what should happen.

We had the conversation, and I am very pleased that the clauses now have changes. We have new section 26A(3), which, as amended—I am just looking for the latest version—reads quite differently now. It requires that “A person may not give a direction under subsection (2) unless the person has had regard to whether the structure or type of structure may, in the circumstances, pose a risk of injury or a risk to the safety of life or the safety of other property.” We are very, very pleased that that change was accepted by the Minister and the staff and was specifically written in there, because that does establish some criteria and guidance for the controller, the constable, or the territorial authority that is issuing this instruction that an assessment be done.

So we would like to think that local government in outlying areas, in particular, would pay mind to that specific clause and would think cautiously about identifying what the specific risk of injury or risk to the safety of life might be. I mean, a hall stuck out at Akitio that has no one living in it, has no high-rise buildings around it, and is not threatened by smaller buildings beside it might be deemed to not pose a risk of injury and not pose a risk to the safety of life of other people and, therefore, might not be required to have an assessment.

I say these things because we in New Zealand First are very pleased with the way in which the cross-party discussions happened. We saw numerous changes made as a result of points raised by other political parties, and we saw the Minister force discussion on those where he initially believed that they were not justified and concede and instruct officials to go back and have a rethink and a relook at the wording. Hence, we have a bill here that we are perfectly happy to be supporting.

We believe that there are serious risks posed by buildings in metropolitan New Zealand and that some building owners probably need to be more proactive themselves. Given the size of their buildings and given the structures of their buildings, they need to be stepping forward themselves and initiating those assessments. On the occasions where they are not prepared to do that and have not done that, then it is absolutely essential in terms of preventing risk of injury or the loss of life to innocent New Zealanders that the territorial authorities—local government—have the ability and the powers that this legislation gives them, which is to order such assessments to be made.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill in its second reading. I would also like to talk about the powers to require building assessments. In the ideal world, after a significant magnitude earthquake—particularly such as the one that was felt on 14 November of this year, but also, actually, back in 2013 here in Wellington—we would like to believe that building owners would take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of their tenants and their tenants’ employees by undertaking proper assessments. I do believe, as Mr Robertson also said earlier this evening, that that is probably done in most cases.

Unfortunately, it is not necessarily done in every case. In Wellington, after this latest quake, we have already seen a number of buildings that were reoccupied within 24 or 48 hours of the earthquake that have since been cleared. Once such example not too far from here is Asteron House, down on the corner of Bunny Street and Featherston Street, where the Inland Revenue Department, amongst other businesses, is housed and which was back at work for some period after the earthquake before being evacuated, quite frankly, last Thursday afternoon because of concerns about the structural integrity of the stairwell—not on a day-by-day basis, but were another significant incident to occur in the next wee while.

When you look at that, it is not unreasonable that employees—or tenants, if it is a residential apartment area—might believe that they have some right to, and the building owner should have some obligation to be able to give them, evidence that the building that they are reoccupying is safe either for habitation or for their work environment. I think it is an extremely good idea that we are permitting the authorities to require such assessments to be taking place by suitably qualified assessors—so that it is more, perhaps, than just the building owner having a quick recce themself and declaring everything to be just fine. Not only does that give us all some sense of confidence that the buildings are safe to occupy, not only now but after potential further aftershocks, but, more importantly in the immediate sense, it gives those inhabitants—those workers or those residents—confidence to return to and remain in those buildings for work or for their inhabitancy.

I think it is a very worthy addition to the bill. Living on the edge of a built-up city, I think it is something that is extremely important for the environment we are in. I think it adds a great deal of power and usefulness to this amendment bill, and I commend it to the House.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—Eugenie Sage.

I am pleased to take a short call in this second reading on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill. Other speakers have commented that the cross-party discussions sort of served as a de facto select committee. That would not be the Green Party’s view. We have noted our appreciation for the Acting Minister of Civil Defence actually engaging in those cross-party discussions on two occasions, but it is actually the submissions from members of the public that always contribute to improving legislation, and we, obviously, have not had the opportunity for those on this bill.

