van de Molen TimTIM van de MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look this is an important piece of legislation that is being proposed here and I think especially in the context of what we've seen over the recent weather events of the last six months in particular that has led to a significant impact for many communities around the country. When we consider how we might evolve our response and how we might better deliver outcomes for those communities it is appropriate that indeed we should be reviewing the legislation from time to time but then have more granular reviewing of course after those instances those individual responses to ensure that we take any lessons learnt and implement them as effectively as possible to enhance future responses and to minimise the impact for those that are suffering through some particular emergency event as it may be. Now the focus of that review of course should be around how we can ensure we are delivering the best outcome for all New Zealanders and I think that's the critical thing here. To Mr Penk's point we're not supporting this piece of legislation because we do have concerns that the focus is not where it should be. Having a disproportionate focus on one part of our society rather than all New Zealanders indeed I believe will lead to poorer outcomes from an emergency management response perspective and therefore poorer outcomes for those impacted communities which ultimately should not be the intent of the legislation—and I don't believe it is. We need to ensure that we can evolve as I said partly because this legislation now is 20 years old but actually as we look through that the way in which we respond to events the technology available and the things that become important or need to be prioritised can change over that time as well. So of course in that context it is appropriate that we do consider it and there are many aspects within the proposed legislation that we are quite comfortable with particularly some of the technical aspects that are really just modernising that stuff. It all broadly makes sense. We don't have a particular issue with that. The key concern though as I touched on and I will expand on more is that we are seeing a focus particularly around the needs of one part of our society and not all and for me that's a real concern. When I think about the diversity of communities in my electorate in the Waikato we have some incredible diversity. We have a whole range of different ethnicities represented there. We have a whole range of different priorities or different backgrounds different groupings within that in terms of urban or rural younger older—any number of different mechanisms by which our communities across the country are made up. We need to consider the needs of all of these different groups and how best to respond to deliver the right outcomes for them because ultimately any piece of emergency management legislation should be there to provide the maximum benefit for all New Zealanders to minimise the impact for them in terms of the consequences they may face as they are preparing for or indeed are in an emergency event and to ensure that we have the best mechanisms available to deliver the fastest most appropriate response. I think one of the concerns we have here as well is that we're adding more bureaucracy in—or what's being proposed in this bill by the Government is looking to add more bureaucracy in—and creating separate groups in terms of the new functions for the National Māori Emergency Management Advisory Group the requirement to include Māori members on emergency committees and indeed requiring those emergency management committees to collaborate with Māori. With all these things any existing committee would be considering the needs of their broader community and indeed I'm confident it's the case in the Waikato that our civil defence emergency management committees are currently set up considering the needs of all New Zealanders—as they absolutely should be—rather than having a specific focus on one ethnicity over others and potentially then having a different set of outcomes for different people within the communities. When I talk to our civil defence groups at the moment they are very well grounded in their communities. They understand the needs they are engaging with those different parts of our society in our local communities to ensure that a good understanding is held of those needs and indeed incorporating people with skill sets where necessary to enable those groupings to ensure the best outcome is delivered in the most timely manner. I think this is going too far in terms of legislating to create that particular requirement when indeed most communities are already considering it and there's nothing stopping them from being encouraged to do so to ensure that they are more broadly representing their communities if they're not although I doubt that there would be any that are in that position. But ultimately we need to get to the point where we are working alongside and understanding all of those needs and I've talked to that a few times because actually it is quite important. It's not just the needs of Māori within our communities; it's the needs of all New Zealanders regardless of ethnicity and indeed all the different groupings. Mr Penk touched on some of the community groups the RSAs the churches and the community halls that are involved in some of these responses. There's also a whole range of other groups like the Rural Support Trust Federated Farmers Taskforce Kiwi Student Volunteer Army—all these groupings that have a role to play in any emergency management response and we need to ensure that we are creating a piece of legislation that best enables our emergency responders and our planners to deliver the best outcome. There will always be an impact for our communities when we see these sorts of events but preparing for that minimising that impact and ensuring we are delivering consistent outcomes across the board surely has to be the focus rather than coming in with what appears to be more bureaucracy and I believe it will risk slowing down the response process rather than enhancing it.Finally I just want to touch on the reimbursement aspect as well because that's another area in this piece of legislation that outlines a more detailed process for reimbursement of Māori but no one else. Also when we look at that in the context of again some of the comments Mr Penk made about the impact in the East Coast region currently and some of the frustration that's coming through around the inability to have money flowing through the system when it is available for these emergencies responses costs have been incurred in good faith by community members individually and by groups that have all chipped in stepped up stood up to help out. Ultimately that's what really matters. We want to ensure that people continue to do that and if we're not able to streamline and have an efficient process to reimburse those costs then there is a risk that we'd create a situation where people may think twice about helping out and I think a great example is the helicopter fuel. It's an expensive cost but it played a vital function especially as most people will remember seeing video footage of the rooftop rescue that took place with one helicopter balancing a skid on the roof of a house which was nearly fully under water and rescuing some people off the roof. Those sorts of things are fantastic to see when people are prepared to step up and have the skills and assess the ability to deliver outcomes and they should indeed be compensated for that in a timely manner.Those are the sorts of practical things that we really need to focus on when we are enhancing our emergency management legislation to ensure that we can better deliver outcomes we can reflect on what's happened in the past and ultimately bring that forward to help minimise that impact and reduce the risk obviously from a preparatory phase in terms or preparing or reducing the likelihood of an impact but then when an impact occurs ensure we're there to provide support and indeed then after the fact making sure that appropriate recognition and reimbursement occurs.So we're not supporting it at this first reading. We do look forward however to hearing submissions throughout the next phase—the select committee phase—and following this through in the hope that we can get some practical changes because ultimately this is an area where we need to work together. We are prepared to do that but this bill as it stands is not the right solution. Thank you.