O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): When a bill goes through a good process you tend to get good legislation and I think that this has been a good process even though it has been a truncated one. In the end we have got a good bill. The submissions I thought were particularly well focused as they tend to be when you get a truncated process and many added a valued perspective and some really quite useful suggestions. All parties worked very well together on the Local Government and Environment Committee so that after a lot of hard work I might say consensus was reached on virtually all of the changes to the bill. That was very ably assisted by Scott Simpson's very capable chairmanship and I do not think the consensus would have been so easy without that. I also want to express my appreciation of Minister Brownlee's willingness on this occasion to listen to discuss in person and to accommodate changes the Opposition parties had sought. But my special thanks go to the officials and to the support staff whose really hard work late at night was very sincerely appreciated I am sure by all of us. Going into the consideration of this bill New Zealand First did have three areas of concern. These have now been addressed in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) changes that we have before us on SOP 255. The first of those that I raised was the purpose clause which clearly did need some work and some clarification especially around the need to facilitate the restoration of the environment as far as practically possible in the circumstances of course and a new clause was added to that purpose. I am relieved actually that no attempt was made to define what we mean by the term environment" because I think these days that is clear enough. The clause also covers economic recovery planning and rebuilding and the economic social and cultural well-being of communities. The expression of purposes in the bill is actually very important because it is referred to in other provisions in the bill relating to the scope of the powers under the bill and their checks and balances.The second issue that we thought was important was clause 16 which has now been deleted and replaced with something else. But that related firstly to the addition of new council districts and regions and that will now no longer be possible without new legislation. That is appropriate when you bear in mind that paragraph (c) of the definition of the term "earthquake-affected area" in clause 4 includes "the areas of other districts or regions that contain transport or other infrastructure". That means you could actually go quite some distance beyond the defined areas covered by the bill provided it relates to effects on transport and infrastructure. So it is actually quite a wide-ranging area for the bill.This is not generic legislation and the areas actually covered by it are already vast so it is appropriate that new legislation should be obtained if significant events or effects arrive later in areas outside those listed in the bill. So I think that we have done the right thing with regard to this piece of legislation as far as the addition of other districts or regions is concerned which would require new legislation.The second issue was that other Acts in addition to those listed in schedule 2 which already contains more than 40 enactments cannot be added to except if the near-consensus of all political parties is obtained. I think that was a very good compromise that was suggested by Minister Brownlee and it was readily adopted by the select committee.The third issue was the limitation on appeal rights. We had expressed concerns as other parties had about how broad subclause (3) of clause 8 appeared to be. That has been addressed pretty well I think by new subclause (4) which has been added so that it is clear that the courts are not prevented from determining whether an order is authorised by the Act.I have only a few more comments to make actually because those are the three main areas that New Zealand First had concern about. As I have said they have all been addressed and properly addressed in the amendments that we see before us on Supplementary Order Paper 255. There were a number of other worthwhile changes made which New Zealand First also supported especially around the all-important panel to review and advise the Minister because that I think is in fact the most important of the checks and balances provided for in the bill. It was important to get that right and I think we now do have it right.So with all those changes New Zealand First is now very satisfied with the bill. We seek no other changes and we will vote in favour."