Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to take a call on this Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act 2016 Amendment Bill. I do not want to traverse the territory that has already been covered. We know the background as to the introduction of this legislation—albeit missed by about 4 days so we are activating the transition period now. But I want to pick up on a point that Mr Parker raised and this is just in relation to the rights to appeal. I am sure we will be able to pick this up in later stages but I just want to flag the House's attention to section 77 of the principal Act which is amended by clause 8(7) in the bill. When a building owner is required to deliver a building certificate—and there are various tests that are laid out in that section—there are rights of appeal for the building owner to appeal to the District Court on the grounds of unreasonableness. I just want to flag—and I am sure it will be picked up later on—that in section 77(4) in the principal Act it states that An appeal against a requirement to give information operates as a stay of the requirement." Surely on the face of it although a building owner may appeal the obligation for them to provide the information should still stand. They should still in spite of the appeal be required to deliver that information. And so I just wanted to raise that briefly and I know that might be a matter that will get further attention as we progress through the later stages.Apart from that I do want to focus on the directions to building owners to provide safety inspection certificates and building assessments which has been the focus so far. When we look back to the Christchurch earthquake one cannot help but think of all of the victims who were in the CTV Building—75 percent of the fatalities in that quake occurred in that one building. I believe it was 117-odd Kiwis and international students—people lost their lives. So I think safety should be front and centre in particular safety of our buildings just purely in light of that shocking statistic which we have come through with the Christchurch experience.I do not want to bring a sombre tone to the debate but I think that for the safety of tenants—those who occupy—if building owners are not supplying information or giving that reassurance when the controllers in an emergency situation or an in-transition situation require that information to be delivered they should deliver that information. They should get the work done regardless of the cost.I know that there are tests that are prescribed in this legislation so there are the checks and balances. It must be proportionate so I think great care has been taken. But I do believe that we need to focus on the rights of appeal and whether the provisions match up with the actual primary bill itself. But apart from that this is a very good piece of legislation. We are just accelerating the introduction of legislation that has already been fully debated just a few short weeks ago. The addition of the requirements for building owners to provide that assurance to provide those extra reports is very important when we look at Wellington City. It is evident that if a building is not safe and if a building owner is shirking their responsibilities they should be compelled to do the right thing and deliver up that information. I will conclude there and I commend this bill to the House."