Woods Megan: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7581. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on this Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill and to signal that Labour will be supporting this bill at its first reading and supporting its referral to the select committee so that we can hear the expert advice and the range of submissions that I am sure will flood into that committee for this piece of legislation.As Minister Nick Smith who has just taken his chair has indicated this is part of a suite of legislation that is currently going through this House that is about the recovery of Greater Canterbury and Greater Christchurch—about how it is that we enter this next phase. Although it is a very small piece of legislation it is an important piece of legislation. Boundaries and how we record the boundaries round a property are actually incredibly important. For many people their home and their property is the greatest asset that they will ever own in their lifetime. The legal definition of that plot of land is important for so many things such as securing security from a bank over that piece of land and the ability to borrow against it so it is important that we get this right.What we do know is that the sequence of earthquakes that we experienced in Canterbury over the last 5 years has actually resulted in some quite significant shifts in our land and that we do have to now consider how it is that we are going to deal with this situation. The preferred option in the considerations that the Minister for Land Information the Hon Louise Upston gave was that we actually say that the boundary moved with the land. What we are talking about here are land movements over 20 centimetres. There actually were 11000 properties across Greater Christchurch that fall into this category. So if we stop and consider the magnitude of that and the amount that the earth moved for everybody in Christchurch we have had quite a 5 years on our hands.The concentration of these properties is not surprisingly in the parts of the city where we had the greatest earthquake damage. So the concentration is in the eastern suburbs particularly around the New Brighton area with pockets in the Port Hills area and in Sumner. I am sure that will be of consideration to my colleagues the Hon Ruth Dyson and Poto Williams when they talk to their local constituents about how it is that we look at that. Because when we actually consider the magnitude of this problem—those 11000 properties I am describing—that is actually excluding some of the worst-hit parts of the city because it is excluding the Crown-owned land in the residential red zone. So this actually is a significant problem that we do have to address and we look forward to this legislation coming through the House.There are some significant questions because this is so important. It is the basis of so many people’s security—their land—and where their land stops and their neighbour’s starts is incredibly important if we are going to avoid a number of disputes. We can see that a range of methodologies have been used over the last 5 years by surveyors. Because of this the bill offers indemnity to the surveying profession under clause 10 of the legislation. This is something that we want to examine closely at the select committee. You can absolutely understand the rationale of why it has been put in the legislation but we have to stop and ask some significant questions around this in terms of where liability will lie. If we are giving indemnity to the surveyors who carried out this work in good faith and in accordance with their profession but none the less there is an error where will the liability for those errors lie? That is something that I think the Local Government and Environment Committee will need to think about will need to listen to expert advice on and will need to give due consideration to.We know already that there are 300 properties in the Greater Christchurch area that the Surveyor-General himself has identified just through a desktop exercise as being surveyed on a basis different than the preferred approach—that is the language that the documents are using. So we already know that there are 300 properties out there that have to go and have some fix-up work done to them. So we will be looking at that. We will be looking at the issues around liability and who is liable for what because we know that there has always been a fund that does actually pay for fix-ups for the Crown on these issues.Minister Smith in his speech asked that the Local Government and Environment Committee give this piece of legislation priority. The Local Government and Environment Committee is a very very effective and efficient select committee that will give every piece of legislation priority. But one thing I do urge and I want to put it on the record is that we will give it priority but it needs to be seen in the context of the other bills that that select committee is currently working through and I am not referring to the workload of members here. What I am referring to are the two very significant Canterbury bills that are currently out for consultation at the moment one of which puts in place our governance arrangements for our regional council—a very significant piece of legislation. It is our little bit of democracy back—that is not. That is something that Cantabrians want to submit on.We also have a very fundamental piece of legislation that was heard in this House and has now been opened for submissions and that is the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill which itself is out for submissions at the moment and puts in place the transitional arrangements for how it is that we are going to regenerate our city and our province over the next 5 years. It is not work that can be rushed but none the less the Government has put both of these pieces of legislation through with what I think are less than preferable consultation periods. We have moved amendments to both pieces of legislation asking that we be able to give proper and due consideration to such important and fundamental legislation as it goes through. So the last thing that I want to see is any attempt to rush this legislation through because it needs to be seen just as the Minister described in his speech as part of a suite of policies and not something—the Canterbury package of legislation—that we can just dump on the people of Greater Christchurch and Canterbury and say: “Submit—think about all these things.” They need to be able to think about these things with due consideration.I notice in the regulatory impact statement that has come out with the bill that some consideration has been given to the consultation that this bill has gone through. So a sector group was formed including representation from Land Information New Zealand itself the survey profession insurers including the Earthquake Commission lawyers Christchurch City Council the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and that was convened in March of this year. I think as my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson has identified we have to ensure that we are giving property owners and residents the chance to be heard on this. There can be no greater stakeholders in this legislation than property owners and residents and we have to ensure as a Parliament and as legislators that we are properly engaging with this group and hearing any concerns that they might have.I want to hear what they think about the fact that surveyors have been indemnified. It might not be a problem but I want the chance to have under that group a conversation. I see in paragraph 96 of the regulatory impact statement that we have the feedback from CanCERN and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s public engagement team indicating that residents are primarily concerned that their property rights and physical property boundaries are maintained. Well take Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority as the body. That is a Government department. This is not the way we go and talk to residents and if you actually look at any kind of satisfaction ratings around that particular Government department you will see that that is not really the way to gauge what Cantabrians and people in Christchurch are thinking. In fact there could probably be a no more ineffective way to engage with the people of Christchurch and Canterbury than through the auspices of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.But this is the doozy; this shows how much time the select committee does have to spend on this. Direct engagement with property owners on the proposals will occur through the “In the Know” hub. The “In the Know” hub is a hub set up for people to go and seek advice around the Earthquake Commission and insurance issues. I say to any member on the Government benches that if you want to start having another conversation with someone who has been locked in a battle with the Earthquake Commission and their insurance company for the last 5 years and start indicating that their boundaries might have to change as well good luck to you. This is not an effective form of communication. We know how fraught this is. Only last week this facility actually had to be closed down because a resident threatened to go down there with a gun. This is not a place to start having other conversations; this is a place where very stressed and very fraught individuals are going to seek advice. To even suggest that this is a way in which we should be consulting on this legislation is just laughable and it is why the select committee has to be given good time to have proper consideration of this.Labour will be supporting this bill at its first reading. We think it is important that we get the sequence of legislation right.