Dyson Ruth: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased as the Minister indicated to speak in the second reading of the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill. It might sound a bit dry to some people and that is not a reflection of the quality of the speech that the Minister gave; I just meant the topic generally. It is actually really important for Canterbury so I just want to acknowledge to anyone who is listening that if you think this is not important actually it is.In Canterbury we had about 11000 properties that moved at least 20 centimetres. That means that some people’s boundaries are not where they used to be—quite a lot of people’s boundaries are not where they used to be—and that has caused some problems and so I totally agree with the Minister that this is an issue that needed fixing. In June 2016 we are fixing it—excellent. It could have been a little earlier but at least it is done now.I want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston who has just resumed her seat not just for the contribution she has made in the debate but for the fact that she not just once but twice invited Canterbury members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to her office for a briefing that enabled us to get well on top of the issues ask questions and get answers before the bill was introduced. That is really appreciated. It is as I said a little bit dry but it is actually very important to people who are affected by it and for us to be able to get direct access to officials ask questions and have them answered made us more able to respond to questions from our constituents. That is what is important in the end: getting accurate information from this place particularly about significant changes to the people who are going to be affected by it. So I really want to acknowledge both those briefings that the Minister provided us with and say that I would recommend to her that she spread the word amongst her colleagues because it would be a really good thing if we could do things particularly those that do not have a political divide on a little more collaborative basis.The Minister indicated the number of submissions that were heard. I think that she did not indicate enough though how important some of those submissions were—I guess they were all important but in terms of the organisations that were represented. One was from the Christchurch City Council—obviously a critical player—along with the Waimakariri District Council and the Selwyn District Council. In this space there have been the other elected representatives for the individuals who are affected by this mass land movement. Also there was the Cadastral Surveyors Licensing Board which did a written submission; it did not do an oral submission—Hon Simon Bridges: Spell it.Hon RUTH DYSON: Sorry Mr Bridges?Hon Simon Bridges: Spell it.Hon RUTH DYSON: “I-T” Mr Bridges. So there you are—the response of the week. I will get in the Labour notes for that one. That organisation represents the people who are responsible for drawing up the boundaries. It had a lot of really important issues to raise particularly in terms of whether previous boundary surveys post-quake and pre-legislation would be deemed illegal and the liabilities of such; also provisions about other activities that were negligent basically and to make sure that negligence was not captured by the removal of liability in this legislation. Those matters seem to me to have been captured in the main by the Local Government and Environment Committee and I commend it on that.In the Committee stage I will be raising one issue that has not been captured by the select committee as a query because it was raised in the submissions as a major issue by the Christchurch City Council. I cannot find anything in the commentary or the amendments from the committee that refers to it and that is the application of boundary provisions and watercourses that was raised by the Christchurch City Council as a major issue. It does not seem to me to have been responded to. I will just give the Minister a bit of a heads-up that when she is sitting in the chair during the Committee stage I will be putting that question to her. She might want to read the Christchurch City Council submission again—because that is where the issue was alerted to me from—and just figure out why that was not responded to. It would be really helpful to get an explanation of that.The select committee has recommended a change in the time frame so that the definition of “Canterbury earthquakes” is extended to 14 February 2022. Some people will know that we had another significant quake on 14 February this year. It is not the way that most people want to be moved on Valentine’s Day—there are better ways of achieving that—but it obviously set a new time frame in terms of significant quakes. The fact that the time is now set out to 2022 is not an indication that we wish to have any more quakes till then; it just means that there will be security for surveyors homeowners and planners right up until that time. Obviously if there are any more quakes between then and now it will give Parliament time to produce more legislation to push it out even further or to amend this legislation. I hope we do not need to but I think the change that has been made was very good because it does give that certainty. I think a 6-year time period is sufficient in advance in terms of planning. Whether it is subdivisions or alterations to a home or it is building a new property it will allow all the key players the security to know that whatever they mark out as the boundaries will be the correct boundaries. The title conflict has been resolved and that was another good change that the committee made that I want to acknowledge.A lot of people said that there should be a dispute resolution framework. That is another point that I was a little surprised that the Minister did not talk about much because we know that there are some properties that will be negatively impacted by this legislation. Quite how they resolve their disputes or how they get any compensation as a result of that does not seem to have been adequately addressed and I thought the Minister’s contribution may well have clarified that. The dispute resolution framework was raised by a number of submitters but for some reason the committee decided not to go ahead with that.The liability for early surveys and boundary determinations was clarified. In what might be an interesting setting of precedent the committee decided that the guidelines issued by the Surveyor-General would have no legal status and I am not sure whether that has a flow-on effect to other guidelines that might be issued by the Surveyor-General or by another Government department or agency. For example if the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment issued guidelines would this set a precedent for them not having any legal status? I am not sure about that. A helpful definition of “landslip” was given by the committee and that pretty well sums up the changes that were made to bring us to the second reading that we are now going through.Although I commended the Minister for Land Information not just for her contribution but also for her process I want to say I was frustrated at the first meeting—and expressed that frustration and it was not resolved by the second meeting—in terms of the community organisations that were asked or informed or had this issue discussed with them. I think there were a lot of residents associations that would have appreciated the sort of briefing we received so that they could have made a considered contribution to the bill. Not many people would read the Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill on the Parliament website—two unlikely occurrences—and think that it might affect them and they should make a submission but residents associations are ideally placed to make that connection and involve the people who are affected by it. That was not done.The Minister took the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s advice and consulted with the community forum. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is gone now—it has been disestablished—and the community forum has gone as well but I want to say that that was not the appropriate body. We should remember when we are trying to get information out to the public that we do not need to create bodies; they are already in existence in our communities. They are well informed nimble and I think the entirely appropriate people to have responded. So we missed out on good community engagement. That may be the reason we did not get as many submissions as we may have but that is a lesson to be learnt for the future.I also want to acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee. From the outside looking in reading its report and looking at the submissions and the way it responded to them it seems to me as though it gave the issues in this legislation a great deal of thought and consideration. I think it has done a commendable job.I want to just conclude by saying that the submitters have really helped in this process. It is obvious from the amendments that were made that the submissions contributed to a better-quality outcome of the legislation. That is I guess the process that Parliament should aim for. We should say: “Well obviously the bill that we get at the start is the best that we thought we could do the best the Minister thought he or she could do but the select committee and the submitters can really improve it.” So as a result of that we have got a better bill to discuss in the next stages. People of Christchurch will welcome this giving them some certainty after a period of a lot of uncertainty. Thank you.