Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call in the Supplementary Estimates debate—and not quite tail-end Charlie but we're getting down to the bottom end of this Supplementary Estimates debate where the real quality comes out to play now. I want to really focus my comments in this debate on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).Just for the sake of the folks at home who are watching there are two bills that we're debating in this debate. I'm going to focus my comments on one of them which is the Appropriation (2022/23 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. Within that we have an amendment to that bill and it deals with the addition of half-a-billion dollars in appropriations specifically for the Government's contribution to the extreme weather events recovery programme.Now just to say right from the outset the Supplementary Estimates bill seeks appropriation by Parliament of the changes to the appropriations and the new appropriations for the 2022-23 year the financial year that is just drawing to a close. It's making changes to appropriations that were agreed by the Government between April 2022 and 2023 when the Supplementary Estimates were finalised. So that's what we're doing.But I want to dig down a bit into this half a billion dollars that's been appropriated for the cyclone recovery why it's been appropriated and how that money will be spent. Cyclone recovery Minister Grant Robertson announced on 1 June that the Government's entering into a funding arrangement with local councils in Tairāwhiti down the East Coast Hawke's Bay Auckland and other places like Coromandel and Northland that were so badly affected by Cyclone Gabrielle and in Auckland the anniversary weekend floods of 27 January. The payments are not going to be incurred expenditure's not going to be made in this financial year—there's not much of it left—but the accounting rules stipulate that once the Government's made a decision to do that it becomes essentially a liability and it has to be accounted for in this financial year hence the Supplementary Order Paper. This is a common occurrence I should say. These events do happen. They must be dealt with within the Government's accounting rules and that's what we're doing here.There is an historical parallel. In June 2011 the then National Government announced a buy-out scheme for the red zone properties in Christchurch in the wake of the earthquakes there. Those costs were—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh that was quick!Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —incurred they were spent but they weren't appropriated Mr Brownlee because no parliamentary authority was sought. I make no judgment about that. But this SOP that we're talking about today seeks to avoid a repeat of that unappropriated expenditure.I wanted to make a point that this appropriation is very significant. It's the practice in our country after events like the anniversary weekend floods in the aftermath for homeowners and property owners dealing with the destruction of in this case catastrophic flooding to pick themselves up and with the help of their insurers to get on with their lives to repair and rebuild. Normally what we do is we leave it to people and their insurers to get on and repair and rebuild and get on with their lives.Credit to Grant Robertson that very early on after the floods in Auckland and Cyclone Gabrielle it was clear to him—and he said to me at the time that he was of the view that it was not possible given the scale of the events; given for instance the multiple floodings that many residents had experienced in Auckland for example; the intensity of the flooding down in the Hawke's Bay—that we needed to treat this as an exercise in climate adaptation.I took the Hon Grant Robertson to Candia Road in Swanson in my electorate. I took him to Mayfair and Clover in Henderson one of the neighbourhoods in Auckland that was worst affected by the January anniversary weekend floods where people were waiting neck-high in water in the streets and in their homes after those floods. We walked around that neighbourhood and we spoke with local residents and the Hon Grant Robertson heard their stories first hand. This was when it was very raw in the days immediately after the flood.Credit to the Minister: I think he's taken an approach of great flexibility of great compassion and he's really been able to see the big picture and the need for Government to work—and Cabinet chose to work in a way that was locally led supporting and empowering local councils to deliver a recovery programme.It is fair to say that the Government system thought that climate adaptation was something that was becoming increasingly urgent we needed some legislation—Minister James Shaw is working on the climate adaptation bill right now—but the extreme weather events earlier this year made it clear that we needed to act now that we could not wait six months a year or two years to put in place the legislation.So this appropriation half a billion dollars is the Government's down payment on a massive nationwide climate adaptation programme to make the neighbourhoods safe again where our people learn.In my electorate in West Auckland about a thousand people on anniversary weekend experienced catastrophic flooding sometimes half a metre of contaminated flood waters inside people's houses and it's clear that there's a huge programme of work that needs to be done to make those communities safe again.This appropriation half a billion dollars will go towards the category 3 homes that will be under the system that's been put in place. I think there's an estimated 700 property owners nationwide whose properties face such severe ongoing flood risk or risk of landslip I think that there's no practical options for risk reduction and remediation and the only sensible option is to offer those people the prospect of a voluntary buy-out.Category 2: there's an estimated 10000 property owners and these are people who are living with ongoing serious risk of future hazards future disasters floods and slips where it's judged that it may be possible to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. That could be anything from fixing some failing infrastructure it could be clearing or reengineering the streams that flooded so many homes in Auckland it could mean lifting those houses up above the level of likely flood it could mean implementing a number of flood-resilient design features in the repair of those homes—10000 property owners. They are going to need some kind of financial assistance to undertake those measures as will the people who are eligible for buy-outs.There's been an estimate that the cost of those 700 category 3 homes will be around a billion dollars. Now much of that will come from insurance payouts. Undoubtedly those property owners will have to contribute something of their own to the value of the buy-out. But the Minister has made it clear that the Government is committing to work with councils to ensure that in the case of those 700 category 3 property owners they won't be forced to walk away losing the shirts on their backs. I think that's the right thing to do it's the rational thing to do to make these communities safe and resilient again and to look after people who in many cases through no fault of their own may have been exposed to catastrophic risk.Now there are category 1 people who will be deemed to be able to repair and rebuild. I wanted to take this opportunity to say to the councils who are delivering these recovery programmes that the flood-affected residents are desperate for action they want progress they want certainty. Our Government has fronted up with a policy framework and half a billion dollars to make this programme work and our communities affected by floods desperately need the councils to make quick progress to tell them what category they're in and start the work of actually reducing the flood risk in those places and getting on with the process of putting voluntary buy-outs in place.So thank you Madam Speaker. I finally just want to again give credit to cyclone recovery Minister Grant Robertson for his leadership in this really important area of work.