Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. After discussions at the Business Committee, I present a legislative statement on the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 5 April 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The purpose of this omnibus bill is to assist local authorities and communities in areas affected by the recent severe weather events in the North Island. These events have caused widespread damage to the natural and built environment, including land, waterways, infrastructure, roading, businesses, and homes. Most of the affected areas are now moving away from the initial and immediate emergency response and into the recovery phase. As the recovery progresses, we expect that the needs of our communities will be more varied and complex. The Government is committed to facilitating the recovery of those affected by the recent severe weather events. This bill will provide real assistance to anyone who has suffered as a result of those recent events. We know it will take considerable time before the extent of the damage is understood, and in time, it will become clear what communities need to support their recovery. We need to make sure those recovery efforts are not held back by the existing legislative framework and that the actions needed to support the recovery can happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That is why we recently passed the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. That Act made urgently needed changes to statutes and ensured emergency powers are available and can be carried out efficiently when needed. This bill sits alongside that Act. It represents a further step in our efforts to support a timely and effective recovery. It acknowledges our experience with previous emergencies, such as the earthquakes in Canterbury and Kaikōura, which required urgent legislation to change existing legislative constraints to support recovery. In particular, the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Act 2016 permitted Orders in Council to be used to amend legislation so that coastal road and rail networks could be repaired as quickly as possible. The bill proposes allowing Orders in Council to be used to amend legislation where this would support more timely recovery efforts in affected areas.

Under this proposal, the Governor-General will have the power to make Orders in Council, on the recommendation of the relevant Minister, to exempt, modify, or extend provisions of legislation that are specified in the bill. This flexibility will help communities react quickly to the range of issues that could arise during the course of recovery efforts, without needing to anticipate every power or statutory provision that may need to be amended. This flexibility was an important component of the response to, and recovery from, the Kaikōura earthquake, and we want to provide the same flexibility to all areas affected by the recent weather events.

Although not done lightly, I acknowledge it is constitutionally unusual for primary legislation to be amended by secondary legislation. This provides the executive branch of Government with significant powers ordinarily exercised only by this House. The bill puts in place a range of safeguards to ensure the Orders in Council mechanism is used appropriately. These safeguards are an important feature of the bill and are similar to those put in place for the use of Orders in Council after the Kaikōura earthquake. The relevant Minister can only recommend an Order in Council if satisfied that it is necessary or desirable for one or more of the purposes of the bill, and not broader than necessary. Orders cannot amend key legislation forming part of our fundamental democratic and constitutional arrangements, such as the Constitution Act, the Electoral Act, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Order in Council also cannot unjustifiably limit rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The draft Order in Council must be reviewed by an independent panel established under the bill. The Minister must consider appointing members with experience and knowledge of local Māori communities, as well as legal, environmental, emergency response, and local government expertise.

I note in particular how the bill clearly lays out the process for engaging with local Māori and local community groups about proposed Orders in Council. Unless circumstances are sufficiently urgent or make engagement impracticable, the relevant Minister must engage with people the Minister considers appropriate, including local Māori and local community groups, about a proposed Order in Council in accordance with the engagement processes set out in the bill. A draft of the order must also be provided to the Regulations Review Committee or, if this is not practicable, to the leaders of parliamentary political parties. The bill also requires the reasons for the making of Orders in Council to be published alongside the orders, with Ministers keeping any orders made under review. A report must be made to the House at least every six months about any orders made under this bill.

As I have already mentioned, this bill is based on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Act 2016. We are building on the example of the Act in a number of areas. The bill does not contain an ouster clause, which means courts retain the power to test the Minister’s recommendations and decisions. Increased Māori engagement during the development of Orders in Council is another area where we are building on the example of the Hurunui/Kaikōura legislation. For example, the purpose clause signals the Act’s intent of providing opportunities for local Māori and local community group participation while balancing this against the need for timely recovery. In addition, the engagement clauses signpost to relevant Ministers to consider whether engagement with local Māori and community groups is appropriate when considering relevant persons for engagement, given the effect of the order, unless it is not appropriate and the circumstances for this situation is urgent.

The bill is an omnibus bill. It makes amendments to the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act. These amendments provide affected local authorities with appropriate, further urgent relief from normal obligations to support the recovery efforts, because they cannot wait for the ability to use the Order in Council mechanism created by this bill. The bill also amends the Resource Management Act (RMA) in two respects: the first amendment will ensure that ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou are notified and their written permission is sought if any activity is on, or will impact on, ngā rohe moana o ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou, as indicatively shown in Schedule 3 of the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019. The ngā rohe moana statutory overlay is not Treaty redress, and although it has similar practical effect to a statutory acknowledgment, it is not covered by the definition in the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. The second amendment adds Manawatū and Rangitīkei districts to the list of regions and districts defined as affected areas. I anticipate this will get broad support across the House, which can use the modified RMA processes set out in the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. These areas receive similar rainfall events to the areas specified in the Act, and emergency work is needed. The extent to which this work is required only became clear following the passage of the Act, which is why this amendment is being included in the bill.

The bill is temporary and will be in force only as long as required to support the efforts necessary for an efficient recovery. Any Orders in Council made under this bill must be made no later than the end of March 2026. Those orders will be automatically revoked by the end of March 2028, unless revoked earlier. The provisions of this bill will be repealed in stages, with any provisions not earlier repealed to be automatically repealed at the end of March 2028.

I want to acknowledge that the bill is being progressed through the House at great speed. The Government recognises that passing legislation at speed reduces the ability for the public to submit on the bill and for scrutiny by a select committee to occur. However, speed is critical as recovery efforts will likely encounter substantive repair and rebuild issues, and individuals and businesses may face regulatory requirements that they struggle to meet. I consider that a shortened parliamentary process is justified for these changes. Finally, I want to acknowledge the cooperative spirit of this House in passing the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act, and I look forward to the House continuing to work collaboratively and constructively to progress this bill. Cyclone Gabrielle, Cyclone Hale, and the Auckland floods have been devastating for our communities, and it is vital that we have the tools we need to support people to recover as quickly as possible. This bill is another step we can take to support those impacted by those devastating severe weather events, and I am pleased to commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I pick up where the Minister left off by acknowledging those who have suffered terribly through very severe weather events in the past couple of months—not only at the time of the events themselves, be it flooding, Cyclone Gabrielle or other storm-like conditions—but those who continue to suffer as a result of the effects of those weather events and the associate damage and havoc, indeed, that they have wrecked upon various New Zealand communities and regions within our country.

