Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill

When we were last considering this bill, we were debating Part 2. Clayton Mitchell had the call, and he has 3 minutes and 12 seconds remaining.

I will take those 3 minutes and 12 seconds remaining, and I will probably take a few more as this bill progresses. It is interesting that this bill is being read in the Committee tonight. That is two appalling bills being read on the same night, being pushed through at breakneck speed, and they are going to have some dire consequences as we move forward.

When we were last speaking to this bill I was speaking on Part 2, specifically on clause 58, to do with firebreaks on forestry land. When I read out the point in relation to that, it has got some pretty good stuff here, except for the fact that it has been completely removed, taken out of the bill. This is related specifically to firebreaks on landholder of forestry land.

In clause 58(1), (2), and (3) they have virtually rewritten this, in relation to the preparation and management of firebreaks on land, but taken out the requirement for forestry land to be demanded, to ensure that they have a clear, free area. I find that absolutely fascinating that when you look at the current situations around funding by the Department of Conservation, specifically going into the management of firebreaks, in the last 12 months we have seen a 93 percent reduction—a 93 percent reduction—from $13 million, down to just $700,000, dealing specifically with fire management on conservation land.

That is almost in preparation for this bill, knowing that the Department of Conservation no longer has to put that money into those firebreaks, which is going to have some serious effects in the short to medium term, specifically on conservation land, if it is not put back in there. The whole idea of having a Fire Service is that it can determine the fact that those conservation lands are adequately looked after, to make sure that is going to be upheld, and to have that taken away, under clause 58, just defies belief.

On a positive note, I see in Part 2, clause 45, the “Power to use water for any emergency and training purposes”. That is a very, very good amendment and it certainly ties in nicely with Kris Faafoi’s ability to not have to get a road closure, and to ensure you have got to pay the money to put out the cones to do a fire test. Of course, emergencies do not happen like that in the real world, and you have just got to be prepared, at a minute’s notice, to ensure that. But to enable the Fire Service to be able to utilise water for training purposes or any other purpose required, even if it is not a specific fire, does actually make some sense. We would certainly support that aspect of it. But when we get down to the firebreaks on forestry land being removed, by clause 58, and the effect that that is already having in relation to—[Bell rung] Is that my time up already?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): It has gone. The member had a short call, remember.

I just looked up at the clock and I thought—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Never rely on the clock. I am the sole judge of time.

Roger. Righty-o. I am sure there are some people who are ready to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Would the member like another call?

Yes, Mr Chair. I am still going. I thought that was pretty obvious, but anyway, we will take that—carpe diem, seize the day, on a call. It does not happen very often.

To wrap things up here—certainly, clause 58, around that, and seeing the effects that that is already having on our conservation land is of serious concern. As we move through the bill, into Part 3, I will take another call—probably a number of calls. The funding model is something we have some serious concerns about.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, no.

I am just wrapping up, and giving my colleagues some time to rise to their feet. Thank you.

I know you had an option, Mr Chair, so thank you very much. Can I, first of all, begin by acknowledging the men and women of our Fire Service. Some of them will be busy tonight, and were busy last night, dealing with weather-related call outs. I will make a point later on in my contribution as to why I think this Parliament needs to seriously consider Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 263, the SOP in my name on this piece of legislation, because of what might be happening right now, especially in some of the flooded urban areas where the silting-up of fire hydrants may be a real issue.

I do have an SOP for this part, Part 2. I just want to give some plain English context to it. Every 5 years, I understand—and I acknowledge Carl Mills from the Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade—the fire brigades in my area have to go and check the fire hydrants in the area. My understanding is that they have not done that for the last, at least, 10 years because of issues around traffic management plans, and the issues and the red tape in and around that. It is, essentially, too hard for them to be able to do it, especially for volunteer fire brigades. The reality of that is that—and I do not like to say this; it alarms me—when fire brigades turn up to an issue where they may need the fire hydrant, there is a degree of luck involved as to whether or not the fire hydrant is actually usable.

That is not just in my area, it may be in and around other parts of the country where the situation is the same because the local fire brigades have chosen not to check fire hydrants because of the onus on them of traffic management plans. So if they ask to check a fire hydrant, they will rock up and for every hydrant they check they are expected to have a traffic management plan to make sure that they are safe in and around that fire hydrant. That task is onerous and I think I have spoken about this already in some contributions to the bill, and I think it needs to be sorted out for a number of reasons.

