Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. I too am pleased to support this bill because as somebody who comes from Christchurch we know how important the Earthquake Commission (EQC) has been. You know there's a little bit of love and hate that goes with EQC but I think it's really important that we understand that because we have the Earthquake Commission we have such a high percentage of people insured in New Zealand.Obviously we come from a country that has a lot of earthquakes and natural disasters. And if you compare us with Pacific Rim countries—such as the US in California or Japan—in those countries the insurance rates are down to about 20 percent. I've often thought during the times of 2010 and 2011 when we had very large community meetings and a lot of that discussion was about insurance just how those meetings would've gone—whereas nearly 99 percent of them had insurance at the time—if only 20 percent of them had insurance. So it's really important that we get this legislation right.It is a continuation of the work that was done under National. We started a review back in 2012 and then we went on to provide a discussion document. But it's actually only a first step and I'm a bit disappointed that it only covers some of the issues. Some of the complex issues that had been identified during the Canterbury earthquakes are not being considered in this bill.That discussion document had nine broad proposals and it covered multiple issues. And it's really important I think when we look at this sort of legislation that it takes a holistic view of the environment in which EQC works. So it is a bit of a shame that Labour has only picked up four of them.In saying that these are important issues. Three are no-brainers and they're generally supported by everybody. And when I say supported by everybody that's by EQC itself the insurance industry stakeholders and EQC customers. The first of course is to get rid of or get out of contents insurance—out of the contents insurance business. I think that is a good decision. Contents insurance simply complicates claims and at a time of natural disaster or emergency we need to be able to have an organisation that can focus on the big issues which is basically rehousing people and making sure they're supporting community redevelopment. So yes contents insurance should go and the insurance industry has assured us that they can provide that contents insurance at a reasonable price. So that's a good amendment.The second is to lift the cap of the limit payments from $100000 plus GST to $150000 plus GST. And as that cap hasn't been lifted since the Act was done in 1993 that makes sense as well and I think that's a good amendment.The third is the ability for EQC to share claim-related information—information that facilitates settlements and information that gives us knowledge about natural disasters perhaps how we can prepare for them how we can respond to them and how we can recover from them. Basically it's information about anything that could threaten public health or public safety. And I think this is a good amendment too. It doesn't change the framework but what it does do is encourages and enables a proactive release of information.But the last proposal is more controversial. That's about increasing the length of time to lodge a claim. The proposal is that it should be increased from three months to two years. And I have to say I do agree with the member Duncan Webb when he thinks that the Minister has got this wrong. I think they have got these wrong and I think the ramifications could be far-reaching. I really ask—Dr Duncan Webb: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I believe I was misquoted by the member then. I said—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry can you repeat that. Sorry I can't hear that.Dr Duncan Webb: I was misquoted by the member. I said it hadn't been got quite right and there was room for improvement.Hon NICKY WAGNER: I can continue?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Yes. We will deal with it.Hon NICKY WAGNER: Duncan Webb I apologise. I said that the Minister got it wrong; he said that the Minister didn't get it right so I can understand that. I agree with him under this and I think it's important that the ramifications of this which could have unintentional consequences need to be really teased out during the select committee process and I ask the select committee to do that.The problem about this is that over that length of time—over a two-year period—in Christchurch we had thousands of earthquakes and aftershocks. One of the most difficult issues throughout the time was the issue of apportionment which means: how do you identify which bit of damage was done by which seismic episode? That is significant because the difference about which comes from which episode often means who's responsible for paying particularly in terms of reinsurance. Then there's also the issue of how you manage the aggregation of damage from multiple events and then what do you do about the reinstatement of cover after one event and before the next? These are the really complex issues that caused a lot of heartache during the time of the earthquake so these do need to be certain. They need to be managed well and they are particularly relevant if you increase the length of claim period.We did learn an awful lot by the Christchurch earthquakes and it's important that this bill is updated in that knowledge. It's important that it's simplified and it's important that it's improved and that learnings are implemented. Unfortunately this bill actually only scratches the surface. Yes it does the obvious. It does the low-hanging fruit and we get a tick for that but in the longer term there are a whole lot of other important issues including appropriation reinstatement of cover and who should be managing the claim.Now one of the learnings from Christchurch has meant that the EQC has taken a different approach to claims in Kaikōura. There the insurers have managed the whole claim from the beginning and EQC has just paid out the portion of when it's necessary. This has proved to be a very successful method and I would really like to see this included in the bill as well.So in summary we do need to update the original Earthquake Commission Act 1993. National did look at this work. We did a review between 2012 and 2015. We produced a discussion document which covered nine broad areas. This bill only deals with four of them—three that are uncontroversial and the fourth which I do believe needs to be teased out in detail in select committee so that we get a good answer for the people of Christchurch.So National does support this bill but we would like to see it go further and we'd like to see it go further within a reasonable time frame because we do live in shaky isles. We do have regular earthquakes. We have tsunamis we have landslides and we need fit for purpose EQC legislation to support New Zealanders in the time of natural disaster. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.