Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13938] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 I want to respond to the legitimate request that the member who has just resumed his seat Clayton Cosgrove made about knowing more about what the process was. What was released to members today is a Cabinet paper that was put together to get the sign-off for the bill being drafted into a final draft shape. The process has been such that there was firstly consultation with the three district authorities concerned—Selwyn Waimakariri and Christchurch—and representatives from the legal teams from those councils engaged with legal teams inside each of the affected ministries. So there was a relatively short informal process. That process very rapidly threw up the fact that if we were to go down the track of having an exhaustive list of what would actually be required we would be some weeks away from getting a bill that would allow things to continue and that would in particular allow for the transition from a state of emergency to one of getting on with the job. 
Although it is the case that the written advice in these circumstances is thin the fact is that there was considerable discussion and considerable input from all those agencies. It was a considered opinion of the agencies in the end that we should go down the track of saying we should get a bill that would try to describe as much as possible some of the Acts that we think may need to be altered but that we should not make that exhaustive and that we should put in a process that means we can rapidly respond as needs arise over the coming months. That is essentially the process we went through. 
Although the member is quite right to say it is desirable that everyone is comfortable about where we are going with this the reality is that we are doing something that has never been done before. We are doing this because we are dealing with an event that has never happened before. We are dealing with it speedily as a Parliament because we know tonight that there are people out there who have no idea what the future holds for them. Much of the certainty they will require in the next short while will be dependent on us having the capacity to make decisions quickly so we can give them the comfort they need about the property they own their damaged houses or the infrastructure near them that might need to be repaired—we could go on and on listing such things. 
I think the comfort members should take in this bill is that it does have a very strong purpose clause. The purpose is well defined and no Minister will be in any way looking at this bill and thinking of it as an opportunity to abuse some of the powers in it. There will be lots of constraints around that particular activity not the least of which is our commitment to keep all parties in this House informed about how things are going and about the nature of the discussions around the reconstruction. 
I also suggest that the solution suggested to us by the Labour Party yesterday—that of using the shortened disallowance provisions currently in the pandemic legislation—is perhaps not the right way to go and that a system that could see an Order in Council brought back into the House for debate was a much better way to go. I suggest that if we ever got to that point we would have to be in the same sort of situation we are in at the moment where there is widespread acceptance that it was the right course of action or we would be in some trouble. So I do not think the concern that is being expressed about the widespread powers is reasonable. 
It certainly would be interesting to see the people who are advancing that view go down to the suburbs that are all broken up across the districts and to the shelters that are operating and explain to people that they need a little more time and a much bigger process before they can come along and offer help. I know that the member who asked the question is not suggesting that. In fact I know he is more acutely aware than many of the suffering that many Cantabrians are going through at the present time. I merely make that point in anticipation of some other contributions that may come later this evening. 
The question was raised as to why the Cadastral Survey Act is in the legislation. There has been an enormous amount of land movement during the earthquake. There is a possibility that a peg for a property has moved quite some distance from where the actual boundary lines should be struck. There should be no question that there will need to be some redrawing of boundaries some realignment and there may well need to be a faster process in place to give effect to those boundaries being determined. 
Many MPs have been contacted over the last few days by people expressing concern about the way in which property transactions since the earthquake have virtually stopped in the Canterbury region and the reason for that is these sorts of things. Once we get past the aftershocks and once we get into a zone where insurers and lenders are comfortable about normal business there will be a need to check to make sure that pegs have not moved and that boundaries have not artificially shifted. That is why the Cadastral Survey Act is in the legislation. 
Although this bill has as Mr Norman pointed out earlier some very broad catch-all provisions there is a genuine attempt under clause 6(4) to list the sorts of Acts that may—and I stress may—need to have an Order in Council applied to them in order for some small aspect of those Acts to be set aside suspended or changed as a result of efforts to remediate the worst effects of this earthquake.