Browning Steffan; Borrows ChesterSTEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Emergency Relief Bill. The earthquake has obviously affected everybody here but some of us maybe a little more personally. I had to evacuate straight away from Aorangi beach near Blenheim. I ultimately went down to Clarence almost as far as I could go on the Monday afterwards basically because we were aware of a flood potentially coming down the Clarence River that would potentially knock out homes and take lives of people when the lake that had built up behind a major slip into the Clarence River breached.At the emergency hub that morning I noted that they had no communications into Clarence at that stage but they had had a thumbs-up to the helicopters from every house although some of them were extensively damaged—totally written off I would say. When I got to Clarence that next day the thing that stood out in a way was the effect on water. Farmers' tanks had been ruptured. Their pipes that had solid offtakes had broken. They definitely will be replaced with flexible offtakes in the future. They had no stock water—and this was on very big farms. Waiau-Toa Station on the coastal side of the Clarence River was totally inaccessible because a significant bridge had gone. I noticed that on the 12 o'clock briefing paper that very first day they still had not noted that. This bill is very very relevant to that because the farmers and the landowners in that area have already pushed a road through on the south side of the Clarence to make sure that everybody can now get out. For a number of days that was certainly not possible. There is massive slippage and slumpage in that area from the Papatea Fault which has done major uplifting of the seabed in that area too. That has made the local crayfishermen not even be able to get their boats out because the ramps are lifted high and dry from the water. This bill will help those farmers with their retrospective Resource Management Act (RMA) work.That bridge when it fell up there probably diverted the Clarence River because it now flows across what was very productive pasture. I have photos of that in previous times. They have got an alternative route along the back but now there seems to be a permanent river flowing up above the old riverbed. Farmers can get in and make some recovery of that all the better from this bill. When I went down to Kaikōura by chopper on the Wednesday I was able to look down into there. Actually I dropped in three cartons of what was seen as top of the list then: Portaloo sanitisers were needed. They had the loos but nothing to stop disease or illness getting through Kaikōura. At Whale Watch Kaikōura we could see that those boats could get out only on a medium upwards tide. So again if we want that tourist industry to flourish we will need the application of this bill.Although this bill gives wider power or ability for things to happen that might not quite go to the extent of RMA consents and the likes it will be an obligation on everybody operating under it to still take responsibility to protect both the safety of people around them and the environment. We will be supporting this bill to select committee. It is a very necessary bill in its present state. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party—Damien O'Connor.