Uffindell SamSAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you Madam Speaker. I might not be as lively as the last couple but I'll just walk through what's happened. Now we all know that this bill's stated aim is to help aid the economic recovery—you know build back up the lives of those impacted. I see one of the members from Hawke's Bay nodding at me over the way and I just want to acknowledge all the families and communities that have been impacted over there. It's an extremely tragic event and it's a really good thing that almost everyone in this House has been able to come together and agree that there does need to be you know some exceptional powers put in place to enable those communities to be rebuilt as quickly as possible. So this bill does allow for the temporary relaxing of powers. There are some legislative changes that are going to be brought through. I do note that it also is an omnibus bill which will amend several other acts through this process. It is also a truncated process and it will be going through a select committee in a short period of time. But you know we don't have a lot of time and these communities out there don't have a lot of time. So they need a whole-of-Government approach that really gets in there and enables them to rebuild as fast as possible. Now the main provisions in this will apply to the North Island local government entities directly or indirectly impacted by the severe weather events with the main point of it being able to open up transport corridors or new land areas for rehousing those people impacted. I note that the draft orders will have to be made available to the Regulations Review Committee and what a fine committee that is and I look forward to reviewing that. We may not have our fantastic chair any more but we are aptly aided nevertheless. This bill establishes a review panel and one of my colleagues—the Hon Gerry Brownlee—noted that he believed that the number of members was a little too high at 12 and I would probably tend to agree with him there. I think previously when the National Government put a similar bill through following the Kaikōura earthquakes there were four members—I heard people across the House saying six. So I will just sit on that and say four to six but it's probably a figure that is more likely to generate speedy process and expedited decisions which in this situation is probably what we would want to aim towards. The functions of the panel? Well they'll review the draft orders and then supply them to the Minister in this case the Hon Kieran McAnulty. And we do note and it has been noted already that this bill is similar in nature to the Hurinui/Kaikōura Earthquake Recovery Act of 2016 which was introduced by the National Government in response to the earthquakes in 2016. The main difference is that this bill specifies that local Māori and community groups be included. The Hon Gerry Brownlee did note that there were iwi sitting on that which is absolutely imperative and also did note that there are a large number of iwi that have been impacted in Hawke's Bay. So having some involvement there is a positive step because there are going to be decisions that are made that will be long-lasting and it is good and crucial that we do have that breadth of input into that.There are controls in place to ensure some scrutiny across what is happening. And you know of course that's important. When you do put in powers like this making sure that those checks and balances are in place is vital. I have noted and we have noted already that National does support this bill. We continue to express our sympathy and encourage the Government to act with speed to build those communities back up. We support the reduction of bureaucracy in general and favour any efforts to accelerate the recovery for these communities. I'm saying no more on this. You know I think we're all in agreement. We need to move quickly on this. We need to rebuild. I've offered to the Minister of Agriculture—if he ever needs any advice around how to help those impacted people in the horticulture space and there are a number of them significantly impacted in Hawke's Bay then please do reach out to me. I'm happy to provide my wisdom and guidance there too. I support this bill. Thank you.