The first reason is public safety, because it is a real issue. There was a call-out, I understand, in mid-February this year in my electorate where there was potentially a fire and the fire brigade turned up to a potential fire call-out at a motel. They went to the fire hydrant to be able to use it, to be able to plug the hose in, and it was silted up because there had been flooding in that area some time before. So that fire hydrant was unusable. If the building had been on fire they would have had to go to another fire hydrant 300 metres down the road, and if it was not silted up like the fire hydrant that they checked first then they would be able to use it. But there is pure luck involved in that, because if it was flooded and silted up then they could not use that, too.

I would not want to be the owner of a property where the fire brigade could not use the fire hydrant outside my property because it was silted up because the local fire brigade chose not to check it because of the impost on them of a traffic management plan. That is why I think this legislation needs to include this, because we need to have confidence that our fire brigades are going to be safe when they are checking those and that the fire hydrants actually work.

There is another issue that I want to raise with the Minister in the chair, Peter Dunne, around this. We expect those fire brigades to be out there working, and they are not checking those fire hydrants at the moment, and my question to the Minister in the chair is that if you will require traffic management plans of fire brigades, can I ask what your understanding of the situation is when police set up checkpoints. If our police are setting up checkpoints at the moment and are not requiring a traffic management plan, why is there a different standard for the police and another standard for our fire brigades? I think they are, essentially, doing the same thing. They are using the road for a purpose, it is not an emergency in this case, they are going to a site to set up potentially a drink-driving checkpoint, to test people on the roads, using that road, and I want to know what the onus on the police is around the traffic management in that area.

The Police and the Fire Service are two Crown entities that this Parliament goes out and asks to do certain duties to keep the public safe. If we are going to ask fire brigades to go out and check fire hydrants and carry out training on roads and require them to have a traffic management plan, is the same rule in place for our police? If not, why not? And do we have to standardise this for agencies or Crown entities like the Fire Service and like the Police? I think we may have a bit of a mismatch here.

My understanding is that if the police want to go and set up a checkpoint they do not have to have a traffic management plan. They make an assumption that what they are doing needs to be done, and they will go and do it. If the same standard is going to be asked of the police that we are requiring of our fire brigades when they are using the roads, not for emergencies but for training and testing purposes, I would suggest that the police, every time they set up for a checkpoint, have to go to the local council to get a traffic management plan. My assumption is that the police would not like to do that because if those were publicly notifiable you would know where they are. I would also expect that they would want to do things quite quickly and respond with some urgency, so therefore would not have a traffic management plan.

My question to the Minister is: is there a standard that can be met? If not, I think the SOP I have in my name, to put the onus in legislation for there to be a code of practice around traffic management and to give a degree of control to fire brigades when we are doing testing and training on the roads, needs to be there. If it is good enough for the police to go out there and do whatever they need to do without a traffic management plan because they know they have got some criteria to keep them safe, why is it not the same for the fire brigades?

It is my understanding since 2015 that water testing and training on roads was nationally prohibited by the New Zealand Fire Service if brigades did not have a traffic management plan. At the moment if you do not have a traffic management plan and you are in a fire brigade, you are not doing any testing or training on the roads. I think that has real safety implications. I go back to the issue of basically testing the fire hydrants. There is the expectation and, I understand, an obligation on our fire brigades to test those hydrants and check that they work.

If we as a House are ignoring the practical issue for fire brigades right now to make sure that they can do that work—if those hydrants are not working, and a fire brigade turns up to a fire and cannot use the hydrant in front of a house that is on fire, because there is an issue with it like it has been silted up or it is non-operational, and that brigade does not know that because it has not tested it in 5 or 10 years, then I do not think we are doing our job well enough. To say to leave it to the new entity to sort it out I do not think is enough. I think we need to put it within the legislation that there is a code of practice working with local authorities and working with the transport agency so that we have an understanding of what goes into whatever traffic management plan that we can assume that those fire brigades will adhere to and let them get on with it.

The real implications are that some fire hydrants around the country are probably not operational now because they cannot be tested. So the amendment, in the SOP that I put in my name here, looks to do that, to put the onus on the new entity to make sure that this issue is sorted out. To be fair, if we do not, then nothing could happen and the situation will carry on as it has. But I certainly do not want to be a member of Parliament who knows about this issue and then for an event to happen where a hydrant does not work and something happens that we do not want to happen.