I also want to echo a comment that was made at the end of the Minister’s remarks, around the importance of a non-partisan approach to these matters. I do want to assure the House and New Zealanders, more generally, that National will play a constructive part in Opposition in relation to the recovery and the response, and in relation to this particular piece of legislation, as we did with the first piece of legislation just a couple of weeks ago. We will support it. We say, in relation to this bill, that we will support it at least at first reading. The select committee process, short as it is, will provide a good opportunity to understand further the detail within it, and understand if there are any concerns from those who would make submissions. So that’s our commitment at this time—that we will support it at its first reading. We intend to, and would like to be able to support it, going forward as well. So let us cross that bridge when we come to it, but for now, of course, we support Government efforts to make the lives of people easier in the affected regions.

The bill will look to achieve that in a number of different ways and, of course, there is a large list of pieces of legislation that it will allow to be amended by way of orders, so perhaps if I can just reflect on the overall nature of the bill that we have in front of us. It’s framework legislation; it allows orders to be made after the bill itself becomes an Act, so it’s very empowering of the executive branch of Government. It’s a high-trust model but, as the Minister rightly points out, it’s not without precedent. Even in relatively recent times, this House has passed similar legislation in relation to the Kaikōura and, prior to that, Canterbury earthquakes, that enabled Ministers of a previous administration to make decisions and orders, and I acknowledge the presence of my friend and colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee in connection with the first of those series of earthquakes.

So we say to the Government we agree to accord you these great powers. We expect that they will be exercised reasonably and responsibly, and we’re very much of the hope that will be the case, because I don’t think the New Zealand public would tolerate—from either side of Parliament or any side of politics—an opportunity for what would appear a political response to a great tragedy and heartache that they have suffered.

So with that general comment, I think I should also make the point, again, as the Minister did, that it’s unusual for the Government to pass laws not only that allow great breadth of decision making by way of executive orders but even to the point where those orders—or that the Government can actually change other Acts of Parliament, sometimes known as “Henry VIII” powers, with a nod to an infamous previous monarch who, of course, was perfectly happy to use such executive orders but, of course, we generally avoid that. But in these times, they’re not normal times so we allow ourselves to depart from normal lawmaking processes—precedent even, as recently as the COVID-19 response—and I think if we’re looking at ways in which we can mitigate the risk that we give too much power to the executive as a Parliament, then I think it’s fair to acknowledge that there are a number of checks and balances within the bill. There are a number of constraints on the power.

One of them is in relation to the consultation that will take place—I will return to that if time allows—but I think it’s helpful that the Regulations Review Committee will be given an opportunity to scrutinise orders, albeit after they’ve passed, and to provide a report to the House; that’s a good body to conduct such work. I know its members of various different political parties will be very diligently engaged in that task, and I know that they’re very well advised. I’m not a member of that committee myself but reflecting on our experience in the COVID-19 response—equivalent regime—I know that was, or at least it seems to me—and I’m conflicted in the matter, I suppose but—a useful addition to the legislating process.

Of course, having the Regulations Review Committee—an extra select committee in Parliament—have a look at the bill once the Governance and Administration Committee, through the fine leadership of Ian McKelvie, has had the first go at the legislation itself, that’s a nod to the fact that it should be Parliament that’s the supreme lawmaking institution. So even though we’re giving to the executive significant powers to make laws in the way of regulations and also even to change primary legislation, we’re saying, still, that Parliament, nominally, is sovereign because a committee of that Parliament—a creature of that Parliament—will report back to Parliament. Of course the other major safeguard is that there is a sunset clause, as we might refer to it, which is to say that the bill will survive as an Act only as long as the end of March 2026, and there’s a two-year window after that in which orders made under the Act may survive, and that’s the maximum extent of their ability to be effective, if not already repealed beforehand.

I think it’s also worth noting, with approval from this side of the House, that there’s an opportunity for the reduction in bureaucracy when it comes to some of the ways that the recovery might otherwise be slowed down. We’re interested to note that some of this has been framed very much in economic terms, and that’s appropriate. It’s also appropriate, of course, to enable recovery to take place in other ways. But, actually, perhaps the larger point is that all the ways in which the recovery needs to be effected are interconnected, in any case. So the restoration of a bridge, nominally, is an exercise in restoring infrastructure, but of course that allows people to have a degree of normality reintroduced to their life so far as their family or personal situation is concerned. Of course it enables the transport of goods, the conducting of services, and so on. So that, again, would provide some assistance for the economic recovery which, in turn, will aid the social wellbeing of the people of each area.

I think it’s worth noting, actually—and this is a plea that’s perhaps adjacent to the bill, but I’ll try your patience on that regard because I was in Hawke’s Bay and Napier yesterday, and it’s important for communities that have felt the effects of this damage quite severely for the outside world to know that visitors are welcome—to the extent that that wouldn’t interfere with the recovery. I hope I’m not going to overstate the case here by saying that, for other New Zealanders to go to those places and to patronise the tourism and other industries on which they are so reliant at any time, will actually be helpful to the recovery. So any positive messaging and proactive messaging that can come out of the area, and supported by the Government operating out of Wellington, but through the local lens, I think would be helpful. I think I’m picking up some agreement across the House for that.

So all the ways that their local community should be supported, they must be but, in doing so, of course, at the risk of adding an additional layer of complication, it’s important to do that in conjunction with the local communities. That’s another message that I’ve heard loud and clear, not only in that first visit that I made to that part of the world the other day but also knowing from my own area, which was severely affected in some areas of that, particularly. So to work with other partners such as local government, civil society, community groups will be important.

I do want to make mention of the importance of the membership of the panel that will be appointed to advise the Minister, to provide feedback on draft orders, and so on. We think that a smaller panel rather than one as large as has been set up under this legislation would be helpful. We think smaller rather than larger would provide greater flexibility. Of course, there needs to be a necessary skill set across that, and it’s important that’s broad enough to provide technical advice in relation to aspects of recovery that touch very directly on infrastructure and other technical areas. We think that the skills and experience will be more important than demographic factors among those who are chosen to play that very important role.

