SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well it's pretty impressive what can be done in the 42 hours since the bill completed its first reading—I think by my maths that's all we've had. It feels like a heck of a lot longer ago and I'm sure that's the feeling of the members of the Governance and Administration Committee who did some really hard work.Arena Williams: Hard-working committee.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: And a few others—that's right Ms Williams. But I also want to join the Minister in commending and thanking the officials who were looking pretty haggard this morning I think. They burnt the oil last night. No that's not a criticism; actually it's a credit to them that they worked so hard—officials Parliamentary Counsel Office the Office of the Clerk. And I think we have achieved our goal. Remember this is not an ideal process but it is a necessary one in the circumstances and I think that while it's not quite the exemplar I'm looking for—for reasons I will explain—we as a House are actually doing the right thing a pretty good thing to ensure that the people affected by the weather events have as few barriers and as much support as we can give them from this place. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Eugenie Sage and ACT MP Simon Court who aren't permanent members of the committee—nor am I but I subbed in. They were able to join us as well and I very much appreciated their contributions if not always the occasional abrasiveness with which Mr Court made his points. But stepping back from that there were some rare gems of contribution that I think have actually improved the bill when the Supplementary Order Paper does hit the Table—I think it can't be far away. I will attempt to summarise what we heard what we thought about and what changes have been made that the Minister hasn't covered. I think listeners will understand the logistics of what we heard and did over the last day or so. There were 96 submitters invited to submit and the committee received 14 written submissions and heard oral evidence from 13. So there was quite a bit to do yesterday. There were three main areas that I talked about in my first reading speech that I just want to touch on and I'm sure others will come in from their angle.I was worried about expiry dates. They were all over the place and I made a suggestion that perhaps the better way to do this was kind of a reverse Henry VIII" clause where the bill expires all at once on 1 April 2025 but Ministers would have the power by Order in Council to repeal those changes earlier if it was felt they were no longer necessary. And the reason was that we don't know what we don't know and I was worried that we would need to come back to the House and do this all over again just to simply extend the deadlines. It then dawned on me after I left at the first reading that at least one—maybe two or three—of the expiry dates was in October 2023. Now there's something happening in October 2023. Chris Penk: Ah Rugby World Cup.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's right. The Rugby World Cup. But it'll be over by then I think Mr Penk. I'm not sure when the final is but it might be—oh it is actually on 21 October so we're in the middle of that.Actually no we won't be here and the House will have adjourned. The 53rd Parliament will have probably been dissolved by then. So there'll be no way on 1 October—if it was deemed necessary by the Government to actually extend the provisions that expired then we'd be stuck. So I was pleased to see that there's no more dates on that. But we have extended some of them but we didn't go as far as to put the blanket repeal date further out. I'm still pretty happy with what we've done with the dates. I asked a question in the first reading about whether or not telecommunications companies' and lines companies' backhaul—like Chorus—were within the definition of sections 330A and 330B of the RMA: network utility operators lifeline utilities and so on. And the answer was yes. So there was no need for change to that. So that's good. While it's important for people who are going to use emergency provisions for what would then become a permitted activity to notify their local councils—that's appropriate—did the punishment fit the crime if they didn't.I can just imagine that some people are concentrating far more on the effort rather than the paperwork. And actually this was where Simon Court made some very good contributions which I'm sure he'll elaborate on in respect of the reconciliation between that and the fact that while some activities can be permitted without the normal processes prohibited activities can't. He pointed out quite rightly that there's going to be things that are prohibited within the clean-up and so it might be difficult to separate silt with contamination or a motor body or rubber or whatever it was. And the officials have recommended that the bill be changed to provide a discretion to extend the report date or to provide that that wouldn't be deemed a prohibited activity. It does rely on the good common sense of our local councils and I'll trust them that they know what this place's intention is—and actually frankly they know their communities best so the last thing they're going to do is burden them down with bureaucracy at a time when we want to get things going. I'm sure we'll be OK with that. The last thing—and it is something of an irritant but it won't affect our overall support for the bill—is that I continue to maintain that clause 14 is beyond the scope of this omnibus bill. We've had that conversation. We did so again in the committee. For reasons Simon Watts I'm sure will elaborate on we are not going to propose an amendment to the bill because I think that might misconstrue our motives. They may be misconstrued by councils who actually understand that that change needs to be made. This just in our view isn't the right place to do it. So I think that point's been made and I at least won't say any more about it but it was as I say a bit of an irritant on what has been an otherwise extremely positive process. We've been there. Right from the time the Hon John Carter was appointed Minister of Civil Defence in 2009 there has been a succession of events disasters earthquakes—it's like a poisoned chalice getting that warrant. I see the Minister nodding sagely. I'm sure he'd rather have it than not but he's probably going to have plenty of sleepless nights and the National Emergency Management Agency waking him up from time to time to say "Minister there's this flood that cyclone and earthquake" in whichever part of our beautiful country. That's just the nature of the role and I sincerely hope he's not nearly as busy in the future as he has been in the past. But I'm not quite as confident as I am hopeful. With those words I look forward to the expeditious passage of this bill into law."