So unless the Minister can assure me that this issue is close to being sorted out, I would hope that this Parliament could seriously consider putting an obligation on the new entity to make sure that this happens—to make sure when a fire truck turns up outside your house and wants to hook up to the hydrant, the hydrant works—because at the moment this Committee cannot guarantee that.

While I was not a member of the Government Administration Committee, I speak, like most Kiwis, I guess, with some passion about the service, which is an amazing part of our community. It was mentioned by my colleague before, the fact that the Fire Service was fighting floods gives an indication of the scope of responsibility that they have in this country.

In regard to Part 2 the issue here of penalties, which are not inconsequential—imprisonment for up to 2 years or a fine not exceeding $300,000 if you do not adhere to some of the requirements around, effectively, getting permits for fires. A fire in the open air is prohibited unless you, effectively, get a permit and abide by the conditions of the permit, which are reasonable and understandable.

One thing I discovered over the last summer was fire pits. We are not so familiar with them in New Zealand; we tend to just have a barbecue, light a fire and throw all the wood on. But other places around the world have pits—they dig a hole to make a pit. I am not sure whether that still means that we will have to have a permit for those or not. It is a genuine question. I think with this level of fine here—someone on a rural property might dig a small pit and have a fire. Rightfully, in areas of, I guess, less rainfall, which is the top end of my electorate rather than the bottom, there are people who are scrutinising any possible smoke or fires right through summer. We are, I guess, upgrading the legislation but it will be interesting to hear the answer from the Minister on this.

The other issue I go to under “Restricted activities” in clause 52(2) states: “A person has notice that an activity in an area is restricted if the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the activity is restricted in that area.” The implication is that if you think it is not right to have a fire, then you should know about it and therefore you have no defence. I guess with social media and a whole lot of different methods of communication, the question has to be asked of the Minister: what do we consider reasonable notification? If they are to reasonably know, does that mean an ad in a local paper once a season, saying that you have got to get a permit before you have a fire or does that mean regular ads that you sometimes hear on the radio? If you get it wrong, you can be fined up to $300,000, and it is a bit scary for people. That is another question that perhaps the Minister might answer.

My experience, as I said, not being on the committee and not being a fire person, is that I have lit a lot of fires—a lot of very big fires. I worked in Australia. If you go to the racecourse at Caloundra, which is on the Sunshine Coast—indeed, I was on the first bulldozer to clear the first tree when we were clearing that whole area. In that process, we had a large number of fires and some of them got out of control. So I am acutely aware, while in a slightly different environment, of the possible dangers of fires that can get out of control and the potential costs involved. The upgrading through Part 2 of this bill is something that I understand but there are some technical questions that, as I say, I have put to the Minister.

I have moved on, into other parts of Subpart 2, clause 59. They have taken out the word “fire” from “fire brigades” and called them industry brigades. I am assuming that this does cover brigades or services at airports, or is that covered under the Civil Aviation Act? The reason that “fire” has been taken out is something that I do not quite understand. I guess we could say that in the normal scheme of things, brigades cover a whole range of things, from cats and trees to car accidents, and could rightfully be called community brigades—emergency brigades, perhaps more accurately.

The next issue, coming down to Subpart 3 and just skimming through the legislation, is the issue of water supply. Water is a very topical issue across the country at the moment. I skimmed through here and noticed that there are requirements for testing of the adequacy of firefighting supplies. They will test the volume and the pressure, but there is no reference to quality. Everywhere else in the country we are talking about water quality, whether it is coming in or going out. So I am wondering whether there are requirements. Is it just around basically the water that will come out of a pipe for fighting fires or is it the management of the water, post fire? Anything you spray on, obviously you often have to deal with contaminants. I cannot see here any extra provisions or new provisions in this legislation that deal with possible contaminated water that might flow from fires. Indeed, maybe the people on the select committee or the Minister could answer the question as to whether that was considered, and why it was rejected, because nothing I read here relates to water quality.