Finally, we have to say that Local Government New Zealand doesn’t seem to us an appropriate body to be providing members to that panel directly in its own name, given that it doesn’t represent all of New Zealand. Notwithstanding that, for the reasons that I’ve said, we do support this bill at its first reading, and we’d like to assist the Government to assist the communities of New Zealand, going forward.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I thank Chris Penk for his comments and the way he expressed them, and also Minister McAnulty for bringing this to the House. I was on select committees that were considering the equivalent legislation post the Canterbury earthquakes and the Kaikōura legislation. I recall the very reasonable way in which the Hon Gerry Brownlee, who is in the House tonight, liaised with those committees in order to try and put checks and balances around these very broad powers that are being conferred on the executive to override ordinary processes under legislation in order to expedite things that have to be done quickly post a disaster. I am very happy to put on record what I thought was the very responsible way that the Hon Gerry Brownlee handled that and, in response, both the committee and Parliament. We all rallied around and did the right thing.

We’ve now, sadly, had to do this on three occasions: Canterbury, Kaikōura, and now. On each occasion, we actually learnt from the prior events and slightly improved the legislation. I am not going to take my full 10 minutes, but I will just reiterate the importance of there being some checks and balances around these extraordinary powers that are, essentially, being given to the executive to override the laws that normally apply to New Zealand. Those laws are listed in Schedule 2 of the bill, and there are some very important laws in there, like the Land Transfer Act, the Land Transport Act, the Local Government Act, the Resource Management Act, the Waste Minimisation Act—various other Acts. There are 30 of them listed there—so it’s quite wide ranging. Then clause 8 of the bill includes limitations on when the Minister may recommend an order that overrides those pieces of legislation.

It says the Minister must be satisfied the order is necessary for the purposes of the Act, which are described elsewhere; the extent of the order is not broader than is reasonably necessary to address the matters that gave rise to the order—that’s another limitation; the order doesn’t breach section 11 of the Act—section 11 of the Act lists some things that you can’t do, which relate to personal liberties or people being in custody, so orders couldn’t override those sorts of things; the order doesn’t limit, or is a justified limit on, the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990; the order has been reviewed by the panel—the panel has been addressed by other members, so I won’t cover that again; the draft order has been provided to the committee of the House of Representatives responsible for the review of secondary legislation—the Regulations Review Committee gets to have a look and makes recommendations. And, if that’s not practicable, perhaps because something is urgent and the House could be in recess or something—I don’t know; it normally would be practicable, but, if it’s not practicable—each leader of the political party has to have been presented with a copy of it.

Then the Minister has to have regard to the panel’s comments, and the other people that have come back and have made comments, and then, in the resource management sphere, the Minister has to consider effects on the environment and whether adverse effects can be avoided, remedied, or mitigated. And that, I think, arose also in the Kaikōura legislation, particularly in respect of the State highway and railway repairs that were necessary up and adjacent to the coastal marine area. So there are a number of protections. I look forward to the report from the select committee that is giving consideration to this, and I’m sure that the Government will be amenable to changes if they prove to be necessary.

Can I thank the Hon David Parker for his kind words earlier in his speech. I just wish that same sentiment had been around at the time that they were actually doing things; it might have made a little bit of a difference. But, in general, I think the New Zealand Parliament comes together in a way that it should to respond to the circumstances that create a degree of misery in people’s lives, and in a way that also, hopefully, gives them a bit of, you’d say, an opportunity to be optimistic about their future.

So we do support this legislation, and I’ll just make the point that while it is a piece of legislation that builds on initially the Christchurch recovery Act and then the Kaikōura/Hurunui Act, which dealt with the dreadful damage along State Highway 1 primarily, some people say we should have standing legislation that avoids us having to do these special Acts of Parliament. My own view is that every disaster is different, and it’s not easy to simply overlay a single template that will be a go-to for every time that you have a large-scale disaster like this.

But there are some aspects in here, despite our support, that we will want to tease out a little bit in the relatively short select committee process that’s going to happen. One of them is, believe it or not, the extent of containment upon ministerial powers, because while I accept that if you are going to create so-called “Henry VIII” provisions, then there have to be some checks and balances, but those checks and balances can’t become so onerous that a Minister decides not to take a particular course of action that might make a significant difference for either a community or a group of communities, and remember that this disaster really has affected New Zealand from the Far North right down to just north of the Wairarapa and through all of that East Coast.

So what am I talking about? Well, in this legislation, a Minister may propose an Order in Council to set aside some particular provision from the law. So let’s be practical about it: just in the Hawke’s Bay alone, there are 28 bridges that need to be replaced—28—and we’ve already seen in the last few days alternate roads are being put in so that people can spend a lot more time on the road but still get from one place to another. Some of those bridges no longer exist, 16 of them are completely gone, and 12 are partially damaged to a point where they need to be replaced. Imagine what the Resource Management Act process would be for getting a consent for those bridges? It’s simply not possible, and so there will need to be Orders in Council that facilitate that infrastructure work.

The problem here is that not only does the Minister have to satisfy himself or herself that this is necessary—and I don’t think that would be hard, and I don’t think a Minister would step outside the bounds that are prescribed in the law—but then they take that proposal to the community. Well, they get to choose who the community is, but because it’s in here, then there will be bounds for people to feel aggrieved that they weren’t consulted, and I think that’s a mistake.

There is also then the panel that this goes to, of up to 12 people. I’ve got to say that in those two previous pieces of legislation, we had four people, and the reason for that was that they’re not there to make decisions about the validity of the work that might be proposed; they’re simply there to protect the law. I think that you then look at—I’ve got to be critical here and say that the idea that the convenor of that panel must be a retired High Court judge misses the point that it’s politicians who are on the hook for the decisions that are made using this process, and, with all the best will in the world, it won’t be a retired High Court judge who understands the imperatives around that politics. Their job is simply to determine that the Order in Council is necessary and within the prescriptions of the law. That’s not going to require 12 people to sit around a table, having an argument. It’s not going to require 12 people who might have interests in various parts of the recovery to be making judgments that just in the back of their head—I’m not pointing a finger at anyone—might be a little bit jaundiced by the needs that they see in their own part of the disaster-stricken area.

So I’m firmly of a view that 12 is far too many and that four is a good number. When we had that four, we had a former Prime Minister, we had a High Court judge, we had a former very, very senior civil servant, and we had an iwi representative, and I appreciate that in this case there are a number of iwi that are affected, so the number might need to be more than four. But it certainly doesn’t need to be anywhere near 12. Six, I think, would stop it in its tracks, and even that would present its own problems, in my view.

The one thing that sticks in my head out of all of this is that the orders can only be recommended pretty much for one purpose. There are one or more purposes, but when you read through it, there is actually quite a number of limits on what might be able to be done in each of those orders, and I just question whether or not that is a reasonable thing.

