Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I have returned from Kaikōura only a few minutes ago and I would have to say one of the things that I was being asked about was the Hurunui-Kaikōura earthquake recovery legislation—when it was happening and what was going to be in it. So it is a great pleasure to get back here and it was my good fortune that air traffic control at Wellington was quite cooperative so I was able to get in a little sooner than otherwise.But I must say after spending today down in Kaikōura and actually having a look at the Lyell Creek area where we could see guys out there at the moment working on the sewerage which they have actually got up and running and seeing what was a back lawn but which has now got massive cracks in it and drops of a metre or more towards a creek—a house totally destroyed—and running across that lawn is a giant flexible hose that is now carrying sewage to keep the sewerage system going in that area you start to get the idea of why we need something like this piece of legislation and why the flexibility that is inherent in this legislation is absolutely vital. They are extraordinary powers that are being given under this bill to the executive but it is an extraordinary event and it is quite right and proper that those powers are made available to the executive. And it is great to see support from the other parties because this is a parliamentary response. It is an across-Parliament response—everybody is involved in it—and that is the way it should be. Being on the ground today looking at some of the landslips—and I noted in some of the speech before about the sea and where all the spoil was going to go—I can tell you that the sea is now in some cases 50 metres further away from the road than it used to be. So the imagination of people has run a little bit wild on some of this stuff but the ability for the road to be shifted and for what was the beach to be turned into a road so as to get a road and a rail line at a safe enough distance from the hill where slips may occur in future earthquakes which would be quite dangerous—getting that buffer of some distance would be quite vital. We do not know whether the engineers are going to come up with those solutions yet because they are working on them as we speak. But that would be vital power to have. To go through the normal course of doing all the resource consents for these sorts of events we would still be planning in 12 months' time and that is certainly not acceptable to the people of Kaikōura and it is not acceptable to the people of New Zealand. This is a vital route for New Zealand Inc.". It is not just a vital route for the people of Kaikōura and the people of the Hurunui as well. On Wednesday I was in wineries that have suffered wine tank damage and I can say that we are truly fortunate that this earthquake occurred just after 12 midnight. Had it occurred just after 12 noon there would have been a significant death toll—I am absolutely certain of that. Those slips—and there are a huge number of slips and some of them are truly enormous—would certainly have had cars underneath them. Some of the winery staff who may have had the misfortune to be in amongst the tank farms—that would not have been a very good place to be. So we were very very fortunate. We dodged a bullet I think on that one.I note the independent panel and the committee were talked about. I do not have a view on the size of those but we do have to remember that from the Hurunui through the Kaikōura region and right up to Marlborough there are huge differences in the areas that have been affected. They have been affected in different ways and that is what lies ahead of us as we dig into this a little more—no pun intended—into the damage on the roads on the farms and in the buildings. We just simply do not know what we are going to find so the flexibility that we are afforded by this legislation will be very very welcome.As an aside today we had a look at some maps showing the fault lines and some of the slippages that occurred vertically and horizontally. One of the fault lines moved 10 metres horizontally. I mean that is a significant amount of ground movement and certainly not a piece of ground you would want to be standing on at the time that occurred. So I think we all agree that it was a significant event. I am very pleased that the House and the Parliament are supportive of the people of Kaikōura in a tangible way by getting some legislation and the tools in place that will allow a recovery to occur much quicker than would otherwise be the case. With that I commend the bill to the House. Thank you."