I just go back a step, to clause 63 and the issue of a code of practice being required for firefighting water supplies. As I read it, these have to be consulted on, so I guess the community will generally know where the water comes from, submitted to the Minister, published, and notified. Of course it does have to be presented to the House of Representatives, under section 41 of that Act. I am assuming that we may see many, many codes of practice—documents—presented to Parliament that outline how communities will get their water supply for their fire service. That is my reading of the legislation. It seems quite an onerous task for community fire services up and down the country, if that is indeed the case. In fact, it is going to be a bit onerous for the Clerk of the House to receive all these and to process them.

They are just some of the questions that I have relating to Part 2 of this bill. While they are seemingly technical issues, in the end every one of these provisions will have to be implemented by someone, at a cost. Someone will be involved in the development of these things. I hope that we are not placing an unreasonable burden on communities and on individuals in the communities to carry this out. I know that we are going to one service. I am not sure whether it will be the paid or unpaid part of the service that will be obliged to implement all the provisions that we are laying out here in Part 2. Maybe the Minister can take a call and clarify some of those things for the Committee. I will leave it at that.

I will take a call to deal with some of the issues that have been raised to date. My starting point is to just observe that this bill is, essentially, a permissive piece of legislation. It replaces an Act that is extraordinarily prescriptive and, therefore, very inflexible. As situations change under the current legislation, it is almost impossible to change actions unless one changes the legislation. So the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill has been crafted deliberately to be permissive—to enable the new board of Fire and Emergency New Zealand and Fire and Emergency New Zealand itself to respond more flexibly to situations that arise. That is a principle that really underpins a lot of the things that people have been talking about this evening. Let me just comment on some of the matters that have been raised.

I reassure Mr O’Connor that the reference to industry brigades in the bill does include airport fire services. They will still be under the direct control of their relevant airport company but they are covered by that provision in the legislation.

With regard to the issue of permits for fire in open-air pits, a member to my left observed that there would be mayhem in certain parts of the country if every hangi pit required a permit, but there is the capacity for Fire and Emergency New Zealand to authorise various things or places or areas, if you like, as not being a fire in open air, so that that can be dealt with, again, by the—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: It’s never dry enough to be a problem on the West Coast.

It seems a bit ironic to be talking about it right at this time, but that can include the fire pits the member was talking about and can address the situation he was referring to.

With regard to Mr Faafoi’s comments regarding traffic management plans, I know that the Plimmerton brigade made a submission to the select committee about this particular point. I need to just make a couple of comments in response. Again, I go back to my comments about permissive rather than prescriptive legislation.

The issue here is driven largely by workplace health and safety requirements. It is not my view that we need to incorporate an amendment into this bill, but the Fire Service as it stands and the Transport Agency are currently working to deal with some of the issues regarding traffic management plans and how they might be applied to ensure the safety of road users and firefighters who might be involved in the situations that the member described. It is not the intention of Fire and Emergency New Zealand to move away from using traffic management plans, but we do want to see developed a better code of practice, if one likes—and I say that not capitalising those letters—between the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and Fire and Emergency New Zealand. We also want to make sure that in doing that we lessen the administrative burden that there currently is on volunteer brigades.

I note that the amendment that was proposed would not actually prevent the use of traffic management plans. I think the point the member raises is a valid one. I do not see it as being appropriate to deal with under the legislation, but it is something that is being dealt with as part of the transition work right now in discussions between Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the NZTA.

Let me turn to Mr Clayton Mitchell’s comments regarding firebreaks, particularly clause 58. I apologise to the member because I came in halfway through his speech, so may not have heard all of it correctly, but, as I understand him, the point that he was expressing concern about was the removal of the specific reference to forestry land and the replacement of that with a more general reference to land. I would make two comments in response.

The first is that the reference to forestry land in the current legislation is largely a historical reference. It does not take account of other land areas, for instance other forms of vegetation than a forest of trees, that might be the subject of contention. So what, again, we are trying to do here is create an overall situation within which there can be flexibility, rather than legislate for the highly specific, which then becomes irrelevant once there is a minor change to the circumstance.

I just draw the member’s attention to clause 6, the interpretation clause of the bill. The member will see there that there is a broader definition included of a firebreak, which I think covers a much wider range of possibilities. So I understand, again, the concern that he is raising—that we may potentially leave forestry land exposed as a result of these changes. My point in response is to say that when anyone looks at the breadth of the amendment and looks at it alongside the provision in the interpretation clause, there is protection for that.

💬 Kris Faafoi: Mr Chair.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Mr Chair.

