Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to just start by saying I acknowledge former leadership in this space I acknowledge current leadership in this space I want to acknowledge members of the Canterbury Mayoral Forum who have joined us here today Their Worships Dan Gordon and Sam Broughton and I want to acknowledge my ministerial colleague and lead Minister on Greater Christchurch Regeneration the Hon Dr Megan Woods and the fact that it's an absolute privilege and pleasure to be her associate and the specificity that I have in my delegation which is around Regenerate Christchurch.I'm really grateful to have had that role; it's been a short time but it's been a really interesting time to support the Minister in this piece of work. I want to pay particular acknowledgment to Ivan Iafeta and his team and Dr Thérèse Arseneau and the board and just thank them for the work that they've done. A few weeks ago we were with them to share with them our thanks for the work that they had completed—to acknowledge the fact that this legislation will bring forward the end of that particular organisation. But I wanted to let them know how proud I was of the work that they have done in various guises over the years and that they can be very very proud that when they look around the city they have had a part in what is actually becoming a very extraordinary place.So while I'm very mindful of the fact that this legislation does bring forward the end of that particular organisation what I'm very confident about is that the expertise that has been developed there will actually remain and will continue to be leading in the future work of that city and I think that's something that we need to underscore: that we are not losing that expertise but it is actually now in a position to take a much more local much more focused look at what needs to happen going forward. So I'm very proud of that work and I want to thank the teams for everything that they have done.The other thing that I want to talk about too with this is that the second part of this legislation is the revocation of the special powers that exist under section 71. I've had to exercise my power under that particular section a couple of times and while I think some of this is useful—I do tend to agree with the sentiments of the Hon Gerry Brownlee that it is a useful part of the legislation—I'm not entirely sure that deciding whether a carpark is actually a regeneration activity is what was actually intended. So I think it is actually time that we can hand back to the city the decision making around that and that the Resource Management Act can actually be used to its full extent on that.The other aspect of the legislation is how we support going forward the reconfiguration of the titles in the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor and how we can facilitate that. So there is some extension within the legislation that will allow that work to continue from Land Information New Zealand. It's a complex and long piece of work that we need to support and they're working their way through that and I think that allowing them enough space to continue to do that is really vital—really important. And as we move from recovery through to regeneration to now what will be the state of our new going forward our new normal the Government really does need to reduce its presence in the city and actually hand back the power to decide and to implement to the locals.The amendments that we provide for in this legislation also give certainty for Christchurch for its future institutional arrangements and removes the extraordinary arrangements which are no longer required. What we also do is with this we acknowledge that post-quake we're in a different space in time and anyone who has visited our city in recent times who hasn't perhaps visited for a while can see that we are actually quite a different place. There is a buzz there is a mood there is a shift in the city and there is definitely an ability that has built up over time for us to have confidence that we have the right people in place to take our city forward into the future. I think it's entirely appropriate that we as a Government step back from that and create the space for that to occur.There is one thing that I do want to say though and I just want to reflect a comment of the Hon Gerry Brownlee and that is that one thing that really has disappointed me as the local member of Parliament for Christchurch East when the original legislation first came to the House was the redrafting which saw the removal of the specificity around New Brighton. I have to say that that did disappoint me. What I am really heartened by though is that this Government has in its wisdom decided to have the Christchurch Regeneration Acceleration Fund funding of which there is a portion which has been allocated to the work that will go into the residential red zone. Now what I'm heartened about with that is that there is an allocation which will create activity which will then drive people—and hopefully people from all around the city—through the red zone out to New Brighton because what that beautiful part of our city requires is actually greater economic activity. So while it was taken out of the original legislation—and I do want to put that on record because I do believe that if we had been able to act sooner then our fantastic iconic community in New Brighton perhaps would have been regenerating at this point. But I'm hopeful that the work that we will engage throughout the red zone will actually help drive that activity and hopefully soon.I just want to thank the leadership that has occurred. It has been—did you say 10 years? I think it is timely it's appropriate and I want to commend this bill to the House.