Can I just conclude by saying that the need to do this is well understood by this Parliament and that’s why there will be such widespread support for it, and the one thing that people don’t want is anything that is a protracted exercise in trying to do everything right in the decision-making process. There will be mistakes, inevitably, just because of the nature of the work that has to be done, but those mistakes are at least decisions, and they will see some progress.

So we’re very keen to work constructively in the very short select committee process that’s going to be taking place and to make some of those recommendations. Whether this committee accepts them or not is a different matter, but what is most important is that there is no further delay in getting to a point where more things can be done. Things are being done at the moment, but we need more things to be done so we get to a point where there is greater clarity about can people stay comfortably, safely, living in the location that they are in at the moment—big, big decisions that will require changes to the law and, in some cases, beyond the list of 30 or so laws that are already altered in this bill.

My final point is that one of the things that we used in the recovery of Christchurch was a thing called a cross-party forum. It was stated in the legislation, and while it might have frustrated some people, it meant that no one was in the dark—certainly, in this House—about what was going to be happening and why it was needing to happen. There was reasonable feedback into that. It was a body that was taken seriously, and I would suggest that because this recovery is not going to be short—sadly—and while the bill itself has a sunset of 2026, it is not a reasonable prospect to expect so many bridges, so much infrastructure, to be completed in just three years from now. So there will undoubtedly be some kind of extension required, and I think it’s important that the support of Parliament for the recovery of those affected areas continues well beyond this parliamentary term and well into the next parliamentary term. We’ll be participating fully in the select committee process and constructively in the select committee process.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. I’d just like to acknowledge the speaker who has just sat down, the Hon Gerry Brownlee. It made me see a little bit of déjà vu, and I actually remember that time, as I worked as an official underneath the previous Government at the time on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill and some of the tax reforms at the time. I probably just want to reflect on that.

The Hurunui/Kaikōura bill was a template for this bill. Five orders were issued under that previous bill. And just as a minor correction: the previous bill—the Hurunui bill—actually allowed up to six places for a panel. But the Government obviously made the decision to take four. I think the point about whether 12 is too much—there’s obviously a reason why we’ve chosen to say “up to 12”; it’s because of the widespread damage. But I think that is a very good point for the select committee to consider: whether “up to 12” is too much or not. But I just want to reflect that it was up to six, but the Minister chose four rather than six.

The other thing is that the sunset clauses in this particular bill actually go to 2028. The Orders in Council, though, have to be released by 2026. So the bill actually goes for a further two years than what was previously stated.

But I think probably what was touched on by a number of speakers in the House on this bill is that the purpose of this bill is to provide the flexibility to facilitate, enable, and expedite the recovery. I think, as long as we go back to those first principles in relation to the analysis of this bill over the time period that it’s going to the select committee, we need to always come back to those first principles, because there are communities and people throughout the affected regions who need the Government to move quickly—and as the previous member has said, this will be a long recovery. So we want to make sure that we remove those particular barriers.

There may be some criticism outside this House as to why it is going through under urgency and perhaps why such a short select committee period. It probably would be remiss of me not to remind members of this House that the Hurunui/Kaikōura bill was introduced on 1 December 2016 and then it actually completed all its House phases by 8 December.

Again, I go back to the point that that bill was the template for this particular bill. So, on that matter, again, go back to the first principles of why we are in the House today: to be able to provide this enabling legislation, which will provide a framework.

The previous Ministers have gone through some of those checks and balances. I really encourage the select committee, in the time that they have, to really consider some of those points that were raised; whether the balance has been struck right, because, again, we want to expedite things, but we don’t want Ministers to be too frustrated that they won’t take through Orders in Council. So, on that note, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This won’t be a long call on this Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, which the Green Party is very pleased to support and will endeavour to participate constructively in the Governance and Administration Committee during this short process.

As others have noted, this bill is about flexibility, and that’s because there are so many unknowns in terms of the recovery phase, and what is needed. The Green Party has always been concerned about “Henry VIII” powers, which allow a Minister to make recommendations to the Executive Council, Governor-General, and to change legislation through that process rather than bringing it to the House, and, of course, through the Order in Council process there is no scrutiny by the select committee. There’s no ability to make changes through the public submission and the select committee processes. So it is a significant increase in executive power having these Orders in Council.

This bill allows Orders in Council for some 30 pieces of primary legislation, and so that is a major power. But as the Minister has noted, there are a number of safeguards, and this Severe Weather Events Recovery Review Panel with up to 12 members, with a range of knowledge from local government, law, environmental protection, climate change, local Māori, or local community interests, is an important one of those safeguards.

I was interested in Mr Brownlee’s comments, but noted in reading the bill that clause 15 provides for this 12-member panel to act by division, with at least three members plus the convenor. Given that this bill is very different from Canterbury and Hurunui/Kaikōura in the huge area that’s been affected by Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend storm, there is a potential advantage in having divisions of the panel focus on the Orders in Council that may be needed for particular geographic areas.

The damage inflicted by forestry slash in Tairāwhiti is different from the damage in Auckland, so there may well be an advantage in having a smaller panel look at specific Orders in Council that relate to one particular region, because with the Hurunui/Kaikōura, one of the Orders in Council there was around the recovery and rebuild after huge rock fall and damage to the State Highway 1 roading corridor and the rail corridor. So there was a specific Order in Council around that which provided for truncated Resource Management Act processes. Similarly, in Canterbury, there was an Order in Council in relation to the big reclamation that now has a whole lot of cars on it, second-hand cars, in the port of Lyttelton, and that went through a very truncated process where there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for public comment. So that’s one advantage that I think there may be of the 12-member panel being able to operate by division.

The bill covers 37 council areas, so the issues that are coming up because of the scale of the severe weather events, the damage that was inflicted, the sheer quantity of infrastructure that’s been damaged, from roads to waste water, to drinking water, forestry slash—the issues are huge. So we recognise the need for a number of principal Acts to be amended by Order in Council.

One of the other safeguards that I think is important that Mr Brownlee did have concerns with, which the Greens think is important, is this provision for not only the review panel to provide comment back to the Minister on the draft order but also for there to be consultation by the Minister with any organisations or others in the community that the Minister deems appropriate and that are relevant to the proposed effect of the order. That didn’t happen so much in Canterbury, and I think this commitment to community consultation, limited though it is—and three days will make it very challenging for iwi and small community groups to respond—does highlight that basic principle of recovery, “Nothing about us without us.”, that the community has got to be engaged so that they feel that they are shaping their destiny and not having it imposed from above.

