Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I expect I might have a slightly longer call than that speaker who spoke before me from Hamilton East but I'm here to speak in the third and final reading of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill. This bill does two things really. One is that it changes the disclosure requirements in terms of official information for local government and it brings it into line with the Official Information Act and the reason for that is because there are reasons why certain information should not be released if it's likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government of New Zealand. There have been concerns raised that information regarding matters of national security that should be shared with local government potentially isn't being shared with it and local government is not seeking that information. The third concern is that information may be provided that could potentially affect the international relations of New Zealand and/or prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand. So these things are covered already under the Official Information Act but they're not specifically covered in respect of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and this bill will bring those into line with each other so that that particular concern is addressed. There have been some issues raised that there is an increasing number of reasons that the information may need to be shared with local government and so this tidies that up. I stress that it is bringing it into line with existing law in the Official Information Act. The second thing that this does is it brings in some changes to the land information memoranda—otherwise known as LIMs—that local government will provide to prospective property buyers. In particular if we have a look in clause 8 at what will be the new section 44B Natural hazard information to be included in land information memoranda" we see that it will be "(a) natural hazards: (b) impacts of climate change that exacerbate natural hazards." and this information is to the extent the information is known to the territorial authority. So that's addressing that. If the territorial authority isn't aware of it then they don't have to provide that but if they are aware of it that will need to be included on the land information memoranda which will then be available to prospective purchasers to make decisions about their purchase or otherwise. There is also new section 44C in clause 8 and that states that regional councils must provide territorial authorities with natural hazard information. It largely replicates the one I spoke to before but the information which the regional council must provide as soon as reasonably practicable is to provide the territorial authority within or partly within its region with information about each natural hazard and each impact of climate change that exacerbates natural hazards and affects land in the territorial authority's district. There is a provision also in the bill that a territorial authority or regional council is not liable in civil or criminal proceedings for making available in good faith that information that I referred to regarding natural hazards and each impact of climate change that exacerbates natural hazards. So this provision is to ensure that there is full information or at least fuller information available to prospective purchasers of property. We certainly have seen particularly on the East Coast of the North Island this year some particularly big weather events that have had quite significant impacts. It has been the case—I've just read it myself—that in terms of some of those regions local government have had information that they've identified in the past and issues from rainfall events that have occurred in the past as well and this is ensuring that more of that information hopefully is made available to prospective purchasers so that they're aware of what they're getting themselves into when they buy. So there are two relatively straightforward changes with this bill but they will have some significant impact particularly with regard to the land information memoranda that my colleague spoke to earlier. Thank you Mr Speaker."