Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2)

Members, the Business Committee has determined that this bill will move directly to first reading, where the calls will be limited to the Minister—5 minutes—and one call of 5 minutes each for all other parties. There will be no debate on the second reading. The Committee stage will be taken as one question, with debate not exceeding 90 minutes. There will be no debate on the third reading. This bill is set down for first reading forthwith, and I call on the Minister.

on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: I move, That the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. On behalf of Minister Nathan Guy, who has a longstanding commitment to speak at the Pipfruit conference in Hawke’s Bay this morning, I would like to take the opportunity to, firstly, thank parties of this House for their support for this bill we have before us today. This bill makes a minor amendment to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act of 2002 to allow for the current National Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Strategy to remain in place until 9 April 2019. Under the Act, the Minister of Civil Defence must complete a national CDEM strategy. The strategy sets out the overall direction for civil defence and emergency management in New Zealand.

The Act requires a strategy to be in place at all times. The current strategy is due to expire in early January 2018. However, as the House will be aware, in light of emergencies this year like the Kaikōura earthquake, we have formed a technical advisory group (TAG) to identify where improvements in New Zealand’s civil defence structure could be made. The technical advisory group has been consulting with communities and organisations up and down the country, and the group will deliver its final report to the incoming Government. It makes sense to first consider the recommendations of the technical advisory group before finalising a new strategy. This will allow the public to reflect on any outcomes of the TAG process when making their submissions on the next strategy. However, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act does not provide a process to extend the current strategy. Therefore, this bill is needed to allow the current strategy to remain in place until the recommendations of the technical advisory group have been considered, and, depending on what the technical advisory group recommends, this could include a legislative change.

In conclusion, Mr Assistant Speaker and members of the House, this bill is a minor amendment to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act of 2002 to provide for the existing National Civil Defence Emergency Management Strategy to remain in place until 9 April 2019, to provide time to consider the outcome of the technical advisory group review. Thank you once again for the support of members from across the House throughout this process. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill, as was said by the Minister across the floor Scott Simpson, certainly is a minor amendment, and Labour supports it, as it is common sense. It is a minor amendment but it is for a very important reason, and, as the Minister explained, there is currently a parallel process happening to the existing strategy. The strategy of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management is undergoing its normal process of creating a new strategy, as its 10 years is up, but we have had a number of very significant emergency events happen in this country, particularly in the last year and since the Christchurch earthquakes in 2012, from which many of the lessons have not been properly learnt, and appropriate changes not implemented, to ensure that New Zealand is much better prepared for future events.

It is a due to a technicality, really, that we are standing in this House today, because the new strategy is supposed to come into effect next year, but it cannot if we are undergoing the parallel process—as explained by the Minister—of the technical advisory group, which was set up quite urgently a few months ago to have a really hard look at how New Zealand responds to, and deals with, emergencies, and at what some of the big sticking points are that are putting us at risk.

We support this. The strategy that we are talking about—this is the strategy I am holding here—was implemented 10 years ago, in 2008, I think, signed by the Hon Rick Barker, who was then the Minister of Civil Defence. I think one of the questions that has to be asked—and I hope that the technical advisory group may be thinking about this—is whether 10 years to have a strategy in place, in a country like New Zealand, which has increasing numbers of emergency events, is actually too long a period for one strategy to be in place, and whether that strategy should be and could be looked at on a more regular basis.

I want to make a couple of comments in this first reading about the reason why this parallel process the technical advisory group is undertaking is actually occurring. It is actually occurring because of some major stuff-ups that have occurred during emergency events, and it is occurring because of pressure that has been put on the Government by Opposition parties and because of questions that have been raised, through some good reporting in the media, about some of the questionable decisions that have been made, the communication issues that have emerged, and the importance of New Zealand having the best intelligence and the best information with which to make decisions.

This technical advisory group is due to report by the end of this month. We urge that there be no delays. It must report before the election, because it must not end up shoved under the carpet for some months. It must report so that the political parties going into this election can take the best-possible approach to civil defence going forward, and that includes funding Geonet 24/7, a tsunami alert system that works, decision making and authority for decision making sorted, capability that is consistent across the country, and better communications and intelligence. All of these are issues that I have raised on behalf of the Labour Party over the last 12 months, and I hope that we can put in place the changes that are being recommended, as quickly as possible, and that those recommendations are the best-possible recommendations.

Labour supports this legislation. We want to see changes to civil defence happen and happen soon.

