Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. The previous speaker Nick Smith is being too negative. As Minister Little said this tribunal is intended to be a circuit-breaker. There are over 2500 claims that have yet to be resolved and as the regulatory impact statement on the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill which the Green Party is please to support notes there are a number of frustrated and vulnerable claimants. So by setting up this tribunal it's seeking to actually cut through some of the issues which have bedevilled the settlement of those claims. They are generally the more complex claims but they also may not have been settled because of the vulnerability of the claimants. The processes that this bill enables through the tribunal provide a less threatening environment than a court system and one which because of the recourse to mediation can enable those claims to be settled.So I congratulate Minister Little and Minister Woods who have done all of the work in bringing this bill to the House. I think it is being innovative. We have a tradition in New Zealand in forums like the Environment Court where mediation is used to really good effect and similarly with the disputes tribunal. It is this ability to have the tribunal refer claims to mediation to enable the parties to get around the table to either narrow the issues that are subject to debate to potentially go for a hearing later or to actually get them resolved in that mediated forum that is one of the major benefits of the bill. The bill also ensures that people don't need a lawyer to take their claim to the tribunal. They must have an insurance claim. They must be a policyholder or an insured person. They must either have a dispute with their insurance company or as an insured person with the Earthquake Commission.We know that there is this tail of difficult to resolve claims so this is the Government saying we need to get these nearly 3000 claims actually dealt with given that today is the eighth anniversary of the earthquake in Darfield along the Greendale fault. It has dragged on too long. It's caused significant distress to those families who haven't been able to get their homes repaired who are still negotiating and putting all of that energy into the negotiations with the insurance companies and who are facing enormous stress because they haven't been able to move on with their lives. So this Government cares about getting these issues resolved and that's why this bill is before the Parliament.It will enable people to represent themselves if they feel that they would prefer to do that rather than having a lawyer. That doesn't deny access to justice. Proceedings can still go in front of the courts but it enables things to be worked through in a less formal way through things like mediation. It aims to be speedy despite the Hon Nick Smith having doubts about that it aims to be cost-effective and it aims to be flexible. It will be able to be flexible because of the case management approach that is being used here to recognise that each claim has its own circumstances and there needs to be flexibility rather than just a one-track process to deal with that.Stuart Smith raised concerns about the lack of ability for cross-examination. Cross-examination is a very formal procedure. It does ensure that evidence is robust but it normally takes place where proceedings are adversarial. This tribunal is inquisitorial so there is the ability for those presiding over the tribunal to delve into the issues in each claim and to ask probing questions. That guarantees the probity of the process but it ensures that we are not setting up an adversarial system the way you have in a court and it's often by recourse to an inquisitorial system to a system which is flexible which focuses on case management which enables the party to go to mediation that is often the more effective way to resolve some of these difficult claims.It's combining the best of a court system and a more flexible process because the tribunal like a court can actually make orders given that the presiding officers do have those inquisitorial powers and they are very independent. It also—by the fact that it is not requiring fees or a claim to be filed—means that it's accessible to everyone. There will be the power under regulations to set fees if necessary but it enables access to justice for everyone.So there are a number of benefits here with this circuit-breaker process with the flexibility it provides with the ability to make orders with the ability to refer the parties to mediation with the ability to ensure that the appropriate experts are brought in—they may be engineers or geotechnical experts—and the assurance that they are brought together and have call conferencing so that they share their advice and help all the parties actually work through the claims.So I think it's an opportunity for a different way of working which is why the Government is introducing the tribunal to deal with this tail of claims which are causing significant stress to the householders concerned. I think it has the potential to be a circuit-breaker. I think the Hon Nick Smith should have a little more confidence that it will work. We are not setting performance targets because that is not appropriate. It would cut across the flexibility the case management approach and the emphasis on mediation that the bill enables. It does provide an alternative to the court but without taking away parties' ability to access the court.So the parties taking a claim to the tribunal must want to seek resolution there must be a dispute and this tribunal is a way of resolving those really difficult claims. I think as Mark Patterson noted that because it's not dealing with the whole issue of onsold properties—because if you've got a claim and you've bought a property from someone else you can't take a case—it does set some parameters around the tribunal's work and it is intended to actually deal with those nearly 3000 cases where people are still subject on the eighth anniversary of the first of the quakes to the fact that they haven't got the earthquake damage to their single most important asset their house resolved. So I commend the bill to the House.