SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I don't think anybody who didn't experience the weather events in the upper North Island Hawke's Bay the Gisborne area and the Auckland area or who hasn't been there subsequently—as I haven't yet—could begin to comprehend the scale of the damage destruction and trauma on people's lives that has occurred. I think as economic development spokesperson I do hope to get up to those areas but at this stage we are in a response and recovery phase not a rebuild phase and I want to commend Government members local members my own colleagues who have provided support to their communities through this very difficult period. I also want to acknowledge the Minister and the Leader of the House for their engagement in what is a very expedited process but I have appreciated that Ministers Robertson and McAnulty have shared with us their plans got final drafts of the bill to us in a manner and at a time when the National Party were able to have a good look at what is an omnibus bill—so it needed multiple pairs of eyes over it—and work constructively to ensure that we have a process that will have this bill passed. I should say from the outset the National Party will be supporting it through its stages. That acknowledgment may not be across the House in terms of process but you know look I've been part of a Cabinet that's been there before and I know how hard and how important it is to get the legislative regulatory framework in place to do the right thing. So I acknowledge the need to do that and National will be supporting it. I speak in the first reading as a bit of an opening bat in an omnibus bill where the majority of the changes come in the environment space the Resource Management Act (RMA) space and the local government space and the emergency management response. Two of my colleagues are unable to speak at this time on that so I'm very happy to kick things off. Look this is a solid-looking piece of legislation but I'm pleased it's going to get some scrutiny even if it's only for 36 hours because I think there are a couple of potentially clunky or cumbersome aspects of it—and I acknowledge and appreciate the fact that Minister McAnulty has said that you know we can make this better and if there are things that come out of the select committee process then that will be something we can attend to. I'll give the House an example of where I think there perhaps could have been a slightly sharper emphasis. One is in the timing of the expiries of certain provisions of the bill which are very—well they're all over the place really. Some of them are expiring in May this year; some of them aren't expiring until 1 April 2025. One of the things that worries me a little bit is that we have put hard closures on some of these obviously temporary changes. But if in fact as we go through this recovery phase it is deemed that it's necessary to extend them it seems to me that we would have to do that by primary legislation. I wonder if a better way to do that is to put an expiry of say 24 months across the whole bill and then give powers to—and I'm not a big fan of Orders in Council but I'm pretty sure this could be done by Orders in Council we could bring the expiry of certain parts of this bill forward. It would seem to me that would be a more of a belts and braces approach. The Minister mentioned sections 330A and 330B(1) and I think that is an area where the select committee does need to have a look at it. This is where there are powers to go on to properties I think for activities that are deemed necessary even if it's not possible to contact the owner or occupier of the property. Now the definition at 330AA (1) includes a person local authority consent authority network utility operator or [a] lifeline utility" when they're undertaking an activity. It doesn't appear to me and to our broadcasting and communications spokesperson that that could include a telco. As far as I can tell a telco is not meeting a definition of a network utility operator; it may do—I don't think it does. So that's something the select committee will need to have a look at: is the definition sufficiently broad to enable telcos to go on to land? Because as we know communications were down for a long period of time in the East Coast area and it's going to be absolutely vital that these sorts of things can happen. That's I guess an example of where there are some things that we're doing in this bill that are temporary but actually they seem like a good idea anyway. I know that officials would say to Ministers "Oh well we need to do more policy work before we can perhaps make permanent changes to legislation." But actually for example allowing councils to meet by Zoom or local authorities to meet by an other-than-in-person means seems to me in the wake of the pandemic and what we know now in the emergency like a pretty sensible thing to do. Why would we have a sunset clause on that sort of change? We probably won't have time to address that in the two days we've got to consider the bill but I do think it's worth thinking about for the future. Now there's been quite a bit of feedback that my colleagues have received particularly from the farming community about their powers to be able to restore land or waterways to what they were pre-flood and the degree to which taking that action might put them at risk of them being in breach of the RMA. Up until this point it did appear that they would then need to go and get a retrospective application which if it was declined could put them in something of a quandary. The worry they have is that they are either putting themselves at risk or they will act too conservatively to actually get a recovery in a timely manner. I do note that the bill does provide for an ability to do that but it does have something of a sting in the tail potentially. There will be an amendment by way of new sections 331B and 331C I think in respect of the activities that they do need to take if they believe on reasonable cause that "it is causing or is likely to cause loss of life or injury to humans loss of life or serious detriment to the health or wellbeing of animals or serious damage to land or property"—that's all very important—and that the activity will after the passage of this legislation be deemed to be permitted unless they don't do the paperwork right is my reading of the bill—if they don't give the necessary written notices to the relevant consent authorities or they fail to comply with subsection (2) of section 331B. It does seem to be a little bit bureaucratic. I can just imagine a few farmers out in these affected areas who are not going to be paying too much attention to the paperwork once they know that they can go ahead and do the work that they need to do to correct waterways to remove silt and to clear other debris and create the conditions for better animal welfare. I just can't see them—if it's a permitted activity it's a permitted activity. Let's not punish them by having even a retrospective—an obligation to do it is fine but to deem that permitted activity "not permitted" just because they didn't do the paperwork I think is just a little bit hard. So I hope we hear tomorrow from the rural community perhaps Federated Farmers or other organisations that can take a look at this and see whether or not this is a risk that I perceive because the last thing we'd want is to have this bill passed and then not have the required effect. I think there is also a similar clunkiness in respect of the food regulations which basically says you can extend a registration if it's been expired only if you pay a fee and meet the conditions of the Food Act at sections 56 or 86B. Again that should be deemed to be the case if they were registered one day and compliant one day. Let's not get them jumping through hoops because it would appear that would undermine the expeditious nature of this clause. So there are things we can do to improve it I think. It's really important that we have that conversation tomorrow with submitters and officials so that we can make this the best bill it can be."