I rise to convey the Green Party’s support for this Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2) and the extension of the deadline for reporting back. I have not been personally involved in the relevant committee; my colleague Jan Logie has been and is unable to be here. But a quick look through the background and the proposed legislation makes it clear that we must proceed along these lines. The legislation itself, of course, is not exactly earth-shattering, but we are dealing with earth-shattering matters, and so it needs to be taken very seriously. We need to make sure that the parliamentary and governmental procedure is much tighter, more rigorous, and more proactive for the future, because, as we all know, we are kind of in for it as the years go by.

The bill itself, as we know, amends the 2002 Civil Defence Emergency Management Act and the purpose is to provide that the relevant management strategy due to expire in January can remain in place until July 2019. The reason is, simply, that more time is needed for the technical advisory group’s findings to be considered. The group was set up, as I understand it, only around about April, so it has not had very much time. The question could be asked as to whether it should have been, as I think my colleague Clare Curran was alluding to, set up earlier—even years earlier.

But the Green Party does support the extension. The work is critical. I just segue from there into the comment that you might expect from me, that the onset of climate change will intensify the emergencies that we experience over the next decades. For example, globally, as I think has been pointed out in earlier examples of this kind of legislation, if we go back four decades to the 1970s, there were 78 natural disasters per year—78. Today there are 350. So that is within four decades.

New Zealand is now spending approximately $2 billion annually on natural disaster. We can go back to the Christchurch earthquakes, Kaikōura, Kāpiti floods, Port Hills fires, Edgecumbe floods, and it goes beyond that. It is earthquakes, floods, fires, and now, as we see around us, literally, slips; major slips, unexpected slips, and coastal erosion from sea-level rise. So this is the new world that we are in, and it is a new world that we are going to need to adapt to and our legislative planning is going to have to adapt to that as well.

It raises the question as to what a natural disaster is. Can certain disasters be averted or minimised? Disasters such as climate change, at least in its magnitude and frequency, is human-induced. So that leads us to a need for the recognition of the urgency and magnitude of preventive action through strong mitigation policies, and I do not wish to get off the subject of this fairly narrow technical focus but it is important to put it in the context of that broader need.

I would just finish by recalling, with a touch of poignancy, the report that I tabled in the House in late October or November 2011 about the Christchurch earthquake, following a series of public forums that I had held throughout Christchurch when I was there after the earthquake. I developed, in consultation with colleagues, a report on how to react as a nation and as a Christchurch City Council and as a Parliament to the tragic earthquake in Christchurch of 2011, and tabled a report with 26 recommendations. So it is documented for the House, and I just would humbly point out to Hon Scott Simpson to convey to Ministers that there is a report, lying there, tabled, since 2011, on recommendations that are relevant to this kind of technical advisory group—just a humble contribution. Thank you.

I am standing on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2), and I just want to start my contribution by saying that this Government reminds me of The Lorax, in some part, because it seems to be flying by the seat of its pants. Here we are, with just 2 weeks to go until the 51st Parliament rises permanently, as we go into the 2017 elections, and then, lo and behold, it realises that: “Goodness me, we’d better do something urgently, because the legislation that is currently in place is running out pretty quickly.”

The process that was considered was even to hurry through the entire technical advisory group procedures, get all the hearings done—have fake hearings it was even said and stated—to try to get this through all stages fully and completely. That, of course, does not work.

The second option, which was put forward by Tracey Martin, stated that we should just put a simple extension to this. The Government came back and said, “Well, let’s make it 18 months.”, and we have said, “No, let’s make it 15 months.”, and now we have got the date that we have got to have this completed by—this civil defence emergency management fully done—I think it is April 2019.

Now, we cannot not support this; it is absolutely imperative that we do, with the number of events that we have got. We have had fires, floods, slips, even weather events and wind events. We have had tornadoes in Mount Maunganui—we have never had tornadoes in Mount Maunganui. And in 2 years, back to back, we have had rooves lifted off houses, and let us not forget about the high risk of tsunamis, with the island nation that we are, which we are not even remotely prepared for. We do not even have a tsunami warning system for the entire coastline of this country, so we cannot protect our people in this country, the way it sits at the moment.

We had the Minister of Internal Affairs, Peter Dunne, talking about the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill going through. After giving the fact that it was the 17th review in 21 years, he then spoke about, potentially: “Well, goodness me, we should have actually put the civil defence in and amongst that.” The whole thing is just an absolute dog’s breakfast, and we have some serious concerns about the stability and leadership of this Government if this is how they operate after 9 years in Government and we are down to the wire where we have to create an urgent debate, give extended hours, so that we can actually push through and extend the date on behalf of the Government.

We will be supporting it, because it would be silly not to. We would hope that over the 15 months that this Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2) is being put together by this technical advisory group that we have some serious consideration given to this increasing number of weather events around the country. We certainly would like to get our communities back on their feet as quickly and as easily as possible and, to ensure that we have the legislation to do that, we will certainly be a very, very supportive member of this House.

