Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): I am pleased to be able to take a short call on behalf of the Green Party in the Committee stage of this bill. I too want to add my voice to others in this debate in support and in particular acknowledge the members of the Government Administration Committee and the members of the House and particularly the chair of the committee Ruth Dyson and possibly Minister Brownlee who have both had more recent experience of a civil defence emergency. I have got to say that on the committee the chair's experience was incredibly informative and that she knew what questions to ask and she knew what areas of tensions have arisen in the past between local activity and the more formalised systems. Going into looking at this bill that was a particular area of concern for us. The previous speaker Poto Williams talked about the recovery activities in Aranui. We heard some amazing stories in Lyttelton as well. More recently and on a small-scale event during some of the recent flooding up in Kāpiti I know how the community there came together to be able to support people who were affected by the flood who maybe were suffering financially as a result of the impacts of the flood and people would take turns to go with somebody to Work and Income to manage the formalised systems. It was actually the relationships and community that were essential to people's sense of well-being in that recovery process. It is really critical that we get legislation that facilitates and aids that local connectedness and that local response but just monitors and fills in the gaps and provides the more formal systems if a community is unable to provide them itself. I do feel that this kind of legislation should probably always continue to be evaluated after events to make sure that we have got it right. You can never I do not think stand up and say Yes we've got it 100 percent right." before you have had it in practice. But I am feeling that we made really good progress in the committee and there were a lot of changes made through that process of questioning and testing it through discussion against the experience of some of the members and the submissions. I am really pleased that the Labour member Clare Curran is adding Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 237 to reinsert the strategic recovery plans into the legislation and that the Government indeed is supporting that. The rationale from the Government members on the committee as well as I think some of the advice was that we did not need it because within the legislation there is a function of planning that is built into the legislation for civil defence and emergency groups and recovery managers so there was no need to put a plan into the legislation as well and it might create confusion. When submitters had raised concerns about the lack of clarity and specificity and the thought was like: "Oh well we'll take it out so we don't get confusion." But I think it is much better to put it in and to get the support of the Government with the guidance to provide the specificity. We have heard stories from different places around the country of very different levels of knowledge and experience around planning. So to actually put in the legislation—and to put the guidance behind with it—the codes technical standards and guidance for timing and longevity as examples I think will help the local on-the-ground organisers work through those steps of recovery that we want them to work through. The Green Party will be very happy to support that SOP. I would also just really briefly like to touch on the initial concern—which was raised earlier by the Hon Ruth Dyson—that we had around the permanent legislative authority. I spoke for the Greens as we interrogated that and the officials gave us some very clear advice and I have absolute confidence in the validity of that as a tool for giving councils surety of funding."