Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I'm very pleased to take a short call for the Green Party in support of the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill.Now the National Party is once again contradicting itself. Stuart Smith put out a press statement in March of this year saying I'm pleased that the Government has picked up most of the recommendations particularly raising the cap from $100000 to $150000." in terms of the Minister's announcement that she was going to be making changes to the Act. Now we have the Rt Hon David Carter criticising the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission for rushing things through seeming to ignore the fact that there is a major review going on chaired by Dame Silvia Cartwright in terms of doing the things that can be done now and then waiting for the recommendations that come from that review before implementing more comprehensive reform. So I congratulate the Minister for bringing these changes to the House which are really good fixes and yet waiting for more comprehensive recommendations before doing the bigger work around more fundamental changes.I would note that these changes actually pick up issues that were identified by the ombudsman and that were identified by the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission. The whole issue of the cap of $100000 plus GST was a major issue in terms of claims. It makes really good sense to increase that to $150000. Similarly having the Earthquake Commission (EQC) focus on the repair and recovery of homes rather than focusing on contents makes sense moving the responsibility for dealing with contents claims to private insurers. Similarly extending the notification period for claims from three months to two years and the Finance and Expenditure Committee made a change there to allow it to be further extended by regulation under certain conditions because in those initial three months after the earthquakes—as anybody in Christchurch Hurunui or Kaikōura understands—the focus is very much on just dealing with the trauma of having homes completely destroyed in some cases severely damaged in others and getting to grips with quite changed circumstances. Three months is too short so that two-year period makes a lot of sense.I then again commend the work that the Finance and Expenditure Committee did in response to the submissions of the Privacy Commissioner around the provisions about sharing information to expedite the finalisation of claims and settling those.But Stuarts Smith's amendment—again the Minister has quite clearly said in earlier stages "Wait for the review recommendations and then look at that in the whole rather than just doing an ad hoc change here." As the Kaikōura and Hurunui quakes showed there can be cooperation between EQC and private insurers through a memorandum of understanding arrangement without necessarily needing the law to change to do that.So these are four really sensible changes to help improve implementation of the EQC legislation and to help speed the settlement of claims. I commend the bill to the House and I wish you Madam Assistant Speaker a very merry Christmas having already wished other members of the House that."