Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a short call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. And can I begin just by acknowledging our new Minister the Hon Barbara Edmonds and also the former Minister the Hon Jan Tinetti who introduced this bill before we looked at it at select committee. As other members have done in the House tonight I do want to begin by acknowledging the loss of two of our firefighters recently and the devastating impact of that on their families their friends and their colleagues. I want to place on record my acknowledgment of the loss of Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens.On Saturday I spoke to a friend of mine who is a volunteer firefighter. He and his wife who is also a volunteer firefighter joined up to serve following the Pigeon Valley fires in my region of Nelson-Tasman. They were preparing to travel to Hawke's Bay on Sunday to spend a week assisting with the response. I want to place on record my thanks to our firefighters both volunteer and career for the sacrifices they make and the risks they face serving our communities across New Zealand.It was a privilege to look at this bill—quite small and defined but useful and important. I want to just note many New Zealanders may not be aware that Fire and Emergency New Zealand is funded primarily through levies not through direct Government funding. And it's important I think to note that point. The bill makes three main changes. The first is as others have already mentioned tonight that the levy will be charged on contracts of insurance for fire damage instead of contracts of insurance for material damage. Now most submitters were in support of this change and noted that it makes the process simpler less complex and easier to administer which is an important component of the bill making sure that levies are easy to administer. We do note however that there were some concerns raised by Fire and Emergency New Zealand themselves just given that the work that they cover does include other forms of damage including floods and weather events. But the departmental report was very good at noting those concerns and I guess addressing that in the fact that levies are reviewed every three years and actually there's very minimal concern from the department around that particular part of the bill. Others have also mentioned that there is a main change in terms of referencing the sum insured and that was an area that the select committee did make some changes as well to the bill just to add some more clarity to the language there which better aligns with insurance terminology. Others have mentioned the extension of the time frame and I also just want to finish by acknowledging the museums and galleries who submitted. There were a number of submissions from museums and galleries and we did ask for information and discovered that in the past they have been levied for their collections. And we just want to make that clear: it's about their collections not their buildings—it's about the collections. The view of the committee was that the best place for levy exemptions to be placed is actually in regulation not in the legislation and that allows the flexibility for the setting of levies themselves.So it's an excellent small defined bill. It was a pleasure to work on it through the select committee process. I thank everyone who submitted and I commend it to the House.