Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe and thank you Mr Speaker. I'm very pleased to take a call on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. One commentator from the insurance industry Paul Barton described the bill as—and I quote—a significant improvement on where we have been. Any changes that simplify the regime and enhance the transparency and responsiveness of the Earthquake Commission and insurers to customers' needs has got to be a good thing." I was very happy to join the Finance and Expenditure Committee in hearing submissions on the bill—thank you Madam Chair—and as the chair Barbara Edmonds noted there were only 26 submissions and we heard I think about 12 of those. They were all very thoughtful considered submissions from the insurance industry local government and technical experts and they all contributed to the committee's consideration of the bill.I was particularly pleased to hear from Dame Silvia Cartwright. She answered the committee's request to talk about the conclusions of the public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC) which the Labour Government established because the bill implements 10 of the recommendations from that inquiry. She was able to answer all of our questions and tease out some of the key recommendations.So just going back to some of the fundamental principles the bill does keep the current EQC scheme with its foundation that the Earthquake Commission is the first port of call for damage to residential property as a direct result of natural hazards such as earthquakes or landslides and the funding to meet those claims of course comes from the fire insurance levies and the levy payments that are made when people pay their fire insurance policies. They accumulate in a fund and then that fund is used to pay the claims and also the commission's running costs. The commission is backed by a Crown funding guarantee which means that after a natural disaster claimants can have the certainty and security that their claims for loss will be paid.Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where we have this first-loss natural hazard scheme and it certainly contributes to people's and communities' resilience and that feeling of security. So the bill continues that. The committee made some changes to the purpose of the bill to widen the purpose but its primary purpose is to reduce the impact that natural hazard events such as floods earthquakes and the like have on people property and the wider community. Then the select committee expanded the purpose around contributing to improving awareness and people's understanding of matters relating to natural hazards and contributing to improving natural hazard risk management and to providing for improved readiness resilience and recovery. When courts interpret the law having a clear purpose is always helpful and we know that insurance claims can end up in court. The former Mayor of Christchurch the Hon Lianne Dalziel in her submission described the commission as—and I quote—"an important strand of the lifeline that will enable people to recover from what is often a shocking and disempowering experience." I certainly hope that people in Nelson who have experienced those enormous landslides as a result of the storm event there have that improved experience with EQC because of the changes in operational procedure that happened as a result of the Canterbury earthquake sequence even though this bill is not yet in effect.Certainly the bill modernises the EQC. It changes its name to Toka Tū Ake—the Natural Hazards Commission because that reflects the broad range of hazards that the commission currently deals with: earthquake hydrothermal activity landslides tsunami volcanic activity floods storms or fire from a natural hazard. I just note that for a storm or a flood the commission only covers damage to land not buildings.Mr Muller said we got lost in the weeds but the way these events are defined like "storm" like "mixed-use dwelling" or like "dwelling" is absolutely critical in terms of how claims are interpreted. So the energy and effort that submitters and the committee put into refining those definitions is an important improvement to the bill in my view. As Lianne Dalziel also said the Christchurch communities as a result of the Canterbury earthquake sequence had what she described as "a trial by fire of a complex overwhelmed and inadequate system of settling claims after a major disaster" and it was imperative that the lessons that were learnt from the Canterbury earthquake sequence weren't in vain. So that's really at the heart of this bill: learning those lessons and providing better law so that after future disaster events it is easier for people to make claims and it is clearer what those definitions are and what the basis for the claim is.I think one of the major changes outside of the bill of course is that the EQC is no longer the front-line assessor. The claim is lodged with EQC but it is insurance companies which go out and do that assessment because that was a major cause of delay in the Christchurch quakes.The bill also has some fundamental principles to improve the process by which claims are dealt with. There's a clear statutory objective for the commission to ensure that it manages claims so that settlements are fair and timely that people are treated with fairness and dignity and also that the commission is sensitive to the pressures that people face after a disaster when their home is uninhabitable. The commission must act in accordance with the code of insured persons' rights and claimants can lodge complaints and if necessary seek an independent review if that code is breached. It also provides certainly that if a house is sold the claim can be assigned and it requires that claims are settled as soon as practicable and it includes a clear statement of the commission's repair standard for buildings and land cover because it was a major issue in the Canterbury earthquakes just what that repair standard was with it often being inadequate and people having to go back again. It's that thorough consistent assessment of damage which is the basis of the integrity of the process and a good outcome from that whole process. So the bill is going to provide more certainty and more clarity and one of the areas where there was a lot of support was the standing dispute resolution scheme that the bill sets up so that claimants can resolve disputes with the insurers outside of the court system. The commission is obliged to participate in that independent dispute resolution scheme and that was something that the Hon Megan Woods set up with the Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service. So that's now being mandated into law.There was quite a lot of discussion about mixed-use dwellings because it's quite difficult. When you've got a commercial use of a building and part of it's used as a home people occupying the residential part of it are at a disadvantage compared with stand-alone residential buildings. So there's clarity there and it is just making it a whole lot better of a process. So this bill is an improvement on the existing law. It does seek to use the lessons from the past. One issue that the Minister briefly referred to was climate adaptation and we had a very strong submission from three climate adaptation experts Sylvia Allan Dr Rob Bell and Dr Judy Lawrence. They were highlighting the increased risk and exposure of both people and property to sea-level rise and to flooding related to rising seas and more extreme weather events because of climate change. But as the Minister noted that's not in this bill. Certainly the bill makes it clear that normal processes of gradual erosion aren't covered whereas if you get a sudden landslip as a result of a storm that is. But the climate adaptation bill is coming and some of those issues really need to be teased out then so that we have equitable solutions where people have to confront the impact that these events have. So the Green Party is very pleased to commend the bill to the House."