Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Mr Speaker thank you very much. I just rise to say a few words on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill and build on the contribution made previously by Barbara Edmonds.As she has said the bill when it was introduced was in response to the inquiry into the many challenges that Christchurch residents in particular had in wrestling—I think would be too generous a word—the Earthquake Commission through that process. A number of the changes from that inquiry have seen their way through this bill and it targets amendments intended to modernise the insurance scheme its governing legislative framework and in particular to clarify the insurance cover provided by the commission to reduce legal ambiguity and modernise the commission's institutional structure.It was debated by the Finance and Expenditure Committee for quite some time. I understand Mr Speaker you were involved in that and I can only imagine some of the challenges that you would have had to navigate with your committee when you were walking through the various definitions.Before I get to the more serious points I would just like for the audience listening to delve into some of the detail that Parliament has to negotiate on your collective behalves including a definition of earthquake". "Earthquakes" is defined as "Sudden rapid breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth's surface that results in ground shaking."Hon Andrew Little: Sounds pretty good to me.TODD MULLER: That was expected Mr Little to be an appropriate definition but apparently not. Apparently not. It needed to be refined because this definition was apparently unclear and could lead to arguments over whether an earthquake has occurred. For my simple mind I would have thought "Sudden rapid breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth's surface that results in the ground shaking" would probably meet that definition of "earthquake". But no it isn't.The reason is it could be difficult to prove that rocks have shifted under the ground or that shaking was the result of such action. So the committee in their wisdom recommended that the definition become more generalised—goodness me Mr Speaker I'm sure you still have nightmares over this stuff—creating greater focus on the ground-shaking elements and broader natural processes that cause the event which I think is a very good collective judgment from the committee.But it just carries on as if I may. Clause 5 defines "flood" as "The inundation of normally dry land by water due to a storm a storm surge a meteotsunami or the escape or release of water from its normal confines but not inundation due to a tsunami." Again that definition was not accepted; it needed to be further refined. After significant debate with the committee members the term "meteotsunami" was believed to be uncommon—it certainly is; I can't even say it—and is now deleted from the definition."Storm" is another definitional debate that occurred in this committee. Clause 5 defines storm as "A violent disturbance of the earth's atmosphere." In a small print it says "And this often also occurs when Andrew Little is speaking about health"—no that's unfair. Sorry I'm bringing him into the debate when that's not necessary. But it is Thursday afternoon after all. It says that the committee decided that the term "violent" needed to be removed from the definition. For simplicity it was redrafted I kid you not to use common terms—for example changing "high winds" to "strong winds". So that was very good.Then there was a very very long committee update on the definition with respect to dwelling and in particular a change with respect to "gradual erosion"—that should not be considered a natural hazard. There's some seriousness in this though because there is a critical definition between a "sudden" event and a slow erosion of land that perhaps has a property on it.Barbara Edmonds I think quite effectively summed up the particular perhaps more substantive and serious issues that needed to be addressed around claims management be it direct damage the commission to recover money paid in error. As you would expect there was cross-party support and focus on the fact that claims should be settled as soon as practicable because that was very much one of the challenges for many Cantabrians in the aftermath of that tragic earthquake.The National Party does have a minor opposition—if you like—a differing view. It only relates to clause 2 and it reflects the feedback really from those who are tasked in the insurance space to be able to make this all happen namely the insurance companies. When you actually look through the scale of highly technical amendments that are envisaged beyond the perhaps more general definitional challenges that I touched on earlier there is an expectation that this is actually going to be reasonably time-intensive and there was a request that perhaps longer than what was initially provided would be appropriate. Look the Government's landed on 12 months after receiving Royal assent; we think 18 months would be better. We had that debate in the select committee and for completeness noted that on that point alone we had a different view.But this is one of these pieces of legislation which timely needs to be done and debated notwithstanding my comments around some of the lost in the weeds potential of definitional debates that occurs at such times. But I think we have landed collectively in a space that you know stands beside and keeps faith with the inquiry that was held post the earthquake and the recommendations that came from it.So the National Party will continue to support this through to this second reading."