Curran ClareParts 1 and 2 schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 and 2CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I am pleased to speak in the Committee stage of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill which has been through an extensive select committee process and I think has come back to the House improved. We certainly support the intent of this bill which is to improve the way that communities recover from emergencies and for there to be a seamless and timely transition from response to recovery. This is a pretty important piece of legislation within an even more important context and I do not think anyone would disagree that having New Zealand better prepared and better able to deal with the aftermath of major events is an important thing to do.We note that the bill is in the first stage of a wider review that is being undertaken into the legislative framework for recovery. One of the issues that we did raise at the Government Administration Committee was where that wider review was up to. Although this is an important piece of legislation in its own right it is really just one part of the picture and so we are raising questions of the Minister at the Committee stage as to the timetable of the wider legislative review the substance of what that review will involve whether it will involve more legislation coming to the House and whether it will be coming to the House within the next 12 months. I think they are pretty important questions to be dealt with.We raised a number of questions—issues—in the second reading around matters that we had concerns about at select committee. Many of those were actually dealt with at select committee which is always an important thing to happen. One of those was our unease around the ministerial powers that were being expressed in the original legislation and the imbalance between the exercise of ministerial power and the consultation with local communities in the recovery phase of an emergency. Mostly those concerns were allayed—to the point where Labour supported the bill as it was coming back to select committee. However I do want to keep on the record that we do remain concerned and watchful that this imbalance does not diminish the role of local communities in the recovery phase of an emergency. That role is critical on the ground where the local communities and those representing the local communities are empowered to act and to do so in relationship with the Minister so that there is not an imbalance occurring there.I also want to put on record the appreciation of the time taken by officials in the drafting office to ensure that these clauses have been written in a way that is acceptable to all parties. I do mean that most sincerely because I deal with a few select committees and I think that in respect of this select committee the officials really did go out of their way to ensure that there was the best outcome possible. It was a very good select committee very well chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson. I am signalling tonight that Labour is putting up Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 237 to address an issue that we also raised in the second reading which was with regard to a provision that was removed at select committee on the inclusion of strategic recovery plans. It was contained in the original version of the bill in new section 57A inserted by clause 21 which was removed at select committee. We believed that the inclusion of provision for a strategic recovery plan was a vital element to be included in the actual legislation as an important signal from legislation. We believe that those plans were vital for the element of successful recoveries and we noted that although the bill no longer required civil defence emergency management (CDEM) groups to prepare a separate strategic recovery plan the function of recovery planning was now integrated into the general statutory functions. That was what the proposal was—for it to be taken out of the legislation and it be included in the general function statutory functions of CDEM groups and recovery managers. Our concern was that the lack of a specific requirement in the legislation raised the risk of poor planning where those groups were weak.We know that in respect of the civil defence activity around the country—in the different groups—there are different levels of organisation. Our concern was that there should be a requirement in the legislation for strategic recovery planning so that that could flow down. The argument from some of the submitters was that there was not enough detail and that therefore there needed to be more specific detail as to what should be included. I think the remedy proposed by officials was to remove that function altogether. We remained concerned; so that is what the essence of the SOP before the Committee tonight is. We understand that this is supported by the Government and if that is the case then we believe that is very cooperative and a good outcome. The SOP affects clause 2 clause 7 and clause 19. It inserts a section in clause 19 that requires strategic planning for recovery from the hazards and risks. We believe that at least gives a legislative requirement that will address the concerns that we had about that lack of signal coming from the legislation. Our concerns on that have been allayed. We had concerns originally around the ministerial powers—and so that leaves ultimately the concerns around what is left out and the bits of the puzzle that have not been dealt with. These are the large-scale events and response readiness. We think that although this bill addresses important recovery issues those bits have not yet been addressed and although there has been a commitment by the Minister to a second stage of the legislative review focusing on large-scale emergencies there is no evidence of this occurring in the short and medium term. We therefore believe that that leaves the country with a problem.So in the Committee of the whole House tonight we are hoping that there will be some indication from the Government as to what the next stage will be and when that will occur because although focusing on recovery is important so is response readiness. We believe that in every community around New Zealand—some more than others—that response of community responsiveness to large-scale events is critical. This bill makes clear that it is focused on the small to medium sized events. Those small to medium sized events do ultimately result in quite massive costs to the country and to communities so leaving out the issue around where we are going with the large-scale events is pretty important. So we are pretty pleased tonight to be putting this SOP on the Table. We hope that it will receive support across the Committee. It provides an important signal in legislation that all civil defence emergency management groups around the country must be developing strategic recovery plans and the ministry will be providing guidelines for how those will occur.