Sio WilliamSu'a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I am happy to rise in support of this bill and I too would like to acknowledge the Minister of Internal Affairs for driving this. I think even though he is a member of the Government that the fact that this work is coming to fruition is an example of somebody taking the lead of somebody just getting on with the job. I also want to acknowledge Ruth Dyson a colleague who chairs this particular committee the Government Administration Committee. And to be fair I am not a member of that committee but I do want to acknowledge all the members of the committee because just looking through this particular report it is a pretty comprehensive report. It deals with and raises a number of issues that no doubt those who made submissions would have raised here. Effectively what is happening here is that the New Zealand Fire Service the National Rural Fire Authority and 30 other rural fire authorities will merge to become one organisation and that will begin from 1 July 2017.As I listened to the speaker before me Paul Foster-Bell he repeated the name Fire Service". You know—and I hope that we will tease this out come Committee time—that the new name will be Fire and Emergency New Zealand. We will drop "service". I think we may find that that will be an issue of debate in the Committee stage because I think the dropping of the word "service" is almost in a way a slap to our men and women who provide the fire and emergency services for the safety and for the sake of the rest of our population.I want to go through this particular select committee process and just highlight some things that I believe cover some key issues that arose during the consideration of the committee and no doubt would have been raised by members of the public. I know that the Fire Service in my own constituency of Māngere when I spoke with the gentlemen there sometime back at the first reading of this bill were pretty supportive. They were looking forward to it.One of the first impressions that comes to mind when you are building an organisation is how you fund it because big does not necessarily mean it will be cheap. I note that in some of the preliminary papers that were made available the board chair of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission Mr Paul Swain a former member of this House said that "to successfully transition to the new organisation while maintaining the high standard of service delivery by urban and rural firefighters the Board expects the levy will need to increase by about $36.00 per year for the average homeowner or 70 cents per week." I suspect that during the select committee stage that would have been an issue that people were concerned about.So just from the report here one of the key issues that would have been raised is the local advisory committees. They are dropping "local committees" and now using "local advisory committees". I understand that the select committee felt that this was more appropriate because the committees are advisory in nature but local in their representative capacity. I note also that their report as I said earlier is comprehensive because they then go through as a committee and debate some of the issues: the functions of local advisory committees—and the committee has included a new clause 13A(2)(e) "to include consideration of operational service agreements and memoranda of understanding relevant to the local area." I think that is a key: "relevant to the local area."The committee also looked at guidelines for local planning and the committee is making recommendations that "local planning would include a specific fire plan for the local area." That is a key because I suspect rural areas will be quite different from urban areas. I know that in my own constituency—we are called the "Gateway to the Nation" the "Land of the Young Gifted and Beautiful" and "Home of the Champions"—you have got Māngere Bridge you have got Favona you have got Māngere central and you have got Māngere East. There are four specific areas. People are pretty parochial about their own little area there and that would be the same for a range of other urban areas. The select committee considered operating principles for local advisory committees that it was "important that local advisory committees be able to retain a certain degree of autonomy." and that "operating principles are for guidance only". Most people if they are elected or chosen or appointed for certain committees want to do the best thing. So I think having those principles as a guide is going to be important.Appointments to local advisory committees was discussed as was the levy regime for funding the new organisation. This bill allows "for the levy to be broadened to include insurance for material damage as well as for fire damage in order to better reflect the services that would be provided by [the new organisation]". So there are amendments in this bill that broaden the levy base and there are concerns which hopefully the committee was aware of in that broadening the levy to cover insurance on physical loss or damage—there would have been concerns.Some of the concerns that I understand were raised: that the relationship between the new organisation and the types of risk covered by this type of insurance is unclear that the levy payable and resulting costs would increase substantially in some instances and that there would be disproportionate increases in levy costs relative to risks. I hope that the Committee of the whole House will tease out some of those concerns and it would be good to note whether some of the submissions that raise these concerns could be made available.The select committee did say that it was "pleased that there is a requirement under clause 106 of the bill … to publicly consult on the making of levy exemptions and we consider that this would facilitate better public understanding of the potential benefits". This is critical that there be public consultation on levy exemptions and hopefully on the levy itself because in effect we are asking members of the public to pay for a service a public service. We might call it a levy but in effect it is a tax and therefore the people whom we are taxing should have a say in the increase in the levy and in the exemption and in anything else with regard to this particular levy.I also want to highlight for the benefit of the House that this is fundamental to why we pay taxes. I pay my taxes so that we can provide some of these public services. I pay my taxes so that we can ensure that we have a public education system a public health system and that we can provide housing. So the same principle that should have applied to some of those other key services is being spelt out openly and publicly in this particular bill. I am pleased that that is happening.I also note in the other issues here the "Power to require information" from the new organisation. Clause 86 will "require persons (levy payers or insurance intermediaries) to provide information that [the new organisation] considers necessary or relevant for administration or enforcement of the levy." I think that that is plain in itself. It is a levy it is a tax and therefore it needs to be open and transparent.In terms of "Levy disputes avoidance and exemptions" the committee's report covers that quite comprehensively. "Fire in the open air" is quite interesting because there was "concern about the fact that there is not an explicit provision in the bill for the use of fire as a land management tool." I see a hāngi or an umu as a land management tool so there needs to be some leeway for that. I am pleased that the committee has made it clear that fire can be used as a land management tool and is recommending some amendments to that. It goes on: as for fire seasons and fire permits there is a whole range of recommendations.As I said from the start I want to commend Ruth Dyson the chair of this committee and members of the committee for a pretty comprehensive report. They have dealt with a lot of the concerns that have come out but in the Committee of the whole House stage I would expect that we will tease out the reason for the dropping of the word "service" from the title and then we can debate a little bit more some of the concerns around the whole levy situation."