Another safeguard is the requirement for the Minister to give draft reasons when they are putting out the draft Order in Council to the review panel, and also to provide final reasons and to have these published on a website and noted in Parliament when the Order in Council is finalised. That helps with the transparency around why the order has been done.

I note, too, that the bill also amends the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act, and that’s to relax the special consultative procedures. That only applies, I think, till September this year, so it just relates to the long-term plan preparation this year, but allows a bit more flexibility. The AuditorGeneral doesn’t necessarily have to provide a report, and I think there are also some changes around statement of intent there—a bit of a relaxation of the deadlines there.

The Green Party does have some concerns about the bill. The ability for Orders in Council to be retrospective back to Cyclone Hale on 8 January—because it’s very unusual for legislation to be retrospective, I will be very interested in submissions on this point because there may well have been remedial and other action taken immediately after the weather event, but that retrospectivity is very unusual.

I guess others have mentioned the sunset clauses, but there is also an ability in the bill for an Order in Council to add to the principal Acts, which subsequent Orders in Council may amend without it coming back to the Parliament. I would also be interested in submissions, particularly from the Law Society, constitutional lawyers and others about that provision. But there are some safeguards there that the Minister has got to be satisfied it’s necessary or desirable, and there has to be the unanimous or near unanimous support of party leaders in Parliament.

I would like to agree with Mr Brownlee on the cross-party forum. That I think was very useful in the Hurunui/Kaikōura legislation. And we really appreciated then the Minister providing draft Orders in Council to the Green Party and allowing for comment back on those. I think many eyes in a short time can always improve legislation. So I would hope that Minister McAnulty does consider the opportunity for a cross-party forum, and I hope that that is something that the select committee can also look at. The Green Party is happy to support the bill.

ACT cannot support this piece of legislation as currently drafted. This is nothing but a naked power grab by the Labour supermajority. It gives the Labour Government huge powers unrelated to cyclone recovery, the power to override any one of a number of Acts while masquerading as cyclone recovery. It requires only a three-day review by a committee—a committee that doesn’t include anyone with infrastructure experience, anyone from local government, anyone with planning or property development experience, anyone involved in development of ports. This bill is a joke and an embarrassment for a Labour Government.

It is more than two months since the floods hit Auckland—two months it’s taken Labour to come up with a piece of legislation called the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, when every engineer I know, every civil contractor I know, has been telling me exactly what they need to do to clear streams, to re-form channels, to build stopbanks, and to start rebuilding infrastructure. What they’ve asked for is quite simple: that the provisions of the Resource Management Act, which make it so difficult to build anything, are simply suspended for the benefit of restoring and reconvening the infrastructure that was lost or damaged. But, no, that’s far too simple for Labour—it’s far too simple.

When we think about the damage in Auckland, the slips that have destroyed homes and communities in West Auckland and Muriwai, Pīhā, and Kerikeri, the flooding in communities, in subdivisions that were only built in the last 10 or 15 years in West Auckland, when we think about the damage done in Hawke’s Bay, where stopbanks have failed, where orchards have been inundated with debris and silt because of a failed infrastructure, and when we think about Gisborne and Wairoa cut off because their roads were not resilient—and then Northland. Northland, where Waka Kotahi produced a programme business case for resilience in 2020 that said, there are 40 extreme risks to the State highway network—40 large extreme risks, including to the Brynderwyn, State Highway 1 over the Brynderwyn, and that that required a whole lot of additional strengthening work to be done to the alternative routes while a permanent solution was devised for State Highway 1 to the North, to Whangārei, to Kerikeri, the Bay of Islands, and Kaitāia, to connect those tens of thousands of people and all of those businesses who depend on transport links.

The Minister of Transport, Michael Wood, did nothing about that. Labour did nothing about that. The Brynderwyns have closed again and again; the alternative routes have never been upgraded. Then we think about Mangamuka Gorge, State Highway 1 to Kaitāia, where tens of thousands of people lived in some of the most deprived communities in New Zealand, and where this Labour Government could have come up with a permanent solution to reinstate State Highway 1 through the Mangamukas, to connect the people of Kaitāia, to connect the timber mills, to connect the dairy factories and all their customers in Whangārei and further south.

But instead, what they’ve done is nothing. They’ve missed a whole construction season in Northland while Waka Kotahi, Michael Wood, bang on about mode shift, getting people out of cars and on to buses. And here we have the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. The emergency was months ago; Labour is months late and absent, AWOL. That’s what the people of Hawke’s Bay told Nicole McKee when she visited on the weekend. They said, “You were absent when we were terrified, when people were shining torches in our homes.” AWOL, absent.

So what is this piece of legislation? Well, two weeks ago, I sat through a similar piece of emergency under-urgency legislation, and what was missing then was actually allowing people to get on with recovery by suspending the requirements of the Resource Management Act. You know, when it comes to cleaning up all the slash and all the debris that’s lying all over private property and in rivers and creeks, piling it up and being able to burn it to get rid of it. No, the legislation didn’t include any provision for that. Now we’ve got the emergency recovery legislation bill, which still doesn’t give anybody a clear steer. What does economic recovery look like?

This will be another COVID-19 mess. What happened with the COVID-19 recovery fund? Well, it got spent on ballet—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! This is a bill being debated, we understand, under urgency, and I am listening very carefully to the member’s speech, but I now find that he is straying too far from matters that are not considered in the bill. So I’m going to invite the member to come back to the first reading. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So it’s true, we have examples. We have the Kaikōura earthquake recovery. We have Christchurch and the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. And then we have the COVID-19 emergency response fund, which is where ACT believes this bill will end up, funding ballets, school lunches, and museum exhibitions.

💬 Anna Lorck: What’s wrong with ballet?

Well, it’s nothing to do with COVID-19 recovery, Anna Lorck. If the people of Northland expect their road to be reinstated and Labour’s offering them ballet, Anna Lorck, I’m sure they will express their opinions at the ballot box in October.

So what would ACT do—what would ACT do? Well, firstly, we know where the severe risks are, the extreme risks, because Waka Kotahi has already identified 40 extreme risks. They’re not in here. There’s nothing in here that says, “Here’s the 40 extreme risks we’re going to fix.” This is what ACT would do: we’d remove the RMA barriers—that’s what we said on 6 March in Hawke’s Bay at Taylor’s pack-house when we met with Cam and we met with his staff. There’s 300 of them who were flooded out of the pack-house, whose apple trees won’t be producing fruit that can be packed and exported for two, three, maybe four years. What Cam said, what the staff said, is “We need an urgent economic response that sustains the 300 jobs in the community that we live in.” This has got nothing about an economic response.