I cannot give Mr Faafoi the call because he has had all his calls, so it had better be Iain Lees-Galloway.

You almost make it sound like it is a shame, Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well—

Ha, ha! I thank Minister Dunne for his responses to the questions that other colleagues have raised. I wonder whether the Minister could address at least one more issue in Part 2. It is an issue relating to clause 54, which was actually raised at the Government Administration Committee by the—oh, what are they called? The legislation advisory committee with the “D” in it. I cannot recall what the “D” stands for—anyway, the people who offer us advice on how to craft good legislation to make sure that legislation actually says what we intend it to say. The issue that was raised with clause 54 was that clause 54(1) says: “A person must not light or allow another person to light a fire in open air in an area that is in a prohibited fire season.” The issue that was raised was what exactly “allow another person to light a fire” means. The question that was raised by the committee—the legislation drafting and advisory committee—was: what relationship does the other person who allows someone to light a fire have to have with that person?

The penalties for allowing someone to light a fire are not insignificant. They are the same as actually lighting the fire yourself: “a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or … a fine not exceeding $300,000, or both:”. I note that a person commits that offence if they “knowingly or recklessly [contravene] subsection (1)”—so if they knowingly or recklessly allow someone else to light a fire. You could knowingly allow someone else to light a fire just by happening upon someone who is lighting a fire. You may not have the means immediately available to stop that person doing it, but you would knowingly be allowing them to do that. I see that the officials said that their intention is that this would apply in situations where the fire is lit in a remote area and more than one person is present at the time that the fire is lit. That may very well be the policy intention, but that is not clear, and I think that is the point the legislation drafting and advisory committee was making as part of what was a lengthy submission on this bill. The point that it was making was that that policy intention is not clear in the legislation.

So my question to the Minister is that this has not been addressed by the select committee, nor has it been addressed by the lengthy Supplementary Order Paper 262 that makes a number of amendments, which has been tabled by the Minister: is he satisfied the policy intention is adequately captured by the wording in the legislation? It seems that the wording is rather broad, and that a person who has no connection to someone who is committing an act of arson or is lighting a fire during a prohibited fire season could potentially be captured by this, and could therefore, also, be at risk of receiving a significant term of imprisonment or a significant fine. It just seems strange to me that an organisation that has no particular axe to grind, that is purely here to assist us as parliamentarians to craft legislation that does what we think it should do, has raised a fairly straightforward issue that would be easy to deal with, yet the Minister has chosen not to address that in his Supplementary Order Paper. I wonder whether he would be prepared to go on record as to what the policy intention exactly is, and to explain why he is comfortable with the wording as it is currently done.

I move, That the question be now put.

There are a number of clauses that I would like to raise and ask questions of in Part 2. Like my colleague Damien O’Connor, I have not been part of this select committee, so forgive me, Minister Dunne, if I am asking questions that have already been asked, but none the less they are important questions.

I note that in clauses 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40 there are significant powers being given to an “authorised person”. I am not quite clear: how does an authorised person become an authorised person on this particular emergency? That is the first question. The second question is—when I look at the powers that have been given to this authorised person, they are significant powers. In fact, they are powers to tear down buildings adjacent to a fire and powers to remove vegetation or trees adjacent to such an emergency, and I am asking how that relates to rural fires. I also ask, in respect of clause 30 or 40—I have lost my clause now—how it relates to rural fires. One of the clauses—clause 39, I believe—states that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) is able to access water for free, but my understanding of rural fire authorities is that they can reclaim the cost of putting down a fire. If Fire and Emergency New Zealand is using water for free, are they including that cost when they are recovering the cost of putting down a fire? I do not know.

But the one thing that concerns me about the significant powers—I will tell you what happened in Samoa a few years ago, and I am relating this to the rural area—is that there was a fire there and the fire department decided to water down the houses next to it to prevent the fire from spreading. Well, it caused some problems because the people did not understand why they were watering their houses, which were not on fire, instead of watering the exact fire itself. Secondly, in another situation, when the fire department did tear down the adjacent building the question was asked: how do the people recover the cost of the property that has been destroyed as a result of the fire and emergency services attempting to put down that particular emergency?

