Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to speak on the Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill. It is as we've heard from my colleague Dr Duncan Webb an anodyne bill an inoffensive bill an ineffective bill perhaps a mis-focused bill a bit of a nothing bill a well-meaning bill. I would like to suggest that the member who proposed this bill is only one of those things which is well meaning but the bill itself achieves nothing. He is of course well meaning but the solution he proposes here is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.I agree and we agree on this side of the House that there are in fact real problems with settlement processes with the length of time it might take. We agree that there are problems with the complexity of policies. We agree that there are problems with the way that insurance companies can reduce the amount that is available for settlement. We agree that the complexity of policies might make life difficult for the insured. But where we disagree with the member is that this bill solves those problems. It doesn't.So as I said: anodyne inoffensive ineffective a bit of a nothing bill mis-focused and not an effective bill. As Dr Duncan Webb said it's no wonder that the Insurance Council of New Zealand is happy with it; there's kind of nothing here to be unhappy with and that's the reason that we are not going to support this bill any further.It was very interesting listening to Dr Webb because he is of course an expert in insurance law. He spent a lot of time following the Christchurch earthquakes working with the people in that city who were affected by claims and by difficulties with insurance companies and the Earthquake Commission. So he understands the detail of how insurance works really really effectively. And Dr Webb pointed to the issue in this bill in clause 9. He says that clause 9 doesn't focus on the right part of the problem. The easy part of the problem is right up-front where the insurance company decides whether or not to accept a claim. In fact this is the operative clause of the bill which says that the insurance company has to decide whether to accept or decline the claim and notify the insured of this decision within six months of receiving the claim. But actually insurance companies do that anyway so this just is not actually an issue. The problem with insurance companies arises during the process. So that critical clause 9(1)(b) actually achieves nothing and that's a real shame—what a real shame—because this bill could have done something.I want to just focus on a particular issue that I noticed in the interpretation clause too which is where it talks about an uninhabitable property". An uninhabitable property according to drafting of this bill means a "residential property that has been destroyed or is so seriously damaged as to be unsuitable for living in." But what does that exactly mean? What does it exactly mean? You see there's a real problem that some residential property is currently unsuitable for living in but people live in it anyway—garages tumbledown houses all the sorts of things that we are trying to fix on this side of the House.So one question that would be raised in that respect is whether the property had become uninhabitable due to the event—the earthquake the flood whatever—or whether it was uninhabitable in the first place anyway and that of course would avoid an insurance claim. But the other thing is that people have different standards of uninhabitable. I suggest that like the operative clause of this bill that particular way of definition actually adds no substance to the bill.So because this bill doesn't actually address the critical issue which is how to go through the settlement process—because those settlement processes are currently being addressed already by processes that this Government has put into place—and because although it is a well-meaning bill it achieves nothing on this side of the House that it is not worth spending a select committee's time on it or spending the time of insurance companies on it—giving hope to people where none actually exists because the bill achieves nothing. We would have a line-up of people submitting on this bill and yet at the end of the day it would be a nothing.So for those reasons on this side of this House we will not be supporting the bill."