Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister of Civil Defence): Can I acknowledge the contributions from Clare Curran Clayton Mitchell and Ruth Dyson. I think one of the things that I would reflect on over the last 6 years when a number of us had have to deal with situations in Christchurch has been the fact that Parliament itself has been unanimous in providing support to the city whether it was by way of the initial legislation or the most recent legislation or in fact the number of things on the way between. The one thing I think we can be sure of is that even though this bill is before us now—and it has had considerable thought put into it—it will not be the last time that we have to think about the way in which there is a response to any particular civil emergency. So it is at this point a best effort and I do not mean that in any way that is going to downplay the contribution of people; it is just the fact that we work off the experience that has been before us at the present time.The question that Ruth Dyson raised about the ongoing planning etc. and the two positions that have been taken was I think more semantic than fact. The reality is that prescribing as Supplementary Order Paper 237 from Clare Curran does the task that is required in making sure that there is a risk plan—basically a plan for a recovery of risk—is something that we will support this evening quite obviously because it adds to the importance of the work that so many people commit themselves to throughout New Zealand in the absence of any particular civil emergency. So they do need to have an understanding that the whole Parliament supports the work they do. Many of them will go about their training exercises their long hours of commitment to what might happen in a field and some of them will never ever see an actual disaster. Although that might be a good thing the comforting thing is that we do have people out there who are trained to respond and to keep things ticking over. We had two situations in Christchurch. One we had the more local emergency—split across three counties in the 4 September 2010 event—when I think you would say the response although excellent from the individuals concerned was not quite as good as it could have been because of the structures that were in place at the time. And that is not a bad thing to say that; it is just an indication that you can learn a lot from those situations and in many ways what we have got in front of us today does pick up on that. Clare Curran mentioned the need to have a big plan for when you have great big disasters. It is going to be interesting to engage in that discussion in the months ahead largely because everyone will have a slightly different view on what you do. My own view on it for what it is worth in response to the issue you have raised is that if it is a very big disaster Parliament will want to have I think some say at some point in what will be the exceptions to any law that might be necessary to recover from that disaster and that may be different according to different disasters. So although I do not discount the fact that we probably will get a bill that provides a blueprint I think you can never totally discount the fact that there might be a need for Parliament to come together at those times and to set aside some things that would be usually done in order to make greater progress for a wider number of people. You cannot anticipate that and nor should we but the structures of response I think we can get a lot stronger and I am sure the goodwill that this Parliament has given the experiences that so many of us have had in local areas with floods and other big weather events and then coming to understand as many of us do now the fact that in New Zealand you essentially live with your risk is going to mean that we will be much more interested in getting a bill that we can all subscribe to and giving that support to those people in the field who are required to deliver on it.