SpeechHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I thank the Minister Kieran McAnulty for bringing this piece of legislation to the House and colleagues from around the House—including the Hon Michael Woodhouse who's just spoken about this bill—for the cooperative and constructive approach that they are taking to what is an important piece of legislation as we continue to support regions of our country that have been devastated by the events of the past six weeks between the anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.I think probably by now many members of the House will have had the opportunity to visit some of the affected regions and indeed some members will live in those affected regions. As they say there's nothing quite like seeing these things for yourself. I spent some time around Napier and the Hawke's Bay last week touring around in particular the damage to transport infrastructure but also gaining an insight into the extraordinary damage through wide swathes of what was previously productive lived-upon farmland and horticultural areas. And these areas are just unrecognisable from what they were before. The damage across transport infrastructure—both road and rail—productive land private property and community facilities is immense and no doubt for the people who are living in those places overwhelming.And so really it is with that scale of damage in mind that we contemplate in the House taking the relatively extraordinary measure of a piece of legislation like this which we will be progressing much much faster than an ordinary piece of legislation. It will extend certain powers and abilities to take actions that we would not normally allow for but the scale of the damage is such that it is important that we give both private individuals local councils and other authorities the ability to get on with the job and support those communities as we continue to work through what is the tail end of an emergency situation for many people.I want to specifically focus my comments on the importance of this bill for the repair of transport infrastructure within the affected regions. And here I note all of the regions who have been severely affected from Northland to Auckland Coromandel Hawke's Bay Tai Rāwhiti the Central Hawke's Bay Wairarapa and the Waikato—all of which have been affected very very severely. Now my trip down to the Hawke's Bay going through the Esk Valley—the sights were extraordinary: the Napier to Wairoa rail line which had only been restored as recently as three years ago to all intents and purposes looked like someone had picked it up screwed it into a ball and thrown it back on the ground such was the force of the of the weather events. Critical roading connections including around about 50 bridges have either been compromised or destroyed across the State highway and local roading network through Tai Rāwhiti and the Hawke's Bay. And all of this infrastructure is critical for the community life and supply chains of those regions.Now the overall recovery is going to take a long time. The full recovery will take place over a period of some years but the period in front of us in terms of the rebuild of transport infrastructure in the coming months is a critical one. Transport rebuild is taking place in three phases. The first is the restoration of lifeline links. That is ensuring that communities who were disconnected by the extreme weather events are reconnected for the purposes of basic supplies food and water fuel medical access and in some cases the need to take account of animal welfare needs. That job's completed in around about 75 percent of the situations across Hawke's Bay and Tai Rāwhiti and there are other areas in Northland and Auckland where we still have not achieved those reconnections. That work is the number one priority and absolutely critical: to restore those key connections for communities who do still remain basically cut off from key supplies that are just so important for the maintenance of life in those areas.Following on from that we will move into a phase which will be focused on the restoration of basic service levels for communities and supply chains across the affected regions. That will be a big job. That will be a job which is in the billions rather than the hundreds of millions of dollars. But the task in front of us in the next few months is to get on with the job as quickly and as efficiently as we reasonably can to restore those connections for communities. And the provisions of this piece of legislation give Waka Kotahi and local authorities the ability on the ground to do that to be able to work through consent processes much more efficiently and indeed retrospectively where that is required in order to be able to restore those lifeline connections. Quite simply without the provisions of this piece of legislation the restoration of those connections to communities who desperately need them would take much longer and I don't think that that is something that any of us would want to see for communities who need action as soon as possible.I do particularly note the comments of the Minister in his reference to section 330A and 330B(1) where he has noted his intention to table a Supplementary Order Paper which will address the issue about damage which has occurred subsequent to the original weather events. The original weather events which are identified in the legislation are the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods Cyclone Hale and Cyclone Gabrielle. However there has been some significant damage done to roading and other infrastructure that has actually occurred connected to but subsequent to those events. For example the most recent significant slip which has cut off State Highway 25 around the Coromandel Peninsula actually occurred about two weeks after the original weather event. And so the Minister's reference to that particular issue was making sure that in the scope of the legislation we will clearly have the ability to deal with those issues that are clearly connected to the original weather events but might have happened sometime after them. That will be an important matter to be considered as we work through this bill in the next few days and I hope that we can get a good outcome on that.I acknowledge the other changes that are proposed in the legislation. Coming out of local government myself I agree with both the Minister and the Hon Michael Woodhouse about the importance of giving some flexibility to local government at these times as for example Parliament gave itself as we dealt with the exigencies of COVID. In places like the Coromandel a cut-off road will potentially mean that local elected representatives face a 2½ hour journey each way in order to be able to get to council chambers to take part in important discussions and decision-making for their regions. It is only reasonable and appropriate that we give those local authorities the ability to carry out their business in an effective way at a time when their communities need them to be making decisions at a reasonable pace. I believe that's important and while I don't think decisions have been made on this I certainly hear the calls from the member opposite who just spoke about possibly considering the value of that being a longer-term arrangement as well.I do believe that the way that we're working this bill through the House is as good as it could be. It has clearly been moved through quickly but through cooperation between parties we are going to have a short process which will allow scrutiny of the legislation. That is always desirable; it is important. And as the Minister indicated the Government is committed to making improvements where we can as a result of good constructive dialogue in that short select committee process and as a result of debate in the House and in the committee of the whole House.I acknowledge again the Minister for bringing this piece of legislation to the House. It's a very important part of affecting these regions who have been so devastated. It will be critical for the transport rebuild and I look forward to its speedy passage in the coming days. I commend the bill to the House.