Severe Weather Emergency RECOVERY Legislation Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to take the final call in the second reading of the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill.

I want to begin just by coming back to the intent and the purpose of this bill. The general purpose of it being to assist local authorities and communities in the areas affected by severe weather events, primarily to rebuild and recover from the severe weather events earlier this year. It’s times like this when we need to remember the intent and the reason that we are here as parliamentarians in this House, and that is to represent the people. The comment I want to make on that is that at times like these, the people of Hawke’s Bay, the people throughout the North Island who’ve been affected, they’re not interested right now in party politics; they’re interested right now in recovery and seeing this House come together and act so that they can get on with their lives.

On that note, I want to thank particularly the officials, many of whom have worked tirelessly as we looked at this bill through its process. I want to thank the other members of the Governance and Administration Committee, and those members who joined us for the purpose of considering the bill. And I particularly want to thank the submitters, many of whom gave up a considerable amount of time to submit, and I note that many of them had to do that in a hurry and came to the committee with useful contributions so that we could improve this bill as we have brought it back today.

I just want to take a short amount of time to comment on some of the changes that the committee has recommended, but also some of the more substantive points about what we need in terms of an enduring framework when these events do happen in the future, as they no doubt will.

The first point that I want to note is around geographic boundaries. I will just single out a submitter: Dr Dean Knight from Victoria University. During both bills, actually, we’ve had some very useful exchanges with Dr Knight. I want to thank him for the contribution he’s made to both of the bills that we’ve passed. One of the suggestions he made was for us to potentially have two tiers of councils, because his concern—and it’s a fair concern—is that if you put in place an Order in Council, it may potentially apply to all of the areas that were affected. It’s a fair point and it’s something that we grappled with and talked about a lot at select committee.

What we ended up recommending—and I note that the Minister for Emergency Management does include this in his Supplementary Order Paper—is to amend clause 8(1)(a)(ii), which requires that the making of an order only be recommended if the relevant Minister is satisfied that the order’s extent is not broader than is reasonably necessary to address the matters that gave rise to order. What we have suggested is to include clarification that that includes the geographical application. I note that Mr McKelvie has already mentioned an example of this which we talked about, which is around clearing of waste or potentially the burning of tanalised timber, and that what is important is that if an Order in Council of that nature is made, it’s only made in the specific geographic area where that particular activity needs to occur; that it wouldn’t then be applied to the entire area that is covered in the scope of the bill. So that’s something that the committee was united on, submitters made very clear points about, and it was important that we recommended that change. So that will be a very useful change.

The second observation that I just want to make is around the importance of ongoing parliamentary scrutiny. Other members have pointed out the role that the Regulations Review Committee plays. The committee’s view was that it would be appropriate, post-enactment, for a parliamentary committee to be operating a review of both the legislation that we’re introducing today, and also the ongoing application of it over the coming years. So while the majority of us on the committee didn’t feel the need to include that in the actual legislation, and actually held the view that that wouldn’t be appropriate, the view very much is that that does need to occur on an ongoing basis. We acknowledge that Orders in Council do give extra power to the executive and that, in New Zealand, constitutionally we do hold Parliament to be sovereign and we do need to ensure that we’re always having as many checks and balances as we can. So that was something that, again, the committee was united on in terms of wanting to see some ongoing parliamentary scrutiny from a select committee.

We added, as others have pointed out, some recommendations around panel members and some of their knowledge. We particularly singled out the need for people with expertise in public health, because we acknowledge that some of the decisions that may be made through an Order in Council could have an impact on public health, and having that expertise so that we get the right balance between recovery and also environmental protection and public health is very important. We also added just the broad group of primary industries, because we note that, in some of the areas affected, a large number of the areas are horticultural, agricultural, and potentially fisheries areas, and that some expertise would be helpful for the panel.

One other small point I want to make is around the length of the legislation and how long it will be in place for, because some have commented that it could be a shorter period, similar to what we’ve had with COVID legislation. Actually, COVID legislation’s quite different to what we’re doing, in terms of its application. Previous legislation from Christchurch and from Kaikōura did have longer periods of time. Part of that is because, for organisations like Waka Kotahi, building a road isn’t something that just happens in a month or so; it is actually something that will happen over a number of years. So officials’ advice to us, which I think was really helpful, is that Waka Kotahi need some certainty on an ongoing basis to ensure that they can do some, what will be, very, very large infrastructure projects.

Finally, I just wanted to finish by just talking about our legislative framework. There is a large piece in the select committee report, and it’s an area where Mr Court and I do agree. We have risks, for those of us who live in the South Island, we have risks from the Alpine Fault potentially doing its thing. We have developed bespoke legislation over the last few years but the select committee held the view that we probably do need something that is purposeful in this area. But what I would say is that that would never take away the need for something that is bespoke, because each event is unique and will need an application of unique legislation for that particular circumstance.

So I think that, through this process, the select committee has identified, as well as what we need to do for this legislation, some of the things that we may need to do into the future. I hope that our commentary on that will satisfy those submitters who had concerns that we really did listen and we really did consider the concerns that they raised.

So it has been a privilege for everyone involved to put this bill through today. The goal, as I said at the beginning of my speech, is that we are here to support the people affected by Cyclone Gabrielle to rebuild. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for committee stage. I declare the House in committee for this consideration of the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill.

In Committee

Parts 1 to 4, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2