We have cases in South Auckland where the police department has gone in and has broken into a garage and left it, in search of a party, and the families are left wondering how they recover the cost of the damage that has been caused. So whilst that may not necessarily directly relate to this, I foresee a situation where if there is a fire and the fire department believes that in order to put that fire out they either must enter a building or force entry into it or tear it down so it does not spread, how does the family that has been affected then recover the cost of the damage that has been caused in order for the department to carry out its work?

There it is—clause 45(1)—“All FENZ personnel may, free of charge,—(a) use all hydrants and control …”. So in the case of the rural fire authority, are the costs of the water part of the calculation when they are recovering the cost of putting down that fire?

In clause 49—this is the open-air fire situation that my colleague Damien O’Connor used—currently we have a situation where families in South Auckland, if they wanted to cook some food in an open rock oven, which we would call an umu, would just do it. It used to be the past practice that you called the council and the council simply said that as long as you had a hose there, it was fine. From reading the legislation, there is a licensing or permit regime that would now undertake—

I am pleased to take a call in this part, because I missed a large chunk of the earlier debate on this bill due to the fires in my electorate in Christchurch. The combination of those fires, very recently, and the floods that we are still experiencing now is a very good reminder to this Committee of how much we owe to the firefighters around our country whether they are rural and forest or whether they are volunteers or whether they are professional. In the Port Hills fires those three groups joined together and did an amazing job of saving many houses. Tragically, one life was lost and many houses were lost as well, but it was an example of what, I think, the vision of this bill is.

The part that we are discussing tonight might seem quite odd to some members of the Committee. It is this: what shall we put in the law that firefighters should do? Ha, ha! But actually it makes sense because you do have to do that because they have responsibilities, they have roles, and they have additional powers that need to be granted by law in emergency situations, in terms of access to water, in terms of controlling fires or prohibiting fires. So there are powers and responsibilities that Part 2 gives them.

It also deals with industry brigades, and I heard the comment from Damien O’Connor in this regard earlier. Industry brigades—the Minister in the chair, the Hon Peter Dunne, might correct me if I am in error here—are the only group that are not actually formally under Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) now in this proposal, but there is going to be a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between industry brigades, which are like company brigades, really; they operate just around one organisation, generally. There will be MOUs between them and Fire and Emergency New Zealand. I wish it was called “Fire and Emergency Services New Zealand”, but I will wait till next year and we will just do an amendment to the legislation after we change the Government. I guess it is probably the best way.

One other point that I want to make in this contribution is in relation to Supplementary Order Paper 263 from Kris Faafoi. I deeply regret that Kris Faafoi has already used his four calls and could not get a fifth. I would like to pose the Minister a direct challenge, because of the idea that some fire hydrants are not being checked because the requirements of a traffic management plan, for goodness’ sake, are too onerous—so they are left in a condition that is not appropriate. They are not working properly or, even worse, the Fire Service is breaking the law or the requirements of the service in not having a traffic management plan when firefighters check a fire hydrant. Either of those is unacceptable. We want Fire and Emergency New Zealand to just work and work properly. Firefighters need to check the fire hydrants. For goodness’ sake, they do not need a traffic management plan when they go and put the fire out. I hope we never get to that extreme. This is a silly situation and it should be fixed.

I would like a commitment from the Minister, seeing as he has told us he is not going to support the Supplementary Order Paper, to have in his letter of expectation, on the conclusion of this legislation, to the new Fire and Emergency New Zealand board a requirement that it has a common-sense approach to dealing with checking of fire hydrants and ensuring their safety. That is a really easy option for the Minister to take. Stop the board imposing such nonsensical and unnecessary requirements on our firefighters. They know better than pretty well anyone how to keep safe, actually. I have confidence that they will know how to check a fire hydrant without getting run over, and that is all you want. You want the fire hydrants to work. You want the firefighters to be safe. That is my challenge to the Minister.

I have enjoyed chairing the Government Administration Committee, which looked at this legislation. This part was really funny, but I can assure all members of the Committee that we did look in a lot of detail at what powers we were giving to the firefighters, what responsibilities they had, and just really making sure that it would work. So if we can get that commitment out of the Minister tonight, we will all go home happy—a lot happier than we would have been had we finished the evening debating the resource management legislation.

I move, That the question be now put.

The consequential amendments in the name of Adrian Rurawhe to Part 2 are out of order because the matter has already been dealt with and lost as part of Part 1.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 263 in the name of Kris Faafoi to insert new clause 48A be agreed to.