Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): It is a pleasure to speak in the third reading of this bill the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill. I too would like to acknowledge the Hon Nikki Kaye and her work in this area and in general in civil defence and the work of the Government Administration Committee. I also want to acknowledge the good work of the officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. There was good work. I do not say that every time I get up to speak on a bill but there was good work done. I think that the bill is better for it and the New Zealand public listening or watching tonight can be a little bit more reassured that New Zealand is more prepared for emergencies and for the recovery phase in emergencies. It was a very good committee.I am going to give a very short recap of the key elements of the bill and how we approached the bill on this side of the House in the Labour Party. We supported the intent of the bill right from the beginning which was to improve the way that communities recover from emergencies and for there to be a seamless and timely transition from response to recovery. Of course that is a no-brainer but we did end up with some concerns during the select committee process when the bill came to the Government Administration Committee. Largely those were concerns focused around the balance between ministerial powers and consultation with communities and the ability for local governance to be able to exercise decision making without being overridden by ministerial powers and around how that communication could work better. I think that the bill is better for the work that was done in the committee on that. We also noted that the bill is the first stage of a wider review being undertaken into the legislative framework in this whole area for recovery. This bill focuses on small to medium sized events and I do not want to diminish the importance of those because they still have huge impact in the communities that they affect. Every year there are several events that occur in different communities around our country that have lasting impacts and this bill will make dealing with them and recovering from them better. But this bill does not address the bigger events and the work that we need to do around that. My message tonight to the Government is that we need to hurry up and get that process started and to ask how that engagement with the community happens—engagement right across the community with all of the important stakeholders. I really do urge the Government to give us a bit more detail about that. I know that during the Committee stage the Acting Minister Gerry Brownlee gave us a little bit of a clue and said some positive things about that so our ears are open. We are ready to have discussions on that and to ensure that all of our communities are. We did retain some concerns about the bill when it came back from the select committee to the House and we proposed a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which the Government supported as did all the other parties. It was generally a good decision and a good agreement. That SOP required the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan prepared by a civil defence emergency management group to state and provide for strategic recovery planning. This was originally in the bill at the first reading and then it got taken out during the discussions at the select committee on the recommendations of officials. We have put it back in again. Although it is not specific about what those strategic recovery plans should include it is there as a strong signal and we believe that is important. Basically there were other matters that we discussed a lot in the select committee—the inclusion of a permanent legislative authority which we described as a sensible mechanism after having heard from Treasury about how that works in other areas. It is a flexible mechanism for reimbursement of expenses during an emergency and for providing ongoing authority for such expenditure. We are pretty happy with this bill. I want to make a couple of observations and I know that I will not get through I am sure all of them before the end. There is more work to be done and as I said we hope that that engagement will begin soon as to how the next phase of this work will occur. Right around the country there are 16 civil defence emergency management groups. There is work to be done in ensuring that they are fit for purpose. This is not to be critical of them individually but the world is changing. The way that our New Zealand communities operate has changed. The old style of civil defence emergency management where in some areas that turned into personal fiefdoms has changed. It is absolutely critical that every single one of those 16 civil defence emergency management groups is modern that they have quality people the relationships and the networks that they have—that there are living plans and not just plans that have been written and then put on the shelf because this is about more than words on paper that those living plans are tested and retested that there is the utmost professionalism and that they have the resources that they need when things go pear-shaped.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.