Simpson ScottSCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a real pleasure to stand in this third reading debate on this bill which members of my committee have been working so hard and diligently on for pretty much the whole week. If you do not mind I seek the indulgence of the House just to tell an interesting story because this has been by any measure a momentous and historic week for Parliament and also for New Zealand. On Monday morning when this bill was being worked through diligently by the Local Government and Environment Committee Government members at about 12.15 p.m. having done several hours work on the committee received text messages from the whips inviting us to attend a teleconference call which was due to take place in a few minutes. So we suspended the meeting with the leave of Opposition members I might add who were very curious to know what the purpose and the portent might entail. So what happened was that Government members retired to a neighbouring committee room. We put a cellphone on to speaker mode and we heard the news—which now of course is very well-known to us all—that the Rt Hon John Key was going to resign his role as Prime Minister of New Zealand after 8 years.So then we were in an interesting position as committee members because we then had to return to the committee room apply our very best poker faces and sit before Opposition members as we continued to go through the fine detail of an important piece of emergency legislation. For Government members the real interest came about half an hour later when Opposition members' phones started pinging and going off. We thought that was quite interesting. We did have the good sense I think to suspend the meeting a little early for lunch so that members could go and attend to the new world that we found ourselves in.The committee has worked really diligently over the course of this week and I too want to join with other members who have in the Committee stage of the debate and earlier in this third reading part of the debate thanked very sincerely our officials and our committee staff for their work. They really did push the boat out and burn the midnight oil and all those sorts of metaphors for going a very long way more than was required of them. I think it is symptomatic of our Parliamentary Counsel Office staff our select committee secretariat staff and our advisers in this case from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. We in this Parliament are very fortunate to have the dedicated professional support of such a wonderful team of very committed professionals who do extraordinary work for us as parliamentarians sometimes at very short notice but also ultimately for the people who will benefit from the passing of this legislation; the people who have been affected in Kaikōura Wellington and other parts of the country as a result of the earthquakes that took place—I guess it is getting on nearly a month ago now. These are people who took time in some cases to make submissions to us—both orally and in writing—at very short notice and who put aside some of the work that they and their colleagues were doing to take time to submit to us and I am very grateful to them for doing so. They added immeasurably to the ultimate bill that we are debating this afternoon. The bill is actually constitutionally quite important. It seeks to do a number of things that are an extraordinary extension of the powers of the executive by Order in Council. But they are an extension of those powers for extraordinary and unusual circumstances. I think that there was absolute unanimity around the select committee from members across the House on the need for this legislation. Nobody thought for one moment that this legislation should not proceed. But as a committee what we were keen to test and ensure was that the safeguards—the appropriate and relevant safeguards—could be incorporated into the legislation in a sensible pragmatic and meaningful way that meant that the legislation could achieve the legislative flexibility that is required from it but at the same time provide the constitutional safeguards that a bill like this really demands.I heard the Hon David Parker speaking earlier in the Committee stage about his lack of support for so-called generic legislation—a piece of legislation that we might be able to have on the shelf ready for some kind of future national crisis or emergency and then just flick a switch and turn it on. I share the concern and the reservations that the Hon David Parker has about that kind of legislation. I do not think that we as a Parliament could set aside a piece of legislation that would actually be all-encompassing and to meet every situation every criterion of an emergency—civil natural or whatever—that might confront us. But I think that what we have learnt as a result of the situation that occurred 5 years ago in Canterbury and Christchurch and now as a result of what is known technically as the Kaikōura sequence of earthquakes is that we as a Parliament have actually come quite a long way in getting our heads collectively around what is required to provide quick rapid response legislative initiatives to ensure that the people on the ground the business people and all those affected can get back on their feet. What this Parliament needs to do is to ensure those things can occur in a speedy prompt and efficient way. This is the third piece of legislation in a suite of legislative initiatives that assists those very good and proper objectives of assisting the people of Kaikōura and beyond.I took particular note of the very good contribution of the local member Stuart Smith earlier in this debate. I think as we sat in what was effectively a cloistered bunker in the bottom of Bowen House while all sorts of momentous and historic political events were swirling around us the committee needed to hear the sorts of words that came from Stuart Smith and the sorts of things that I suspect we will hear from Rino Tirikatene shortly—words about what it means to people on the ground: real stories real people and real situations. The committee needed to hear what it means to individual home and property owners what it means to individual businesses what it means to communities and what it means to those who are providing emergency services—both first response and also civil. We heard great submissions for instance from an invited and selected small group of submitters. They were able to at short notice give us some really useful information on the ground that was practical and that was helpful to us in our deliberations.The working of the committee I am pleased to say was collegial and I think epitomised the very best of our Parliament. It is a piece of work that very few people will have seen and most New Zealanders never get to see that kind of work that occurred in the Local Government and Environment Committee this week. It was further and helpfully facilitated by the willingness and preparedness of the sponsoring Minister the Hon Gerry Brownlee to actually speak to the committee and I as chair was very grateful for him doing that. It helped us cut through some stumbling blocks that we had got to—little roadblocks that we had got to—and in a very short period of time we were able to remove those roadblocks in a very practical and useful way that was helpful to the committee and has helped us produce the bill in the form that it appears before us today.This is a very good sensible piece of response legislation. It is measured in its effect it is limited in its power but it does give us and the communities that we are trying to support the flexibility that is needed to help them get back on their feet. I absolutely and very proudly commend it to the House.