SpeechIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. It doesn't amend very much but none the less it's before the House tonight. Having said it doesn't amend very much of course I've got to say what a great job the select committee did of shepherding this through to this stage and with a number of very good submissions and quite a lot of discussion on some issues.My colleague Todd Muller touched on some issues which I want to touch on but before I do that I do want to acknowledge Fire and Emergency New Zealand. We had them before the select committee today and had let them off their scheduled appearance a couple of weeks for very good reason. And whilst some of their performance in the past has left us grappling with I guess the way they've operated at the select committee level they did come back today and their chair did give us a very good outline of the remediation activities they're undertaking at what's a very testing time for Fire and Emergency New Zealand because as previous speakers have referred to they have been quite busy.And of course the very definition of what they do is challenged at all times and being challenged right now and so whilst I'll get back to the bill in a minute the challenges that they've had in the past—well certainly the past month and before that—have been significant. I think they've done a pretty good job in very difficult circumstances of getting to where they've got to.Back to the bill and there were a number of issues that concerned us and concerned submitters and I think it's a typical example of where we get regulation being imposed as the result of the legislation we've passed and I've talked about this a number of times in the House before. It's very frustrating for select committees to pass a piece of legislation and then later find the regulations we anticipated might be put in place are quite different.This time I'm particularly referring to the museum sector who were very strong in their submissions and the worry they had about what might happen to their levies because of the fluctuating nature of their business and the fact that some of the exhibitions they wish to put on for the good of all New Zealanders are very expensive to put on have very high value and consequently could attract extremely high levies in this situation. They were very uncomfortable with the fact that this was being left to regulation and we can only trust that the department when they get to draw up these regulations are very cognisant of the select committee's report and the concern we had with respect to that issue.I want to touch on—because it's very relevant again with the events of the last three weeks—the way these levies are imposed. It'll be very interesting when we get to the end—or I guess assessment—of Cyclone Gabrielle and the recent extraordinary rain events we've had in New Zealand. It'll be very interesting when we get the facts and figures on the number of people who carry insurance because this bill the essence of it is that it uses insurance premiums or the acquisition of insurance to impose these levies. So people who aren't insuring are not being levied and consequently getting a free ride on those who are being insured. I know if you go back to 2004 in the Manawatū floods there were a significant number of people—probably some 11 or 12 percent of all damaged properties not insured.We find the same now: the fact that we've got 11 to 12 percent of New Zealand property owners getting a free ride on the back of the fire and emergency levy system. That's why I think I've always favoured a different system of imposing these levies. Obviously a property-based or rate-based system would be much more appropriate to deal with this because it would capture everybody.So it's going to be really interesting to see what does happen in the next few months as this whole disaster unfolds and the number of people who don't carry insurance is better understood. I'm sure this bill will come back to the House in due course for that very reason.Todd Muller referred to the extraordinary amount of money being collected by Fire and Emergency New Zealand as a result of the changes made in the 2018 review I think it was—sorry the 2016 review the previous review—and putting in place of Fire and Emergency New Zealand by the National Government interestingly and I very well remember discussions at the time both around the way in which the levy was calculated and about the amount of money they would collect and the accountability as a result of that.I guess this morning's hearing in the select committee whilst it was the appropriate place to be dealing with those issues the environment we were currently in and the environment Fire and Emergency New Zealand are currently operating in was probably not appropriate to get too hard into those issues. There are some other issues that they have significant challenges with though and one of them's their culture. That was also addressed by the chairman this morning.Andrew Bayly: What about the deputy chair?IAN McKELVIE: Mr Muller's talked about the deputy chair and the deputy chair did feature on the news for about five minutes tonight—but that's quite beside the point. The issue I think is that the culture of the organisation has certainly been under pressure. There's been two reports done on it and the chief executive—and the chair—did talk at length about that this morning so I think we can be satisfied they're going OK.So back to the bill and I think the essence of this bill: it's sound given that I don't agree with the way we're levying them but none the less the National Party certainly will support this bill because I think the things it does—and the things it resolves—are positive for Fire and Emergency New Zealand. I'm sure this House will take a significant amount of interest in the progress Fire and Emergency make in the next year or so as they try to get their house in order—this bill will certainly help them do that.They did also mention this morning that they've got significant challenges around what they I guess thought they'd inherited as a result of the Act that merged all of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand volunteer fire brigades rural fire and the professional fire brigades or fire stations. They were all merged together and I think it's fair to say they found some significant financial challenges as a result of that merger and so this levy situation will help them with that as well.So I think that's all I've got to say on the bill other than to thank those officials that gave us significant assistance with the bill and to thank the very good select committee for the very good work they did on getting it to this point and I look forward to the committee stage.