Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm pleased to have a brief call on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. The previous speaker Ian McKelvie referred to future inquiries. Well of course Minister Parker noted that the Minister responsible for this bill the Hon Megan Woods—there is a further major inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC) planned and there will doubtless be quite significant changes to the principal legislation as a result of that. But in the meantime this bill is typical of the work that the Minister the Hon Megan Woods is doing. It's a very good bill. It's a common-sense bill. It's good to see that National is supporting it because of course two of the changes that are in the bill in terms of both the increased cap and the removal of EQC insurance cover for contents were part of the recommendations that came out of the review in 2015 and were flagged by the previous Government. The removal of the requirement for EQC cover for contents is a good measure to ensure that claims are dealt with more speedily after natural disasters because of the huge number of claims that came in after the Canterbury quakes that related to contents and of course it recognises that while the loss of belongings and damage to those is extraordinarily stressful it is a lot less than the loss and damage to homes. So that makes sense. The increase in the cap on residential building cover from $100000 to $150000 plus GST—that also makes sense because it hasn't changed since the Act came into force.One of the other major changes was enabling a much longer limit for the lodging of claims and it was really pleasing to see the work that was done by the Finance and Expenditure Committee here because the bill as introduced provided for that limit to be extended up to two years but the select committee proposed that there be an ability for Government to pass regulations to allow EQC to accept claims beyond that two-year limit if the damage couldn't reasonably have been discovered within the time or if there was absence incapability or other disability. It also allows the ability for Government to pass regulations that in exceptional circumstances EQC could also accept claims longer than two years. Of course the claims still do have to be lodged as soon as practicable but it was something that the Ombudsman had said several times—that the limit for lodging claims should be extended. Again in the area of information sharing the changes in the bill here are to assist the EQC in sharing information to reduce the risk to public health or public safety. Again the select committee adopted some useful changes as a result of the submissions. There were only a small number of submissions on the bill—some 16 and I think only about nine of those went to a hearing. But again it showed the benefits of the work of the select committee ably chaired by Parliamentary Under-Secretary Michael Wood. The new framework in the bill for requesting information from EQC and encouraging EQC to share claim-related information will encourage more proactive release by the commission.So it's a small bill but it is a good bill and it presages further work that will come out of a much wider review of the legislation and recommendations there. So I commend the bill to the House.