Mitchell ClaytonCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I am just rising on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill (No 2) which is a very very very small amendment. It is extending the time that this 10-year plan has been in place for another 15 months. Anybody can see that that needs to happen. The fact that we are here to debate this under extended hours with 2 weeks to go as I have already said in my previous speech really beggars belief in so far as the organisation—or disorganisation—of the Government to realise that this is the situation. This is a very very small bill. It is only two pages and one of those pages is taken up with an explanatory note as to why we are doing it.Civil defence plays a major role in the recovery of communities in times of need. We have seen more and more of these events around the country. Most recently we have had the Edgecumbe floods. I had the pleasure if you like to travel through Edgecumbe a couple of weeks ago with the Rt Hon Winston Peters to talk to the people who are on the ground doing the tidy up and getting that community back on its feet. They need support. They need help. More importantly that community needs to get back together so that it can actually become the community that it once was without living in fear that that sort of thing is going to happen again. So there are a lot of questions in Edgecumbe to be asked and the best way that we can respond is to help those communities get themselves back on their feet.Kaikōura obviously is the one that we have had that was a huge earthquake post the Christchurch earthquake where we saw the ground and coastline raise by over 2 metres in some parts. Now that is significant in so far as we narrowly avoided a huge catastrophe because if that earth had moved out to sea by 2 metres if we were talking even just 5 to 10 kilometres out to sea we would have had a ginormous tsunami hit that coastline there in Rūnanga. It would have been a far bigger issue with the way that that community is nestled on the coastline. It does not make any sense that Geonet is not managed and monitored 24/7. It does not make any sense that we do not have any resilience or preparation for the event of a tsunami or a warning system for those people in that community.I was on the ground speaking to some of the first responders at the fire station the volunteers down there and they went rushing down to the fire station to obviously get their equipment ready to be prepared for the worst after that ginormous shake and one of the young firemen said: I looked out across the road to the ocean and I thought goodness me the tide is out far." Boats were on their sides. Rocks in the ocean that they had never seen before were apparent. And then he had an "Oh my God!" moment thinking "What if the tsunami is coming?". And of course there was nothing available. It was only by chance that they quickly got their fire truck up to high ground expecting the worst. But what about all those families who were not up and looking out their window to see what the ocean was doing? He thought that the water was retreating getting ready for that big wave that we all remember from the Boxing Day tsunami.We seriously need to get our act together in this department—the civil defence emergency groups—to get those communities prepared for the worst. We have had weather events we have had fire events we have had slips and floods and slides and all sorts of problems and we are not ready.The other thing that I bring your attention to is the fact that one-third—one-third—of all the businesses that applied for a business support package to get their community back on their feet were denied. That is surely part of the responsibility of the Government and the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management to ensure that that recovery period comes in yet a third of them were denied any business package support. So wages were lost for communities. They may not recover for many many years and we have to look at this with a technical advisory group behind it as a huge priority and to put it into a ministry a department that is properly and adequately resourced and funded to ensure that these communities are prepared for the absolute worst. We just cannot believe that this has actually been going on for as long as it has as inadequately as it has.The other point to make is to commend if you like of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu which was the marae that was dealing first-hand in Kaikōura with the hundreds and hundreds of displaced people in that community. They played an absolute pivotal role as a meeting point as a place where people who had had their lives tipped upside down literally could reset get fed get dry get warm. The weather was abysmal down there at that time of the year. I know; I was there and I was drenched to the bones after about 4 hours of walking around. It just goes to show the community spirit and that was driven largely from that marae. But right around the country whether it be the fires that were there it is the volunteers who come out to help out it is the neighbours who set up Facebook pages in communities to say: "Hey come and stay at our place. We've got space we've got beds we've accommodation we've got clothes." We have to hero those heroes and those heroes can come in all shapes and sizes and groups. Iwi have been very very good right around this country looking after those displaced people and so have many other community groups and non-Government organisations that step up to the plate at time of need. They also need to be assured that they have got the resources because I know it came at a huge cost to the Ngāi Tahu who were feeding so many people and yet they were powerless to—dare I say—move on some of those people who were there rubbernecking who were not adding to the clean-up; they were actually becoming a bit of a drain on the area themselves and there was not any support by way of Government to assist with the food packages and parcels and the cost to house and look after those people. That is something that this technical advisory group I hope looks at seriously because nobody would ever be worried about the time and effort and energy that they put into helping out their community but some people do not have the fiscal resources to ensure that they can continue on that path and this is exactly where the Government needs to pick up the pieces of a situation within the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management that is somewhat broken. Where that civil defence emergency management sits within a ministry needs to be decided. I think there is some merit in regards to what has been said and been discussed albeit vaguely by one of the Ministers with regards to putting civil defence inside Fire and Emergency. I think that is potentially a good place for it to be put in and it certainly would be far better resourced.We will be supporting this through. We would like to see this come to a timely conclusion and we would be very much a big part of the decision making moving forward post the election to ensure that we can have a better recovery response and resilience for civil defence incidents happening around the country. New Zealand First commends this bill to the Committee but not the way it has been dealt with at such short notice. Like I say this is very much The Lorax bill flying by the seat of the pants and it does beg questions from people in the community as to what this Government has been doing for 9 years. Thank you."