Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a short call in this first reading debate on the amendment bill that's before the House in the name of the Hon Tracey Martin. It's a small technical bill and as my colleagues on this side of the House have already indicated National will be supporting this bill through to select committee. In doing so I think that we will be keen to see what kinds of submissions come through the select committee process. I suspect that they won't be too numerous because the bill as I said has a fine and detailed aspect to it. It's not a particularly controversial or indeed complicated piece of legislation. It simply amends the time frame for the setting up of the new levy-based system because it became apparent that more time was needed.I don't think that there's any question of blame about how this was required. This change to Fire and Emergency New Zealand was the first significant change to our fire and emergency service structure since the 1970s and before that much of what was already in place had been there for a good deal longer than the 1970s. So it's quite a big piece of change for those people involved in Fire and Emergency New Zealand.I'm very pleased to see that a small change that has been included in this bill relates to an exclusion from the levy liability for public museums galleries and those sorts of places where high-value collections are stored and protected for the benefit of citizens for visitors and of course for the future heritage of the country. It became obvious I think when the bill was first introduced and passed that the prospect of incredibly high insurance premiums on antiquities of immeasurable value would mean that an exclusion was required for organisations like museums and galleries. So I'm pleased to see that that has been included.I have the pleasure and honour of representing the Coromandel electorate in this Parliament. It's an electorate that is dominated by a range of beautiful towns and communities across the region. In each of those towns and communities there is a volunteer fire service and I am always humbled by the work and the commitment and the effort that is put in by volunteers. Throughout my entire electorate all the fire services are provided on a voluntary basis be they traditional volunteer fire brigades or rural brigades. They of course are now going through a transition phase of merging into the new entity. That at times can be challenging and is a bit of a journey for all those involved but I'm pleased to say that so far so good. Yes there are some challenges to get through but I've been very impressed with the level of goodwill in terms of moving this service forward.As somebody else mentioned earlier on in the debate the nature of the service has now changed considerably and I know that in my electorate these days regrettably increasingly the work done by Fire and Emergency New Zealand is actually for road accidents road crashes and that sort of thing. So the service needs to change in order to accommodate those changes to the work that is being done but I just wanted to place on record my grateful appreciation to volunteers not only in the Coromandel electorate but nationwide. They do a sterling job on behalf of their communities and us as New Zealanders. I commend this bill to first reading.