One of the reasons that the Green Party has been prepared to support the urgency is that on the principal Act, which we were discussing very recently, there were only 12 submissions to the select committee. There was general acknowledgment of the appropriateness of the transition powers that the principal Act provided for the controller and recovery managers in that transition period. Those powers, and the safeguards around them—the fact that they must be exercised in the public interest—are carried over here, as we understand it. If they are not, we would be grateful, in the Committee stage, for the Minister’s explanation of why not, but, as we understand it, the safeguards that apply in the principal Act to the exercise of these powers also apply to this new power to direct that an assessment be done.

I think we have all focused on earthquakes, but my understanding is that the bill will also apply in terms of other events, such as the big flooding that we had in Whanganui last year and the ability for the controller, or constable, or other person with those powers under the civil defence legislation to require an assessment of buildings there. If that is not the case, we would welcome an explanation of that.

I think I would just conclude by endorsing the comments made by my colleague Jan Logie about preparedness. Individuals have a responsibility to be prepared. This bill is valuable in ensuring that we, as a Parliament, do what we can to maximise public safety and reduce the risk to individuals in buildings that have been affected by quakes. But individuals also have that responsibility to look after themselves, recognising that authorities may not be able to assist them in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. But as a society we also have to get more prepared by investing more in resilience. With more intense storm events, not just the natural hazards of earthquakes, we need to make our stormwater infrastructure more resilient. We need to look at how and where we build. We need to ensure that there are natural wetlands in other areas, which can soak up that run-off. We need to look at the capacity of our stormwater systems. We need to think much more clearly about natural hazards and how we retrofit some of our urban areas, perhaps with councils buying properties that are subject to frequent flooding, so that there is less impact on individual households and communities after these events, and that we are planning and preparing as individual households but also as communities. Thank you.

Again, I will take a short call just to state once again that Labour will support this piece of legislation. It is not very often in this House that anyone can stand up and say that perhaps we have had a visionary and timely piece of legislation that has not been, in some way, retrospective. But, indeed, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 was very timely. What we are doing, of course, is just making some adjustments so that it can be implemented in a shorter time frame than was originally proposed in the bill that was, literally, just passed in this House on 10 November. So it is kind of sensible, and some of the discussions have been had, but, like everything, improvements can be made, and that is what we are talking about here.

It is hard to have arguments with anything in here, but I cannot help, in going through the particular provisions, but ask a few questions as to why and point out, as has been said in the House before, the human realities and commercial realities that do not always exist when we assume that people would check their buildings after such a large quake. We would assume that people would ensure they are safe after a quake. In fact, that does not always occur. There are a whole lot of, I guess, in some cases, desperate situations and in some cases presumptive situations where they might think the building is new and it should stand up to an earthquake. But as we have seen with the Statistics New Zealand building and the Defence Force building, they are indeed very, very new but have ended up being quite unsafe. Yet we can walk around Wellington here and see some very, very old buildings that, at this point anyway, we assume are safe.

What we do need to know is that they have all been properly assessed. As has been pointed out here, owners can appeal if an assessment is done, because as we have seen from the Christchurch disaster, engineers are not all the same. We need to ensure that there is an ability to check their capability, I guess, in their assessments themselves.

Clause 7 did raise an interesting issue for me. It says that during a state of emergency, or a transitional period, of course, a direction can be given to prevent risk of injury or risk to safety of life or safety of property. It does not add risk to health. But we would assume that risk to health is another one of those things that should be assessed. Doing that, of course, in a state of emergency or in transitional periods would beg the question: what about at other times?

Indeed, there are a lot of other times when risk to health and, indeed, risk of injury, which is often the same thing, are not assessed, because this Government refuses to implement a warrant of fitness on many, many houses and buildings throughout this country that are, quite frankly, unhealthy to live in. Is that unsafe? I do not know. I guess people listening could make that judgment themselves. I think unsafe is unhealthy, and I would like the Government to pick up what it is doing here in this piece of legislation and, later on, over the next 6 to 9 months that it might be in Government before we get in there, implement a warrant of fitness regime for all tenancy arrangements throughout New Zealand. I think that would be real progress.

