Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in support of this Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. Now I actually had the privilege of sitting on the select committee that scrutinised the original Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) bill the Act that has created this new consolidated and combined organisation. I just want to acknowledge that through that committee process we actually heard from members of the insurance industry and the Insurance Council of New Zealand. Their belief was that the bill wasn't going to give sufficient time for the new levy to be constructed and put in place. They held that it was far more complicated than the Government and the officials thought it might be and the fact that this amendment bill was brought to the House actually illustrates that they were correct. So they were right all along and it was appropriate that the Minister introduced this amendment bill to give more time so that that levy could have been properly worked through and set. We certainly had no problem at all supporting that.I also acknowledge—because now of course we've incorporated the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper 205 into this bill in the committee of the whole House stage—that it is the Government's right to seek to review the funding arrangements for FENZ. I would note that in essence that is what the previous Government had already done but we certainly are not going to seek to stand in the way or oppose the Government undertaking that review and this amendment bill should it pass in a few minutes' time will certainly permit that.But I would caution that because it potentially takes a new levy date out to 2024 that is actually a period of uncertainty for FENZ for insurers and for the public. No one is going to be quite sure into the future what the funding arrangement might be how it might be met and what risks it might introduce. They are fundamentally a choice between imperfect options. We had the levy model that was proposed and passed in the FENZ Act and that was going to be extended when this bill was first introduced on a levy on property insurance. Other options include general taxation and put very simply if we're going to use general taxation the two options there are you either raise taxes to generate that extra revenue for funding or you take spending away from somewhere else. One can't do that any other way. Either taxes go up to get the extra revenue or other things are not done so that the revenue can be reprioritised elsewhere.I recall because I looked through as this bill was first introduced New Zealand First members' contributions on the first reading of the original FENZ bill. They noted in that—and I have pointed this out to some members of the insurance industry—that they had a strong preference for a compulsory motor vehicle third-party insurance and a levy to be raised on that compulsory insurance to help to part fund FENZ. I would say taking this opportunity to the insurance industry: be careful what you wish for; you might not like what you get. I can say having spoken to these members of this industry that they certainly do not support the idea of compulsory insurance in any form.None the less we do support the Government's right to undertake a review. They wish to undertake a thorough review. We are going to support them to do that. I note Mr Bakshi my colleague has said that the Minister has extended an invitation to include him as our spokesperson in that discussion. I think that's an exceptionally gracious and generous thing of the Minister to offer and I'm sure Mr Bakshi and our caucus would love to take them up on that. We will support this bill at third reading.