Stanford Erica; Williams PotoERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I am really happy and proud to take a call on the second reading of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. This is the first bill that I've been involved in via the select committee process and it was a fantastic introduction to how well parties from all sides of the House can work so well together.Firstly can I thank Deborah Russell. She was our chair—fellow 2017 newbie—who did a fantastic job of guiding us through this process. Environment Committee members worked collaboratively and with a shared purpose and the outcome was a bill that has some changes that reflect a balance of views that we heard from the submitters.I heard the word healing" not only from Marama just now but many times in the select committee process and for me that was the word that summed up the combined purpose that we all felt on the select committee. The perspective that I brought to the select committee and to this debate is one of a non-Cantabrian. Although I lived in Christchurch for a year while at university and I fell in love with that beautiful city I cannot in any way claim to know how Cantabrians feel or start to imagine what they went through.The select committee however had some true-blue Cantabrians on it—and some true-red Cantabrians as well. The contributions from Nicky Wagner Matt Doocey Ruth Dyson and Duncan Webb reflected their commitment to Christchurch their knowledge and their understanding of the wider context and the background to this legislation.We were given a very short time frame to consider this bill and we did an exceptional job in only a couple of weeks. It is important to note however that the two-week select committee process was truncated. However in regards to the work that has already been done in this area we believe that those two weeks were sufficient to finalise the legislation. And despite the short time frame that we had can I say that after this select committee process I have a number of new understandings and appreciations one of which is how very important the Christ Church Cathedral is to the people of Canterbury.It was my initial task as a member of this select committee to understand the wider context of the issue of the reinstatement and to understand the background to this very important bill. Six years ago Christchurch's devastating earthquake changed lives for ever. The devastation that occurred to the cathedral was immense and it has come to be seen as a symbol—a poignant visual reminder of what happened that day. Through this process I came to understand that the reinstatement of the cathedral will be symbolic in its own way. It will be a symbol of healing and a symbol of moving forward. There are of course many people who feel passionately about the cathedral who were prepared to go to great lengths to put forward their views and understandably so. However after six years it is time to move forward time to get this project under way and time to heal.The wider context of this bill and something that was very much on the minds of the select committee members was the deliberations the litigation and the inaction for six long years that was holding up any work around the cathedral because of these competing passions. In 2016 the Cathedral Working Group brought together all sides and prepared a report which was the basis of a compromise between all of those competing parties. It's really important that I take the time at this point to acknowledge my colleague Nicky Wagner for all her work in Christchurch to bring together all sides to come to this agreement. This report is a testament to her hard work over many years.Our initial discussions in select committee were very much around the working group's report. It was our intention to refer to the report in this bill so that the good-faith negotiations that took place would not be undermined and would not be compromised. We considered it vital that any person reading the legislation should understand the context in which this came about. We wanted to be clear that the approach that the bill proposes comes out of a long period of negotiation the success of which was assisted by two key reports that were facilitated by the Government. One of these was the Cathedral Working Group Recommendation Report of 2016 and so we had this written into Part 1 of the bill as part of the background to the bill. New clause 2A(2) reads "The proposed reinstatement is the culmination of a long period of facilitation negotiation and investigations … intrinsically linked to [the] 2 key reports facilitated by the Government including the [Cathedral Working Group] Report."So the mention of this working group report was a major consideration for us on the select committee. We wanted to ensure that these negotiations undertaken in good faith were recognised as the foundations to this bill and I believe that the insertion of the working group's report in Part 1 of this bill achieved what we were after in terms of recognising that report. It was always important to us to make it known to all parties who have been involved in the cathedral deliberations and involved in the Cathedral Working Group report that this report will be the basis of future work.The committee received 28 submissions and we heard seven in person both in Wellington and in Christchurch last week. For the most part the submissions were in favour of the bill and called for some adjustments. The general themes from the submitters were around justification for the bill's enabling powers the need for clear purpose and definitions to ensure an appropriate reinstatement judicial review and time line the process for engagement and participation and the potential need for other enactments to be included in schedule 2.But the crux of the matter for me came down to the urgent need to get the cathedral reinstatement process under way and to start that healing process I talked about versus the potential precedent-setting of giving wide-ranging Order in Council powers to override a number of Acts to a Minister in a non-emergency situation. The committee considered both sides of this issue very carefully and I can say that all members of the select committee worked collaboratively to balance these competing issues. One of the submitters was the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee who were particularly concerned with a few matters in particular that there had not been a showing of sufficient urgency to enact this legislation now and with a shortened process. It was their view that this situation wasn't akin to other situations where such legislation had been introduced such as Kaikōura. It was their opinion that we should consider waiting for a detailed proposal for reinstatement which hasn't been completed yet so that a more tailored bill could be put in front of the House and that would contain specific consents that would be required for reinstatement. In their view it would limit the powers further that we're giving the Minister under this legislation.These were all issues that the committee considered very seriously and in fact some of those issues came up in other submissions. One of the considerations that the select committee came to was that this is very complex and frankly it's a massive project. Some of the work that will need to be undertaken will have never been done before and will require new and innovative techniques. Needless to say there will be many unknowns many challenges and many issues that arise that will not have been foreseen in the detailed proposal. The select committee were of the view that even a detailed proposal completed in advance of any legislation would most likely be—that given the complexity of this project the Minister would still need that flexibility that this bill offers in order to get the reinstatement done in a timely and cost-effective manner.On balance the committee felt that although this bill is not in response to an emergency situation like Christchurch or Kaikōura which have seen similar legislation enacted it is in response to something that is as I said at the beginning of this speech vital to the healing of Canterbury and to ending the prolonged litigation between very passionate advocates on all sides of the cathedral debate that has been going on for six years.There were many other issues that were raised and other speakers have mentioned and will continue to mention those in their speeches so I will leave my contribution here apart from to say that I am happy that our select committee worked incredibly hard over a short time frame to deliver a bill that we believe unanimously is fit for purpose. I am pleased to say that I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Duncan Webb. I understand this is a split call—five minutes."