Salesa JennyJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm often called James and Jim as well. I don't mind at all. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill and I am certainly delighted to follow the ACT Party member who has offered the ACT Party's support for this bill. As I understand it it looks like we have support from all the parties in this House which is really great to see tonight as peace and harmony has broken out in the last few minutes of a Tuesday evening. I'd like to acknowledge the Minister the Hon Barbara Edmonds for her work on this bill and also the Hon Jan Tinetti a very good friend of mine for her work on this bill previously. The select committee the Governance and Administration Committee of which I am a member ran the submission process. We had a number of submitters with very useful submissions and we have made some changes to the bill based on those submissions. And those changes are practical and they appear to be well received across the House. I'd like to thank those people who regularly do submit on bills in Parliament. It is a very important part of our democracy and as I travel around the country talking to people I always encourage people to make submissions on bills because it genuinely does make a difference. Sometimes people say Well look there's no point in making a submission; the Government's made up their mind." or if it's a member's bill "They've put it through; they've made their mind up." Well that's not the case. The parliamentary process works in such a way that we have select committees where we hear from members of the public and that's their chance to make submissions and for us to consider them and that's what's happened on this bill. We have a collegial committee which is an enjoyable committee and it was good to work on this bill. I'd like to thank the staff who supported the submitters through that work. The bill makes important changes to improve the insurance-based levy framework in the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) Act. The changes to the levy framework will ensure the collection of the FENZ levy is simple and easy to administer and that's important. Often in our society we can tend towards becoming too complex at times. It's important that we continue to check ourselves and go "Well have we got the balance right?" in terms of having the correct processes in place but also making sure that the systems we have are workable And it's important for us as politicians and as officials to continually look at that. If you go back to what some would call the good old days things were sort of fairly loose and people would do what they wanted to do and these days we're moving a little bit tighter for various reasons but it is important that systems are workable. And I often hear that from the public so I'm pleased to see that the Minister has focused on the aspect around ensuring the levy is simple and easy to administer. The best systems are always simple. This bill will reduce extra costs and disruption to the system which is important in terms of the efficiencies that we have in the system. The changes continue to adhere to the funding principles set out in section 80 of the FENZ Act. So look it's a really good piece of legislation and again it's really nice to have the support of those across the House. I'll just close by also echoing the statements that we've heard in the House: our genuine thanks as members of Parliament for all of the work that the Fire and Emergency staff do across New Zealand—selfless work; they give freely of themselves to serve all New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m."