SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker; thank you. The Green Party is pleased to support the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. At 89 pages it's reasonably complex and technical and it replaces the Earthquake Commission Act 1993. Having lived through the Canterbury earthquake series this bill seeks to learn the lessons takes on board quite a number of the recommendations—around 10—from the very thoughtful and accessible report that Dame Silvia Cartwright did in her inquiry into the whole way the Earthquake Commission (EQC) had operated and also the 2015 public consultation that was done then. So there's been a really good basis of policy analysis and development to come to the House with this bill.So anyone who insures their home or other residential building such as a rental property against fire can access EQC cover in the event of a natural disaster because the levies that they pay to the insurance company are then passed on to EQC and into the Natural Disaster Fund. It's this point—which Duncan Webb also made—that because EQC is taking that first loss with the private insurers picking up the balance it makes insurance against natural disasters much more affordable in New Zealand Aotearoa and much more certain than overseas where people are often having to rely on their Government after a natural disaster to provide funding support and assistance. Because it's much more affordable the insurance cover is that much more widespread here.So this certainty and the fact that we have EQC does really improve the ability of people and communities to recover from natural disasters. As Dame Silvia Cartwright said in her April 2020 report regardless of people's views of how EQC had performed in the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquake sequence New Zealand is very fortunate to have a natural disaster insurance scheme backed by the Government.So as others have said there were more than half a million claims to EQC after those Canterbury earthquakes and even though the commission took on board an extra 1000-odd staff it was totally overwhelmed by both the number of claims and also the efforts to roll out a managed repair process where EQC took all the responsibility for managing those repairs and doing it on a mass scale. That led to some pretty horrendous experiences for homeowners long periods of negotiation with EQC and insurance companies and as Dame Silvia also noted previously EQC had been regarded as being a helpful and supportive face of the Government but after the earthquakes it was seen to be—and I quote—uncaring miserly and inefficient" and people saw it often as being sort of dominated by financial objectives seeking to minimise the costs for the Crown in claims management and settlement. Since then of course there have been a number of quite significant operational changes by EQC and how it works both with claimants and with private insurers: the transfer of contents to private insurers; it's developed a toolbox of options for recovery; it's established a hub for claimants to access information; it's sought to ensure that there's one point of contact for people making claims and resolving their claims; and it's developed a much better partnership with private insurers.So this bill makes some really significant changes and one of them is that it took the Labour Government in the first term to establish a Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service because otherwise people were being forced to go to the courts. This bill makes sure that there is an independent dispute resolution service so that people don't have to go to the courts and it requires EQC to participate in that standing dispute resolution scheme. It also provides certainty around matters that a claim to the commission can be assigned if the house is sold. It provides a very clear statement of the commission's repair standard for both buildings and land cover and again that will help address the issues that arose in Ōtautahi Christchurch around EQC's performance. It also deals with things like mixed-use buildings. How do you decide when you've got an apartment maybe on floors two and three of a building and then a retail premises on the ground floor who covers what in relation to repair of the foundations or the roof? The equity issues for owners of mixed-use buildings mean that those claims were often very complicated and took quite a while to resolve and would sometimes have required court action. So the bill does make some more consistent guidelines around that.Probably the biggest thing that householders will appreciate about the bill is the increase in the cap from the present $150000 plus GST to $300000. That means that the Government is taking on more risk from private insurers and it also recognises the much higher costs now for building repair. That's beneficial because again it makes insurance more affordable. Stuart Smith raised the point of making sure that this was tied to the Consumers Price Index but as I understand the bill there are some new provisions in it around financial governance to make sure that premiums are reviewed so it will keep up to date. The levy wasn't reviewed between 1944 and 2012 and the insurance cap wasn't reviewed between 1993 and 2019. So of course those got completely out of date. So the bill is setting in law a process for this to be regularly updated at least every five years and some criteria that the Minister must use in going through this updating process making sure that it is transparent by requiring a funding and risk management statement to be released after each review of the financial settings and this is all based on something similar that applies to ACC—so again much more accountability and transparency around financial governance and ensuring that EQC is adequately resourced able to seek reinsurance and is in a sound position to respond to further natural disasters.This is an area where as others have noted—and I think the National Party was slightly mistaken in thinking that by changing the name of the commission to the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake the range of hazards which are covered is being expanded. My understanding is that the range of hazards stays the same but this is where the issue potentially arises with things like sea level rise. There will be pressure on the Crown to expand the range of hazards which can be covered because how do we as a community ensure as we've done with EQC that that cost of recovery is shared across the community and doesn't just fall primarily on those who are affected. Things like the increased risk of flooding—yes EQC covers damage to land from flooding not damage to buildings from flooding. There will be more conversations I think around this and how that risk is shared. This again is an area where the commission has a critical role because with the seismic research that it has done in Canterbury and elsewhere it has a much better understanding of risk how buildings can be modified and better built to protect against seismic hazard. This research function of the commission is quite critical and that's also dealt with in the bill in making sure that the commission is adequately resourced to do that.So there is a lot of work that the Department of Internal Affairs is pulling together around a multi-agency community resilience programme in the face of the disasters that we've seen on Tairāwhiti on the East Coast in Westport and increased stormwater flooding in Auckland. It's about how as a country we have the key conversations about policy issues like managed retreat and how as a wider community we ensure that people can survive those disasters. We deal with the stress of people having to repeatedly worry whenever heavy rain is occurring. What will happen to their homes? What will happen to their communities? The huge social and economic disruption and dislocation that occurs with those disasters. So that's a bigger conversation but the Green Party is very pleased to support this bill and looks forward to it being considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee."