Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I want to make a contribution in my area of earthquake strengthening and the powers that are provided in Part 1. I gave up my position at the Environment Committee to my colleague Nicky Wagner; I defer to her expertise on the bill and the work that she put into it. But this is an important issue.The purpose of the bill sets out the objective to reinstate it. It talks about cost-effectiveness and then in clause 7 we are providing for very wide powers for the Minister in the chair Dr Megan Woods to be able to use Orders in Council to exempt the cathedral reinstatement project from the Building Act the Resource Management Act heritage laws and a number of others.Here's the bit I want some reassurance on and that is in respect of the standard of earthquake strengthening that is going to be achieved. A lot of work was put in by the previous Government in response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes requiring that all buildings be upgraded to a minimum standard of 34 percent of the new-build standard and a timetable associated with it.Now when we reflect on the fact that the Christ Church Cathedral has been damaged six times by earthquakes since it was built: in 1881 it was knocked around in 1888 in 1901 in 1922 and in the main quake in September 2010 as well as the devastating very close quake in February of 2011. A strict interpretation of this bill would say that—look they get short of money $100 million to do the project. Are we going to short-change in my view unwisely on making sure the building is as strong as possible so that this Parliament's not going to be debating—let's hope it's at least a couple of hundred years Nicky before the great city of Christchurch faces another quake.But the honest truth is we don't know so the key bit I would want to know from the Minister is: what are her intentions in respect of the Building Act exemptions that are provided for? Does she have a benchmark of percentage of new code that she would want the strengthened Christ Church Cathedral to have? It would be my view that the people of Christchurch whether they are the ratepayers whether they are the parishioners of the cathedral or whether it's the taxpayers that are making a substantial investment in this area will want to know.Now I'm not picky about it. It's not my view that Parliament should necessarily be in this area but given the very very wide powers that are being given to the Minister the assurance that I would seek is that we would not consider any Order in Council that would set a standard that is less than what the Building Act requires. In fact in my view for a large heritage iconic building of this sort we should be seeking a standard substantially above that. I think it is important that we get this on the record. The legislation does require cost-effectiveness but does not make anything specific in terms of the standard of the strengthening and the reinstatement of the cathedral.I think we would do a disservice to all of the effort that has gone into the process if we did not clearly have in our minds some level of baseline as to the standard of strengthening that we would want for that cathedral. Six quakes in 140 years that have damaged the cathedral—I would say we'd want to guarantee at least a couple of hundred years' future for that building with the provisions that are provided here. I'm supportive of the bill but really looking for some reassurance from the Minister about her expectations around percentage of new-build standard that we'll want for a reinstated cathedral.