Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): This bill as was said by the Minister across the floor Scott Simpson certainly is a minor amendment and Labour supports it as it is common sense. It is a minor amendment but it is for a very important reason and as the Minister explained there is currently a parallel process happening to the existing strategy. The strategy of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management is undergoing its normal process of creating a new strategy as its 10 years is up but we have had a number of very significant emergency events happen in this country particularly in the last year and since the Christchurch earthquakes in 2012 from which many of the lessons have not been properly learnt and appropriate changes not implemented to ensure that New Zealand is much better prepared for future events.It is a due to a technicality really that we are standing in this House today because the new strategy is supposed to come into effect next year but it cannot if we are undergoing the parallel process—as explained by the Minister—of the technical advisory group which was set up quite urgently a few months ago to have a really hard look at how New Zealand responds to and deals with emergencies and at what some of the big sticking points are that are putting us at risk.We support this. The strategy that we are talking about—this is the strategy I am holding here—was implemented 10 years ago in 2008 I think signed by the Hon Rick Barker who was then the Minister of Civil Defence. I think one of the questions that has to be asked—and I hope that the technical advisory group may be thinking about this—is whether 10 years to have a strategy in place in a country like New Zealand which has increasing numbers of emergency events is actually too long a period for one strategy to be in place and whether that strategy should be and could be looked at on a more regular basis.I want to make a couple of comments in this first reading about the reason why this parallel process the technical advisory group is undertaking is actually occurring. It is actually occurring because of some major stuff-ups that have occurred during emergency events and it is occurring because of pressure that has been put on the Government by Opposition parties and because of questions that have been raised through some good reporting in the media about some of the questionable decisions that have been made the communication issues that have emerged and the importance of New Zealand having the best intelligence and the best information with which to make decisions.This technical advisory group is due to report by the end of this month. We urge that there be no delays. It must report before the election because it must not end up shoved under the carpet for some months. It must report so that the political parties going into this election can take the best-possible approach to civil defence going forward and that includes funding Geonet 24/7 a tsunami alert system that works decision making and authority for decision making sorted capability that is consistent across the country and better communications and intelligence. All of these are issues that I have raised on behalf of the Labour Party over the last 12 months and I hope that we can put in place the changes that are being recommended as quickly as possible and that those recommendations are the best-possible recommendations.Labour supports this legislation. We want to see changes to civil defence happen and happen soon.