ACT says establish a special economic zone. Let’s focus on what the principles of any cyclone or severe weather recovery should set out. Firstly, the Government should get out of the way—get out of the way. What did the last piece of legislation, the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill, do? It required 20 days’ notification for anybody who might have found a culturally significant site, and they weren’t going to be able to start any work until they had permission.

We would ask Labour to reprioritise the wasteful spending away from Auckland light rail, away from forcing people out of private cars on to busways. And what we would do is actually allow councils to rebuild their water infrastructure, that Labour said, under three waters, you’re not allowed to rebuild.

Now, ACT hopes that this bill can be panel-beaten at select committee, and to that extent, I have personally invited 120 submitters—business, immigration consultants, hospitality, energy, infrastructure—in the 24 hours we’ve got between now and when submissions close tomorrow at 6 p.m. to come to select committee and tell us what they think this bill should do, because Labour hasn’t asked them. We won’t know unless the ACT Party asks—unless the ACT Party asks.

The Government needs to help people affected by cyclones, severe flooding, not give itself “Henry VIII” powers to do whatever it wants and spend money on ballet and school lunches. ACT opposes this bill.

I am going to call it tonight, that in the 2½ years that I’ve been privileged to stand in this House, that was the most disrespectful speech about a community I have ever heard standing here in this Parliament. It was disrespectful to the people of Hawke’s Bay, of Northland, of Coromandel who have lost everything—everything. And there is the disappointment that, across this House, apart from the ACT Party, every single political party has come together tonight to say, “We need to pass legislation that will do exactly what Mr Court is asking for.” It will enable those communities to rebuild back as fast they can and as they should.

I want to acknowledge my fellow members on the select committee who considered the last piece of legislation that came through this House. I acknowledge that, actually, both Simon Court and Eugenie Sage, from the Green Party, who are not permanent members of that committee, joined us, and, for the most part—certainly for all of her part, Eugenie Sage—were constructive through that process. All of us have been looking forward to another constructive process to ensure that we as a Parliament can come together and support people who have lost lives, people who have lost livelihoods, people who have lost their businesses—everything—and who are going to take years to recover.

So my challenge to Mr Court tonight is to go away and have great sleep, come back tomorrow, come to select committee in the morning, and join us and listen to his community, and work constructively with the rest of us and the officials so that in a week we have the legislation needed to ensure that the community can recovery. That’s my challenge to Mr Court and the ACT Party, because this is far too important. We have hundreds of people, thousands of people, who are desperate for this Parliament to act. That is what this Labour Government is doing, and I want to acknowledge National, Te Paati Māori, and the Greens for supporting us in that work, and I encourage ACT to join the party. I commend this bill to the House.

Sam Uffindell—five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I might not be as lively as the last couple, but I’ll just walk through what’s happened. Now, we all know that this bill’s stated aim is to help aid the economic recovery—you know, build back up the lives of those impacted. I see one of the members from Hawke’s Bay nodding at me over the way, and I just want to acknowledge all the families and communities that have been impacted over there. It’s an extremely tragic event and it’s a really good thing that almost everyone in this House has been able to come together and agree that there does need to be, you know, some exceptional powers put in place to enable those communities to be rebuilt as quickly as possible.

So this bill does allow for the temporary relaxing of powers. There are some legislative changes that are going to be brought through. I do note that it also is an omnibus bill, which will amend several other acts through this process. It is also a truncated process and it will be going through a select committee in a short period of time. But, you know, we don’t have a lot of time and these communities out there don’t have a lot of time. So they need a whole-of-Government approach that really gets in there and enables them to rebuild as fast as possible.

Now, the main provisions in this will apply to the North Island local government entities directly or indirectly impacted by the severe weather events, with the main point of it being able to open up transport corridors or new land areas for rehousing those people impacted. I note that the draft orders will have to be made available to the Regulations Review Committee, and what a fine committee that is, and I look forward to reviewing that. We may not have our fantastic chair any more, but we are aptly aided nevertheless.

This bill establishes a review panel and one of my colleagues—the Hon Gerry Brownlee—noted that he believed that the number of members was a little too high at 12, and I would probably tend to agree with him there. I think previously, when the National Government put a similar bill through following the Kaikōura earthquakes, there were four members—I heard people across the House saying six. So I will just sit on that and say four to six, but it’s probably a figure that is more likely to generate speedy process and expedited decisions, which, in this situation, is probably what we would want to aim towards.

The functions of the panel? Well, they’ll review the draft orders and then supply them to the Minister, in this case the Hon Kieran McAnulty. And we do note, and it has been noted already, that this bill is similar in nature to the Hurinui/Kaikōura Earthquake Recovery Act of 2016, which was introduced by the National Government in response to the earthquakes in 2016. The main difference is that this bill specifies that local Māori and community groups be included. The Hon Gerry Brownlee did note that there were iwi sitting on that, which is absolutely imperative, and also did note that there are a large number of iwi that have been impacted in Hawke’s Bay. So having some involvement there is a positive step because there are going to be decisions that are made that will be long-lasting and it is good and crucial that we do have that breadth of input into that.

There are controls in place to ensure some scrutiny across what is happening. And, you know, of course, that’s important. When you do put in powers like this, making sure that those checks and balances are in place is vital. I have noted and we have noted already that National does support this bill. We continue to express our sympathy and encourage the Government to act with speed to build those communities back up. We support the reduction of bureaucracy in general and favour any efforts to accelerate the recovery for these communities.

I’m saying no more on this. You know, I think we’re all in agreement. We need to move quickly on this. We need to rebuild. I’ve offered to the Minister of Agriculture—if he ever needs any advice around how to help those impacted people in the horticulture space, and there are a number of them significantly impacted in Hawke’s Bay, then please do reach out to me. I’m happy to provide my wisdom and guidance there too. I support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand to speak to the first reading of the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, and note that this is the second emergency response bill coming through by the Government in the wake of the recent cyclone, and attempts to improve processes to ensure that our communities get the support to recover and ensure we’re better prepared for future disasters.

I think we mentioned that while we had some concerns with the first bill, Te Paati Māori supported it, as the measures that were in it were practical and made sense, and while it had some shortcomings—particularly when it came to the rights and obligations of tangata whenua under Te Tiriti o Waitangi—we acknowledge the wider overhaul of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act that is currently being worked on. And I really appreciated the accolades from the previous speaker, Sam Uffindell. However, unless some important changes are made, we will not be able to support the bill that is before the House for the first reading, and I’d just like to elaborate on the whys.

