McAnulty KieranIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Just a brief call really first to acknowledge the Minister in the chair the Hon Kieran McAnulty but also to acknowledge the very hard-working members of his team—I suppose they're not his team really; they're our team—behind him who I think did a pretty amazing job in a difficult environment putting together a bill that has been discussed in the second reading; whilst to some people relatively contentious none the less absolutely necessary and my view is that a vote against this bill is effectively a vote against those people who have been significantly affected by the events of the couple of cyclones that went through the country.Chris Penk who's our spokesperson in this area has put together a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) relating to the bill which clearly were discussed—almost all these issues. In fact all the issues in the SOPs were discussed at various stages during the select committee and they've turned up in the form of SOPs here today and I guess they're probably—and I'm not speaking for the other parties—in all cases that I can see issues that you might have liked to include in this bill in an ideal world. This isn't an ideal world and I think if we ask anyone who's affected by the events of these cyclones their ideal world won't return for quite some time. To quote Gerry Brownlee—and a number of other speakers from earlier actually—in the debate on the second reading the things that this Act allows will not directly impact their lives for quite some time but none the less they will impact them and I think it's very positive.So I guess from my perspective—I don't intend to keep the Minister answering questions for ever—there are a number of SOPs in the name of Chris Penk on the Table today and one or two of them tests things that we discussed quite significantly at the select committee stage. I wonder whether the Minister might like to comment just briefly on the necessary or desirable" test which was discussed I think by almost every party in the course of those discussions in the select committee. I think that's an interesting point for the Minister just to elaborate very quickly on. As I said Mr Penk has put a number of other SOPs in the process today one requiring the Auditor-General's written opinion and that might be an issue that's worth discussing as well.So Madam Chair that's just a very brief comment from me on this and a couple of questions for the Minister if he wishes to answer them.Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): Thank you very much and I'd like to acknowledge the member Ian McKelvie and thank him very much for this comments and indeed his acknowledgment of the work that has been put in by officials and those that work here in the select committee. He's dead right that what this Parliament has asked of them over the last few days has been extraordinary and they have delivered at every step. So good on him for acknowledging that and I echo that sentiment.In regard to his comments specifically to Supplementary Order Papers 335 and 336 I'm more than happy to do a brief comment on that. But before I do that I just want to reassure him that we looked at every Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in great detail and where we were comfortable and where we were able to we have tried to incorporate that into the Government's SOP. In the areas where we haven't it doesn't necessarily mean that we disagree either. It's just that when we looked into it the advice was that what the SOPs were suggesting could be done by the bill as it stands. So we tried to be as collaborative as the National Party has been through this.But in regards to Supplementary Order Paper 335 proposing that "necessary or desirable" is replaced with "in accordance with the purposes of this Act" we did look into this. So "necessary and desirable" is the appropriate threshold for making orders under the Act and "in accordance with the purposes" is in essence the same as "necessary or desirable". But to get to the point we've been advised that there are over 200 statutes that use the "necessary or desirable" test and on that basis we were comfortable to keep it in the bill.In regards to Supplementary Order Paper 336 which proposes that the Attorney-General must assess whether Orders in Council are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—the Attorney-General must provide this assessment in writing—this would essentially create a pressure point as Orders in Council are developed. The Minister can determine the appropriate individuals and organisations to engage with including whether advice should be sought from the Attorney-General. This amendment therefore we didn't think was justified but again we appreciate the fact—as you could tell; there was a range of them—all of them were constructive and all of them were a genuine attempt to try and improve the bill in the point of view of the member."