Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Can I thank the Hon Gerry Brownlee for his contributions—other than the gibes in respect of non-emergency recovery achievements of the Government I endorse his comments.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I didn't call them achievements.Hon DAVID PARKER: I beg your pardon?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I didn't call them achievements.Hon DAVID PARKER: No you didn't call them achievements—a lack of generosity there given the number of houses we've built and progress we're making on other things like child poverty and reducing carbon emissions. Those are of course all irrelevant to this bill as were the member's comments.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Talk to me Mr Parker.Hon DAVID PARKER: I thank the select committee for the improvements that they've made to the bill particularly making it clear that the review panel should be chaired by a High Court judge. I think that the panel including a High Court judge gives it more credibility. I think New Zealanders can be satisfied that they'll guard the proper boundaries of orders being necessary in terms of the purpose of the legislation. I do share a little concern that as we base these emergency responses on the last emergency response the lists of enactments that are affected in Schedule 2 which now lists 29 Acts directly and then makes reference to others seems to grow ever longer and doesn't ever seem to be pruned.Perhaps agencies can have a look at that outside of the exigencies of an emergency and think about whether for example you need to include the Land Transfer Act in an order such as this. I understand what the Land Transfer Act was included post-earthquakes in Canterbury because there was an issue as to what you did for boundary adjustments. I'm not sure that that was under the Land Transfer Act or survey legislation but I do think that we have to take care that we're not unnecessarily extending the ambit over which the Orders in Council can be passed amending the primary legislation because it something that should be done sparingly only when necessary and conferring the power on the executive to do it ought to be constrained to the extent reasonably possible.That said I also endorse the Hon Gerry Brownlee's comments and I'm sure Minister McAnulty's comments as well that this is necessary to do at speed in order for the recovery steps to be taken.In respect of my own responsibilities as Minister for the Environment there are two obvious examples of where it's likely to be necessary to have Orders in Council. One is to override some plan provisions requiring consents. We've had this discussion in this House about how the current plans in the area prohibit absolutely the burning of tanalised materials. You can't avoid that in some circumstances when you've got a pile of debris which includes the occasional fencepost that's tucked in the middle that you can't see it's just not practical to enforce that rule in this context. So there's likely to have to be an Order in Council enabling that if there's not some other route to enable it already in the Resource Management Act or in the local plans.The other one is that we're going to have to on occasions truncate plan-making processes where we're going to have to rezone land either for or against use. Those processes have a lot of public participation and time baked into them—which is appropriate given that the affect local people's private and public property rights—but sometimes in a situation such as this you have to move a bit more speedily in order to create the recovery opportunities for the populations that have been affected by these severe flooding events. So those are two examples where I think Orders in Council are likely to be necessary. In respect of the point that the Hon Gerry Brownlee made about who makes the decisions about managed retreat if that does prove to be necessary in some of those issues Cabinet takes those decisions. I can assure the House that Cabinet is well alert to the public and private interests involved and the complexity of those issues the effect that that can have on people's lives and the possible precedent effect. So all of those issues are and will be carefully considered. Accordingly I endorse this bill to the House.