The decision to allow for the Orders in Council to be developed to enable fast changes in response to disasters makes sense, but when this process is being used, we need to make sure that the checks and balances are sufficient to meet a bar of appropriate lawmaking. It’s our belief that that bar isn’t being met in this legislation as it currently is written. On every piece of legislation that comes before the House, Te Paati Māori considers if it will have impact on the rights and interests of us as tangata whenua, mana motuhake, mana orite, and the protection and extension of w’akapapa. And when we looked at this bill, it is our belief that this has been sidelined, and that’s extremely concerning. Every time there is a disaster in this country, marae, hapū, and iwi are our first responders; they are our Māori organisations that stand up and act as hubs for all our peoples across our communities. We saw that in Kahungunu. We saw that in Manurewa Marae. We’ve seen it across the motu: they play a central role in the emergency response management in Aotearoa, and yet they are never formally recognised in the system or supported in the legislative and regulatory framework that governs and resources official responses. I mean, this needs to change, and we want to put our foot down and state it at the stage here. It’s completely unacceptable that the State will not recognise the central role of tangata whenua, despite our people time and time again demonstrating our manaaki role to those who have been unfortunately affected.

In this bill, formal tangata whenua engagement is seen as a “nice-to-have”. It’s seen as consideration and an optional afterthought, and that’s not good enough from our perspective. Te Tiriti is not optional. We as tangata whenua are not to be ignored, especially when we prove, time and time again, how well we look after everyone—not just Māori, you know; everyone, all public. And we want to look at the clauses around the review panels for Orders in Council: in appointing the review panellists, “the Minister … must consider appointing members with local perspectives in the severe weather events affected areas of mana whenua, mātauranga Māori, tikanga … and Te Ao Māori.” The key word in this is “consider”. Surely we have proven that we don’t need to be considered; that it should be mandatory. Surely we don’t have to keep proving this, and I would expect that most of those who saw the support and manaaki in Kahungunu would be supporting us. The Minister doesn’t have to appoint anyone with these perspectives, it just has to consider it. We could simply consider it and decide “no”—as we’ve seen happen time and time again in the past. Even if it was a requirement to appoint people with these perspectives, that would still not be Tiriti-based decision-making. Optional engagement with tangata whenua does not reflect our mana motuhake in Aotearoa, or safeguard against the risk of rushed lawmaking in the parliamentary process—some that we saw in the COVID response. So Ministers appointing their own watchdogs is not appropriate lawmaking, let alone Tiriti-based decision-making.

So Te Paati Māori can’t support this legislation unless we see amendments made to guarantee to tangata whenua representation on review panels and strengthen the checks and balances with this legislation. Therefore, we intend to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper during the committee stage to amend the bill and guarantee Māori rights to representation are upheld, and we will be calling on the Government and all parties to support those amendments so that we can assure tangata whenua—those very marae who proved themselves and looked after all of their communities—can have the confidence in this bill and the emergency management system. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Like my colleague Rachel Boyack has said, this is the second bill that will come to our select committee, the Governance and Administration Committee, ably chaired by Ian McKelvie. When I got the notes for this bill, I reflected on the previous bill that we had passed and the process in which we had done it. One of the things that I still remember very vividly is listening to each of the councils that were in the flood-affected and cyclone-affected areas who came and submitted in our very short select committee process. As noted by the Minister, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, this time we have extended the select committee process compared to the previous one—to a week—although it is still a truncated process.

I remember those councils, who were obviously extremely busy and tasked with recovery, had to not only do the mahi but also come in and feed back to this process as well. One thing that really stuck with me after that whole process was just their commitment to their communities to do their utmost best and to make sure that what they’re doing through the recovery phase is actually good for their communities in the long term. I think no one comes into this House, and no one came to our select committee, with any malice or any attitude or trying to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit. Everyone was just trying to do the best for those who had been affected by the cyclone.

I think it’s with that attitude that we come to this piece of legislation. We know that those who have been appointed, whether it’s officials working on the Order in Council or whether it’s the supervising committee, or we’ve got the different people that are being sought for their opinions, whether it’s the local Māori, the local community groups that are actually participating in making those Orders in Council—everyone comes to the table with the best of intentions. So can I just put out another call to all of those who I know our chair has already invited to come to our select committee during the next week: please come in and work with us together collaboratively on this bill so that we can find the perfect balance between getting speedy legislation through so that this legislation is ready to support the community versus the right scrutiny in place. That’s a call out to everyone. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wanted to address a couple of the earlier speeches before I got on to the facts of the bill, and I would remind the ACT speaker Simon Court that the great thing about democracy is that if you want to get your own way and have all the brightest ideas, you’ve got to have support for them. And it’s not much good standing up here with all these great ideas, if you’ve got no support. So I think it would be really good for them to bring those ideas to the select committee and see if they can’t get support for those ideas.

I also want to just address the issue that was raised by our friends from the Māori Party, because there will be very strongly founded submissions from many Māori-based organisations and entities in the course of the next two or three days. And I think the issues that were raised by the speaker Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will be raised in the course of those submissions. It’s a matter of whether that fits with, I guess, the long-term aspiration of the bill and how it fits in the decision-making process. And I’ll get on to that in a minute.

So I think both those issues—well, certainly the last issue—will be considered. I just want to address one other thing that the ACT Party speaker said. And I don’t often defend myself in Parliament, but I have driven a digger myself once or twice. I’m not very good at it, but I do understand a little bit about digging holes, but I also was the Mayor of Manawatū during the 2004 flood, which was a very similar event to this, and I’ll get on to the differences in a minute. And so I have quite a significant amount of experience, actually, of leading a community through this kind of event, and I’m sure there are other people in this House that have that same experience. So I don’t think we should take for granted that we know nothing in this place, because some people have had experience of these things.

Anyway, back to the Hawke’s Bay—or to the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. I keep on talking about the Hawke’s Bay area, because it’s an area that I suppose I know best, and I’ve got a lot of family members who live there. And I did take the opportunity to go and have a look for myself, because you can’t imagine the state or the devastation there unless you do go and have a look. You can see all the TV pictures, because, TV pictures, you don’t know where they’ve come from. But the big difference between this event and any other event I’ve seen in my time—and we are a country that suffers from a lot of these events, simply because we’re a couple of three islands, a long way from anywhere, with massive ocean around us. And we’re very prone to weather events. We are equally as prone to earthquakes as well, of course, and that’s where some of the base of this legislation comes from.

