Doocey Matt: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10055. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a pleasure to take my first call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill in the Committee of the whole House. First I would just like to acknowledge everyone who has been involved with this bill through the legislative process. I feel like there has been a lot of listening and there has been a lot of learning. For my region of Canterbury it is quite a sensitive issue as well. I think where this bill currently lands is in a very good place.There are just a few things I want to talk more specifically on and that is around clause 23 and a few of the sections there—133ABB and 133AA. Basically I think where clause 23 is landing at the moment is giving people a framework. It is setting out very clear expectations and it is ultimately giving confidence. So I suppose when you look at section 133 around the three seismic-risk criteria it is very clear in that framework. It sets it out—high medium and low for identification of earthquake-prone buildings which is just under 34 percent of the new-build standard. There is 5 years 10 years and 15 years respectively and then the subsequent response stage for strengthening those buildings.In my electorate of Waimakariri it is very often canvassed that we call the earthquakes the Christchurch earthquakes but of course what happened in my region were the Canterbury earthquakes because an area like Waimakariri was very hard hit. But I would call it the tale of three towns because towns like Oxford Rangiora and Kaiapoi clearly demonstrate different layers of this legislation and specifically clause 23 about the impacts of the earthquakes. So when you look at Kaiapoi that was very hard hit. The impact of the earthquakes was very visible from the buildings. Then you go 15 kilometres to a town like Rangiora and you would look at the buildings on the high street and say that possibly they got away OK. But it was not until the buildings were inspected that they realised there were a lot of buildings under the 34 percent. Those investors or building owners invested heavily into those buildings to bring them back up to code.So I think what we need is a very clear framework that gives people set times and expectations because being a Cantabrian myself I probably would not have grown up in Christchurch thinking that we were at risk from such devastation. So we need some evidence-based approaches that will allow people to have a very clear framework of expectations. But it is not only that; it is then the continuum either side and the provisions inserted by clause 23 clearly talk about that in terms of the polar ends of the continuum of buildings that possibly do not need to be included and buildings that need to be prioritised.It probably sounds like common sense but one of them obviously needs to be hospitals. I worked for the Canterbury District Health Board—not at the time of the earthquakes—and colleagues would tell me stories of how they responded and provided health care services in the hospital in Christchurch at the time. They told me that they needed to ensure people were safe when things were falling off walls and out of ceiling cavities. It is common sense that you need a very structurally sound building for the continuation of health care services in a disaster. That is why health and education buildings are prioritised. I think we have listened and we have learnt about the inclusion of unreinforced masonry in terms of prioritisation for buildings. We know that there were a lot of fatalities and injuries caused by that in the Christchurch central business district and we have seen that in the Rangiora high street as well.Let us look at Oxford another town in my electorate. It was affected yes with earthquake-prone buildings but it does not have the commercial income that towns like Rangiora have. A lot of the farmers in that area are thinking about where they are going to find the money to fix up buildings or structures on their farms. Some structures would have no impact or potential harm to the public so we see in clause 23 the exclusion of farm buildings retaining walls fences bridges wharves—there are probably not too many wharves in the farms in Oxford—tunnels and storage tanks. So I think overall that clause 23 identifies the continuum and is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It is about understanding the best approach for that area.