Emergency Management Bill (No 2)

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m pleased to present the Emergency Management Bill (No 2) for the committee of the whole House stage. I want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee for their work in considering this important bill, and thank you to everyone who made submissions.

Like national security, emergency management should be bipartisan. I want to thank all of the parties that have had input into getting this bill to this stage, and I look forward to constructive debate with you today. There is one substantive Amendment Paper that I have put on the Table. Although we will discuss it further later on in the debate, I’d like to highlight the main changes it would make to the bill.

Amendment Paper 750 would give emergency management committees the power to carry out precautionary works when there is an imminent threat of an emergency but a state of emergency has not yet been declared. It also expands the Director-General of Emergency Management’s power to step in and direct local emergency management authorities if necessary to preserve life, prevent injury, or prevent serious property damage. Bringing precautionary works into the bill removes any doubt that they are an important part of emergency management. It enables these activities to be subject to national direction. Direction would be a last resort, but, ultimately, the public would expect the Government to be able to step in if lives and property are at risk.

Overall, this bill will help ensure New Zealand is better prepared to manage more frequent and complex emergencies now and into the future. I look forward to continuing the work across the House to get this bill enacted so that the system is strengthened for all New Zealanders. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and at the risk of peace breaking out in the Chamber over this bill—

💬 Hon Member: No worries, mate.

Yes, no worries—I agree. Can I acknowledge the member Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. Not only has she been extremely proactive and done a lot of the heavy lifting in the work on this bill and with our officials—and I acknowledge them and the outstanding work that they have done—but you’re also present on the ground, as well, during these events. I want to acknowledge your work and support in working alongside me, not just here in the House with the legislation but out on the ground too, supporting our communities.

It was very simple. As you know, we’ve worked very hard with the leads from our iwi leaders. I want to acknowledge them, Marama Royal and Kiritapu Allan, as their representatives, working really closely with us and the officials to make sure that we do recognise and codify in the legislation the outstanding work that iwi and hapū do in emergency management. Without a doubt, as the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery for the past 2½ and a bit years, I’ve seen this at just about every event that I’ve been at: just how good they are at emergency management—that’s not just for their own people; that’s for the entire community—and the expertise and the leadership they bring to it. It was really important that we codified that in the legislation. I think that we have done that.

In terms of the Treaty, I’m sure that the member is aware that the select committee considered the matter and did not recommend that the Treaty clause be added to the bill. Speaking to that, there are a number of clauses throughout the bill which seek to give effect to the Crown’s Treaty responsibilities, with some useful additions being made at the select committee, which the Government, of course, supported. Importantly, these features of the bill are supported by non-legislative work being done to improve the systems and relationships with iwi and Māori on the ground. Collectively, both legislative and operational improvements will better support Treaty-consistent emergency management across the four Rs of reduction, readiness, response, and recovery.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m just wanting to, again, thank the House for their cross-party work on this issue and the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery for his leadership and offering up extensive briefings. Also, to the submitters on this bill—a lot of the people who submitted on this bill are emergency management professionals or volunteers who have extensive experience in the system.

I do want to ask some specific questions around clause 6(2), around the “happening” section, and a proposal around that, but I wanted to preface my comments around why it is that we’ve drafted amendments in this committee of the whole House stage even though we’ve had an opportunity to also do so during the select committee stage. As you know, Minister, the Governance and Administration Committee did good work on this bill, but not every political party is represented on the Governance and Administration Committee, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to get the House’s view on a number of topics. Some of the amendments we are putting forward here we did put forward during the select committee stage. I want to acknowledge my colleague Mike Davidson, who put forward several clauses regarding Te Tiriti, as my colleague Cushla Tangaere-Manuel has already outlined. We would like to see those clauses back in.

Turning now to clause 6, in the section about “happening”, we would like to see a clause inserted in that. We have multiple proposals around it, but one of the specific ones that we proposed is “drought”. Obviously, drought and other extreme heat events are something that has occurred and has done massive damage, particularly in Australia. I do acknowledge that this is not necessarily an exhaustive list—the clause acknowledges that “happening includes, without limitation, the following:”—so you could argue why, but then, if you make that argument, you could also argue why list anything there in the first place if you’re not going to include drought.

We do think drought is significant and significant enough to be included as a paragraph here. The last major drought—it’s been a while since we’ve had one. The last really serious one was in 2013, and that ended up causing billions of dollars of damage in Aotearoa. We do feel like inserting drought here would be a nice counterpart. Things like tsunami and floods have been listed. Things like storms, tornadoes, and cyclones have been listed, and serious fire has also been listed. We feel like drought is a good kind of counterpart to that and something that will add to and enhance this.

We’ve also drafted some amendments around adding to “actual or imminent attack”, including widening it to acts of economic attacks or blockades, because we know that there is potential for a blockade on an island nation like New Zealand, or an economic attack, to seriously disrupt life and infrastructure in Aotearoa. I’m just offering those to the Minister under clause 6(2). We would like to see those considered and added to the bill if possible. Thank you.