But it’s not until you go and have a look at what’s happened over there that you realise the difference between this event and previous events that I’ve seen in my lifetime in New Zealand. And you know, for many, many events, we see houses flooded, we see land slip away, we see fences disappear, and we see silt dropped everywhere. I’ve never seen in my time the mess that’s been created by the built infrastructure—primarily horticultural related—around vineyards and apple orchards and things like that, where you’ve got this mass of wire and all sorts of stuff tangled up in a heap, and it’s going to be a nightmare to extract it. And so, I think, when the Hon Gerry Brownlee talked earlier about the length of time it’s going to take for this to recover, that’s going to be one of the really complicating issues, because if you don’t have that complicating issue, you can basically put a tractor through, build a fence, resow the grass, and it’s fixed. And so I think there’s a lot of issues, in this particular event, which are—certainly on the East Coast of the North Island—different than what I’ve ever seen anywhere else in my lifetime in New Zealand. And so it’s going to require some very different solutions.

And in the course of putting the first bill through the select committee, we dealt with some of those issues. This bill will deal with a whole lot more of them. And I want to, again, reflect on the 2004 event in the Manawatū—in fact, it was the Manawatū, Tararua, and some parts of Wanganui and King Country. It was quite a large area, and the damage that was done was pretty significant. We didn’t have an Act like this, of course, in those days to resolve the problem. Fortunately, the Government stepped in and put in place a fund which enabled those businesses to prove their losses, basically, and then draw on that funding. Now, the way that funding was allocated was decided by committees in different areas. So they had little committees of, I think, three or four people who took the applications and then understood and worked their way through what was required to fix those applications. And I think, from memory, it might have been only 80 percent of the total damage that was paid for by the Government. And when you look at those areas now, they’ve made a remarkable recovery. And you’ve got to hope that this legislation enables the Government to make those kinds of decisions and make them quickly and effectively. It’s not going to be cheap, unfortunately, but that’s the nature of the challenges we face as a country. So it’s going to be extremely expensive to fix.

Anyway, I’ve veered slightly from the actual intent of the bill, because the intent of this bill, as most of the speakers have alluded to, is to get this thing fixed as quickly as we can with as little obstruction from our current, I guess, laws and the protection that they give to our communities. But we’re really just trying to put back infrastructure as quickly as we can to get the thing moving. Now, one of the challenges that I alluded to in the last bill that came through the House is the fact that it’s all very well to talk about putting back better, but it’s very difficult to put back better when you’re in a hurry to put it back. And when you’ve got—I think Gerry Brownlee said—28 bridges, and I know—and I’ll get on to the Manawatū in a minute—there’s four bridges in the top of the Pohangina gone as well. When you’ve got to put those back, you’ve got to put them back as quickly as you can, simply because those people and those businesses affected by them can’t operate without them. The same thing applies to houses, although there’ll be many, many houses that I’ve seen on the East Coast that won’t ever be put back anywhere near where they came from. And that, of course, has happened before in the Christchurch earthquakes—the best example of that. And you’ve just got to hope that we can very quickly get to a position where we can make good decisions—quick decisions—about opportunities to rebuild and let those people get on with their lives in the slightly different venue or location than they were before—hopefully not too different.

So that’s really the reason we need to put this bill through the House so quickly, because we’ve got to enable those businesses, communities, contractors, everyone else involved to get on with this thing as quickly as possible and with as little impediment as possible. And I think, contrary to one of our early speakers, the safeguards in this bill are more than adequate. In fact, I think the Hon Gerry Brownlee thought they were probably too onerous, and I think to some extent he might be right, because it’s not really a threat to put something back where it was, because it was already there. And so I think that a lot of the decisions that are going to be made here are going to be made on the basis that it’s got to be done quickly and got to be done as best we can, but might not in every case be permanent either, because there will be opportunities in the future to change the way these things are set up. But, initially, you’ve got to do it as quickly as you can.

I just want to very quickly talk about one or two other changes. I was very pleased to see one of those changes come through with respect to the Resource Management Act, where it’s including—and it should have been in the last bill, but wasn’t; I think the Minister actually alluded to why it wasn’t, but it simply wasn’t, because we didn’t understand the magnitude of the damage in the Ōroua, the Pohangina, and the Rangitīkei Rivers, which, of course, get all their water from Hawke’s Bay. So it wasn’t our fault; it was Hawke’s Bay’s fault. We’ll blame them! All the water came over the hill and ran down our rivers. We didn’t get much rain, actually, but it’s done an immense amount of damage, and, as I said earlier, I think, at the top of one of those rivers, four bridges have gone—one quite big one. And so it was really good to see that brought to the fore and this. It enables that area to be part of the recovery as well. In fact, this bill does cover the whole of the North Island, but this was specific to the previous bill that was brought to the House.

So I think that the last thing I really want to talk about is the skills and experience that the severe weather events review committee will have, and I think that their role—again, the Hon Gerry Brownlee said—really is to make recommendations as to what’s sensible and what’s not. The recovery part of the package after that will require a whole lot of different expertise. And I think, again, when you look at the East Coast particularly—and I’m not so familiar with the events in Northland—it’s going to require a massive input from horticulture and agricultural sectors because that’s where the real damage has been done, and clearly from the country’s perspective, at a time when we’ve got our export economy struggling a little bit, simply because we’ve got a lack of people to put output from the dairy industry and probably the horticulture sector as well. So we’ve got some issues that we’re facing, the challenges in the economy, and to have a large piece of our economy knocked out, it’s not going to come back quickly, but it’s important that it comes back as quickly as it possibly can. So I look forward to this bill coming to the select committee. We’ve got pretty good at it now. We’ve had a bit of practice a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sure we’ll get through this in good order and report back to the House in a couple of weeks’ time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the member for Tukituki, and here representing Hawke’s Bay tonight, I would first like to acknowledge the incredible hard work that has been going on in our region. I’m incredibly proud and would like to say thank you to everyone who is out there helping get on with the recovery.

This bill is what Hawke’s Bay has been waiting for, because it gives us the ability in our region to have the flexibility to enable and expedite and respond quickly to what is needed to get on with the job that we’ve got.

One of the most important things that is in this bill is making sure that our community is consulted with. And when you’re out on the ground, like I am, that is the message that I continually hear and continually bring back to Wellington. This needs to be a locally led, regionally supported, and Government-enabled recovery. Fundamentally, this legislation will enable us to move quickly and move forward together.

I’d also like to acknowledge those that are providing widespread support across the House—from those members of the National Party and of the Green Party and here in the Government—to support this bill to make sure we can build back better. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.