Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. I'm delighted to support this bill the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. It seems appropriate that coming up to Christmas sweetness and light is across the House and we can all wish people a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.I think it's really important that we do support this bill because having a bill that is fit for purpose particularly in terms of a country like New Zealand that is so prone to earthquakes—I mean we weren't called the Shaky Isles" for nothing. I think it's also particularly important that there is sweetness and light across the House.I'd like to take up Ian McKelvie in his discussion on cross-party agreement in terms of this type of legislation this type of legislation that tends to go over a length of time—and he was talking about the Earthquake Commission going back to 1931—but also the type of legislation that comes into play in times of a disaster. It's something that everybody needs to agree with because that's what we're here for: to support the people of New Zealand.Now of course this bill implements work that was begun by the National Party back in 2012. A review was done between 2012 and 2015 basically to update the 1993 Act. I see that it's been mentioned as 1993 and 1994. I'm not quite sure what's correct but I'm sticking to 1993. Basically it was to update that Act in light of the Canterbury earthquake experience. Unfortunately this bill does only cover part of that review. There were nine parts of this review and only four parts of it come into this bill. These four parts are important and they are in need of change but we definitely need another bill to pick up the other parts of the review and also any other work that's in progress at the moment.I was pretty surprised to hear Dr Duncan Webb talking about how this should be done urgently. I agree that it's important that we get this legislation done but if he feels that it should be done urgently you would have thought that we would have done more than less than half of the review.The first thing in terms of the points that we are covering is the removing of the $20000 limit for contents. I think that's pretty important. If you think about in the face of a disaster the legislation and the Earthquake Commission should be looking at the big picture. In terms of a disaster the big picture is people's homes. There's absolutely no doubt that insurance companies are perfectly capable of looking after contents. So let's get rid of that distraction and let's focus on the big issue.The second issue is about raising the cap limit. It was $100000 plus GST. That's been in place since the Act was originally done in 1993 so to lift it to $150000 makes a lot of sense too. I was interested to hear the Rt Hon David Carter talking about the fact that it is actually more than a 50 percent uplift because of course the $20000 for the contents comes out of it. So it goes from $100000 to $150000 but the $20000 is taken out of it.The next thing about the proactive sharing of information is a lot of the issues that we had during the Canterbury earthquakes were to do with where the information came from and sharing that makes a lot of sense. Greater transparency and greater discussions are important. However I do think we need to be careful about how we share that information. I'm sure that we will do that sensibly and well.The fourth thing and this is the issue that has been debated—it was debated I know at the select committee process but is also still in discussion—is about the length of time. It can go from three months to up to two years with regulation. But one of the issues that was particularly important in Canterbury was the number of seismic events. How you manage those seismic events over a length of time is pretty important.This bill is important. I'm glad that it's got to this stage. Unfortunately it's only half of the review but I'm sure that the Minister will bring a new bill in future and we'll be interested to see that. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."