The oversight really falls in the lap of Gerry Brownlee, who was the Minister of Civil Defence and passed the buck on to Nathan Guy, who cannot be here as he has other appointments today—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Sorry, Mr Speaker, I did not mean to show any disrespect by saying that, but I am just giving the respect that is his due; that he has actually seen this issue come up and is dealing with it effectively and efficiently. We support this extension of a date from January 2018 back to April in 2019 and we will be supporting this through. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, mōrena, mōrena ki a tātau i tēnei ata. Ka nui te harikoa kua tae mai ki te kōrero ki tēnei pire mō te wā poto; me te tautoko anō hoki i tōna whāinga.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, morning, and morning to us this morning. I am hugely delighted to have arrived here this morning to speak to this bill for a brief moment; I endorse its purpose as well.]

I come just for a short call on behalf of the Māori Party to say that we support this particular piece of legislation going all the way through—the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2). I cannot but agree with some of the sentiments already expressed around our civil defence actions to address emergencies in this country being a little bit short from time to time, and I am pleased that there has been a technical advisory group that has been established. I commend the Minister of Civil Defence for that. I have had the opportunity to stand in front of that committee myself to present some observations as a Minister, and certainly as Minister for Māori Development, and have been involved with some of the emergencies that we have had recently.

My predecessor, the Hon Dr Pita Sharples, when Christchurch happened, grabbed Te Puni Kōkiri straightaway and got people down there and coordinated many of the medical responses available to help people out. The Māori wardens took their part. They established particular positions called Kaitoko Whānau, which were available to help out whānau. I was privileged, probably about 2 months ago, to go down to see the wrap-up of—I have forgotten the organisation, but, basically, the group that came together all across Christchurch to assist families to get into housing. It was a great occasion to go and acknowledge the work that had been done.

Not long after, the Whanganui floods came along, and, of course, all the communities up and down the river of Wanganui were impacted. I was able to fly up to the top into Wanganui to find a marae that had been basically washed through. Some of the wharenui had mud all the way through them. The impact on those communities where they had been separated off—I mean, it is hard enough now. They are separated off, as the Hon Chester Borrows will know, and separated out from much of the main communities as it is, but to be blocked off—they managed to get together and to support one another.

Kaikōura—I was down at Kaikōura; I had an opportunity to go there. But then it sort of came home to me, the impact some of these catastrophes have on readying and prompting Māori communities to come together. In Christchurch it happened, in Whanganui it happened, and at Kaikōura the marae, from my reports, was pretty much the centre of the response effort on behalf of all the agencies, but there were some cracks in how everybody responded to that particular crisis.

Then, of course, came Edgecumbe. That is when it really came home to me, because I, all of a sudden, found out that members of Parliament, for their particular areas, are not automatically advised about catastrophes in their area and where there have been civil defence alerts made. I thought that that would have been par for the course that local members of Parliament would have been advised, but that is not the case. So I went down to the bunker to have a look for myself and have a look at the operation—pretty good operation. I did not see the length and breadth of it, but that was a real worry. Then the second worry was that back in Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty, the regional council said there was a civil defence emergency but Rotorua said: “Oh no, there isn’t.” So there are some serious issues to be addressed there. Luckily, I had the opportunity to put that to the Minister.

Since that time, again and again and again, I say that one of the things that I hope comes out of the opportunity that we have, because we are extending the time for this report to go through, is that we dig deep down into the contribution of Māori organisations and communities in a response opportunity. I say that because in Kaikōura the marae itself, while they were overrun by people—fed the people—they got into scraps with a number of organisations like the Red Cross because they got the food flown in but, all of a sudden, everybody was arguing: “Oh, this is for me, this is for me, this is for me.” In fact, they ended up having to call the police in to try to bring some sanity to that. That is a worry, when the relief effort does not necessarily go straight through.

The second part was that at Edgecumbe, again, a big, huge voluntary force went in, but in behind the scenes there were marae—and I say Rautahi, I say Kōkōhīnau, I say Ngāti Tarāwhai marae, the people of Nga Maihi. Everybody pitched in to look after the Māori wardens, to look after the voluntary force, to look after all those who were associated with the response to Edgecumbe, and they actually opened the marae up for those people who were suffering from the fact that their houses had been, basically, lost. I took 1 day to go into one, and I spent only 1 day in one house cleaning out all the stuff in that one place. My gosh, there were hundreds of people there giving a hand.

So it is important that we take a good, serious look at our responses to emergencies in this country, and I am pleased that this legislation allows us to do that, because we must do it to ensure that we futureproof our responses from now on.

Bill read a first time.

Second Reading