Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you very much. At the heart of this bill—and I understand what the member proposing this is trying to do—is trying to address the imbalance that exists between two parties to a contract. In New Zealand we found during the earthquake sequence in Christchurch in Canterbury that we are some of the most insured people in the world and we have a trust in the contract that we make with our insurer that when things go wrong we have an expectation that that contract will be honoured. What we found in Christchurch—and I know this intimately well because I've had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families come and sit in my office—is that the weight of power that sits within the insurance industry is strong and powerful. And in a case like what happened in Christchurch—and I'm sure what also happened in Kaikōura which is why the member has brought this bill to the House—the power imbalance is way too strong for ordinary New Zealanders to fight against.Having a date to actually accept a claim does not deal with the basic unfairness of this which is that from that point on as a claimant you are basically not in negotiation; you're actually in battle with the insurance company. The insurance company is doing its best to settle for the least amount and you as the homeowner are doing your best to get what you want which is your home repaired. Many of the difficulties that we had in Christchurch with constituents in Christchurch East—and remember in my part of town we lost the most homes. The difficulty that we had was actually in establishing our rights as homeowners to have what was in our insurance policies whether that was you know total replacement or as new. These were issues that were debated for years and years and years. In fact I still have a small cohort of constituents who are still on my books; we are still battling to get their homes repaired nearly 10 years since the first earthquake.Now that's got nothing to do with the acceptance of the claim. It has got everything to do with the settlement process and it has everything to do with the imbalance between Earthquake Commission and the statement of whether you've gone over cap or not as a as a claimant. All of these things contribute to the delay whether you actually have your house repaired and it's repaired appropriately and your house is actually fixed or whether you have to go back and have your home repaired not once not twice—and in the case of one of my constituents three times—before your house actually is repaired. She was in her 80s that particular constituent. I get what is trying to happen here I get that this is trying to redress the balance but we are talking about something that is far more complex than just putting a date to set to accept a claim.I want to talk a little bit about what happened for one particular family and that was with a claim to Southern Response. This is kind of atypical of the claims that my office represented. We had to find engineering reports we had to do things like hydrology reports we had to find a whole lot of information to stack up the argument that this family had that their house was not repaired appropriately and it was going to cost a lot more than the insurer was willing to settle for. There were things that happened in Christchurch that should never ever happen again. You should always lift the carpet to check if the foundations have been damaged and that was one of the things that during the scope of works process didn't happen.So while I commend Stuart Smith for wanting to address this issue and it is a real and live issue I'm sorry we won't be supporting this bill on this side of the House.