O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): While I was not a member of the Government Administration Committee I speak like most Kiwis I guess with some passion about the service which is an amazing part of our community. It was mentioned by my colleague before the fact that the Fire Service was fighting floods gives an indication of the scope of responsibility that they have in this country.In regard to Part 2 the issue here of penalties which are not inconsequential—imprisonment for up to 2 years or a fine not exceeding $300000 if you do not adhere to some of the requirements around effectively getting permits for fires. A fire in the open air is prohibited unless you effectively get a permit and abide by the conditions of the permit which are reasonable and understandable. One thing I discovered over the last summer was fire pits. We are not so familiar with them in New Zealand; we tend to just have a barbecue light a fire and throw all the wood on. But other places around the world have pits—they dig a hole to make a pit. I am not sure whether that still means that we will have to have a permit for those or not. It is a genuine question. I think with this level of fine here—someone on a rural property might dig a small pit and have a fire. Rightfully in areas of I guess less rainfall which is the top end of my electorate rather than the bottom there are people who are scrutinising any possible smoke or fires right through summer. We are I guess upgrading the legislation but it will be interesting to hear the answer from the Minister on this.The other issue I go to under Restricted activities" in clause 52(2) states: "A person has notice that an activity in an area is restricted if the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the activity is restricted in that area." The implication is that if you think it is not right to have a fire then you should know about it and therefore you have no defence. I guess with social media and a whole lot of different methods of communication the question has to be asked of the Minister: what do we consider reasonable notification? If they are to reasonably know does that mean an ad in a local paper once a season saying that you have got to get a permit before you have a fire or does that mean regular ads that you sometimes hear on the radio? If you get it wrong you can be fined up to $300000 and it is a bit scary for people. That is another question that perhaps the Minister might answer.My experience as I said not being on the committee and not being a fire person is that I have lit a lot of fires—a lot of very big fires. I worked in Australia. If you go to the racecourse at Caloundra which is on the Sunshine Coast—indeed I was on the first bulldozer to clear the first tree when we were clearing that whole area. In that process we had a large number of fires and some of them got out of control. So I am acutely aware while in a slightly different environment of the possible dangers of fires that can get out of control and the potential costs involved. The upgrading through Part 2 of this bill is something that I understand but there are some technical questions that as I say I have put to the Minister.I have moved on into other parts of Subpart 2 clause 59. They have taken out the word "fire" from "fire brigades" and called them industry brigades. I am assuming that this does cover brigades or services at airports or is that covered under the Civil Aviation Act? The reason that "fire" has been taken out is something that I do not quite understand. I guess we could say that in the normal scheme of things brigades cover a whole range of things from cats and trees to car accidents and could rightfully be called community brigades—emergency brigades perhaps more accurately.The next issue coming down to Subpart 3 and just skimming through the legislation is the issue of water supply. Water is a very topical issue across the country at the moment. I skimmed through here and noticed that there are requirements for testing of the adequacy of firefighting supplies. They will test the volume and the pressure but there is no reference to quality. Everywhere else in the country we are talking about water quality whether it is coming in or going out. So I am wondering whether there are requirements. Is it just around basically the water that will come out of a pipe for fighting fires or is it the management of the water post fire? Anything you spray on obviously you often have to deal with contaminants. I cannot see here any extra provisions or new provisions in this legislation that deal with possible contaminated water that might flow from fires. Indeed maybe the people on the select committee or the Minister could answer the question as to whether that was considered and why it was rejected because nothing I read here relates to water quality.I just go back a step to clause 63 and the issue of a code of practice being required for firefighting water supplies. As I read it these have to be consulted on so I guess the community will generally know where the water comes from submitted to the Minister published and notified. Of course it does have to be presented to the House of Representatives under section 41 of that Act. I am assuming that we may see many many codes of practice—documents—presented to Parliament that outline how communities will get their water supply for their fire service. That is my reading of the legislation. It seems quite an onerous task for community fire services up and down the country if that is indeed the case. In fact it is going to be a bit onerous for the Clerk of the House to receive all these and to process them.They are just some of the questions that I have relating to Part 2 of this bill. While they are seemingly technical issues in the end every one of these provisions will have to be implemented by someone at a cost. Someone will be involved in the development of these things. I hope that we are not placing an unreasonable burden on communities and on individuals in the communities to carry this out. I know that we are going to one service. I am not sure whether it will be the paid or unpaid part of the service that will be obliged to implement all the provisions that we are laying out here in Part 2. Maybe the Minister can take a call and clarify some of those things for the Committee. I will leave it at that."