I would just like to say once again that Labour will be supporting the legislation. I think the technical things that should always have been included in the original legislation—the question of why not; that it is an offence to withhold information or give false or misleading information. We would just assume that that would be in place already. But, anyway, a tidy-up and a hurry-up, which is what we are doing for the main piece of civil defence emergency management legislation, is something that Labour supports because we want to help the people who have been affected by this earthquake. Kia ora.

This is my first opportunity in the House to pay tribute to my friend and colleague Stuart Smith. I just want to place on the record—into the Hansard—what is, I think, the widespread admiration of the whole House, actually, for the great work that Mr Smith is doing down in Kaikōura, his electorate. Obviously, as a Hutt Valley - based MP, I say we have not been immune to the damage wrought by the earthquakes of 14 November, but it is certainly true to say that the Kaikōura region, Culverden, and the areas listed by other speakers so far tonight have definitely been the worst affected. We have all seen the video, Stuart, and we have all seen the photos online. I think most people in America have seen the video and some of the photos on CNN. We really appreciate all the hard work you are doing.

Other speakers have canvassed the main substantive provisions of this piece of legislation. I think it is a sensible and pragmatic response to what we are faced with. I think it is fair to say that this is Parliament really working at its best. I think I made that point in my first reading speech on this piece of legislation. It is really great that the parties have been able to come together in a collegial way, in a consensus-driven way, to try to come up with something that everyone can support. You really want to put party politics aside in these circumstances. I think speakers opposite, throughout the course of the first and second reading debates, have paid tribute to the hard work of the Government to try to shape that consensus, and I think that is a good thing. The Acting Minister of Civil Defence, Gerry Brownlee, and his colleagues have shaped this legislation—the trio of bills that the House is considering—with that in mind. I think that is all to the good. With those brief remarks, I want to commend this bill to the House at its second reading.

I am very pleased to see this Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill progressing through the House at a reasonably steady pace this evening. I am pleased to see the introduction of the new powers in the bill as it is—but it will become an Act—that will allow local authorities to require building owners to have proper inspections done following an event such as an earthquake.

It is a sad thing to say, but there have been reports of some pretty disgraceful behaviour by a small number of building owners, following this most recent earthquake. The idea that a building owner could walk through a building and say that they had deemed it to be safe and tell their tenants that they had deemed it to be safe is not good enough. Actually, one of the responsibilities of being a landowner and a building owner is making sure that that property is safe. After an earthquake, very few people actually have the appropriate skills and knowledge to be able to undertake those detailed assessments. It is only right that they bring in those people who do, to make sure that the building is safe.

I want to make an observation based on some of the comments that I have heard. It is that no two earthquakes are the same, and so the fact that a building stood up during one earthquake is no guarantee that it is going to stand up during the next one. Earthquakes are located in different places, they move in different directions, and they have different effects; so to say that a building withstood a great earthquake at some given time and therefore it will be fine—that is simply not the case. Earthquakes do not behave that way; every one of them is different. Therefore, it may well be that after each quake the building has to be reinspected because we do not actually know what the particular effect of different quakes is going to be on that building. So I think we have to err on the side of caution, and therefore it is one of the costs of being a building owner.

I acknowledge the legitimate concerns that people have raised about the potential for significant cost to building owners in a case such as this. Unfortunately, that is simply the cost of the line of business that they are in. When an earthquake like that happens, they have a responsibility to ensure that their buildings are safe, and they should be getting in the appropriate expertise in order to do that. The cold, hard reality of it is that if a landlord is so badly capitalised that the costs of getting building inspections following an earthquake brings into question their viability as a landlord, then they are in the wrong business; they should actually get out and make sure that the building is taken over by someone who is in the position to do that.

Ultimately, if something goes wrong—yes, we have got health and safety laws that suggest that that landlord would be liable if something went wrong—it is too late by then. We have got a responsibility to act before something goes wrong, to ensure that people are safe. So these provisions are welcome. To be honest, I was quite surprised that we did not have provisions like this in the law in the first place, so I welcome the fact that they are being inserted into the Act. I do not intend to delay the bill’s passage any further.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee