Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to thank the Acting Minister of Civil Defence Gerry Brownlee for that. I stand here today as the acting Labour Party spokesperson on civil defence—it is like the Oscars here today with the amount of acting going on but it is important that we are here today to pass this legislation.The Labour Party is generally fairly reluctant to see bills go through all their stages under urgency and without any select committee process but we looked at this bill and realised firstly—as the Minister has stated—that we have just very recently passed this legislation. It has been through a very thorough select committee process and was unanimously supported by the House and so the provisions of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act which the substantive part of this bill brings into force are ones that have been thoroughly worked through.The other part of the bill—as the Minister has indicated—around the requirement for building assessments is urgent in our view. I will come to talk about why that is the case both in this speech and in some other calls as we go through the stages of the bill.To begin with the Act that has recently been passed here was supported across the House because it was seen as the first stage in a series of changes that would give New Zealand a much more robust civil defence and emergency management regime. In particular as the Minister has said the Act that has been passed—and will now come into force more speedily—is about that transition from response to recovery. We are learning lessons in New Zealand—quite tragic lessons—about the importance of that transition about the balance between ministerial powers and the powers of local communities and about the importance of consultation with local communities about what happens in that phase. It is difficult—no one will underestimate that now that we have been through the Canterbury experience and we are already beginning to see it with the Kaikōura earthquakes.We feel that as the first stage of the review of the legislative framework the amendment Act is good. There was good cross-party work when the Act went through. A Supplementary Order Paper around the importance of a national civil defence and emergency management plan—which Clare Curran I know backed—was accepted. We are pleased to see that coming in more speedily. There is some flexibility built into this bill which means that local authorities that are not affected by the sequence of earthquakes that we have seen can choose whether or not they adopt the provisions now or wait until the original date that they were to be put in place. That is appropriate but it is obviously in the areas where the quake has had the most effect that we want to see the provisions of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Act come into force right away and so we are very supportive of that part of this bill.I do want to raise as we come to the second part of the bill the whole question of the gaps that are in our law and the importance of our closing them now. In doing so I do not want to diminish any of the incredible work that has gone on in the last couple of weeks in responding to the quake by Civil Defence staff by local council staff or by the emergency services. They have worked remarkably as they always do in these circumstances in responding—in the middle of the night; in times of stress—and so I want to put on record that those people providing those services are truly valued by this side of the House and by New Zealanders generally.But what a lot of New Zealanders have been asking since the Kaikōura quake is whether we are adequately prepared as a country. Do we have a robust civil defence response plan? Gaps have been found. The absence of a proper national disaster warning system the confusion that arose with the tsunami alerts and also I have to say the lack of clarity and transparency around building assessments here in Wellington—which is being dealt with in this bill—are of real concern to New Zealanders. The fact that modern buildings like Statistics House could fail in the way they did is of real concern to New Zealanders and I credit the Minister for starting an inquiry. I hope that that inquiry when it comes back will talk to us about all of those modern buildings that have not survived in the way that we would like. New Zealanders are rightly asking those questions now.I think that something the Government needs to consider is the next stage of changes that are coming. They need to be put on the fast track as well. We have got to get through this stage of immediate recovery now but on this side of the House we want to work with the Government to bring the next stage forward to make sure that New Zealanders can have real confidence and that we avoid the confusion that has been caused. Although I respect the fact that local civil defence groups—the 16 of them that we have around New Zealand—play a really important role in being close to their communities and being connected with what is going on the absence of a national disaster management system and the absence of good clear Government-led alert systems around tsunamis is not on. We have got to do better than that. The Government put about half a million dollars into developing a system and then shoved it on to the back-burner. It has to come forward now to build confidence for New Zealanders.In terms of the specific element of this bill—the power to require an assessment—I strongly support that. In my own electorate here Wellington Central I have now had several examples of people who are in buildings where they cannot find the assurance they need that proper work has been done. I was approached only on Monday by a group of tenants in a building who were told by their building owner that their building was safe and had been assessed. They asked to see that assessment and were told that they could not see it because of privacy reasons. There is scepticism among those tenants that that assessment exists. The idea that after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake building owners could do a visual inspection themselves and decide that a building is fine is not good enough so the powers that are in this bill will mean that city councils and other offices will be in a position to require those checks and then see that assessment.It is hard to believe in many ways that that is not the case now. I suspect that many New Zealanders have been operating under the assumption that it is the case—that on the Monday after the quake when the Wellington CBD was shut there was a formal legislated process that was being worked through where buildings were being assessed to a consistent set of criteria. That was not necessarily the case. It was in most cases. Most building owners were responsible and did the right thing: they got an engineer in and did the checks they needed to do. But there are always some who will not and we must pass a law that gives New Zealanders an assurance that there is a proper consistent process. This legislation is the first step in that process. There is more work to do but at the very least this will give the authorities the ability to require those inspections.It is important to note that the nature of New Zealand is changing. There are 15000 to 20000 people whose homes are in the central Wellington CBD—not businesses not places they go to to work but their homes. We have to do much better by those people in terms of the rules and regulations around them and knowing that they are safe. Just leaving it to the health and safety legislation—which is what we have at the moment—is not good enough and the Government has clearly recognised that by proposing this law.There are big concerns among people in Wellington about certain buildings and I am heartened to read today that the Mayor of Wellington Justin Lester has said that the moment this legislation is passed it will be used. It will be used to undertake the inspections that the council is concerned about. That is why we have to pass this bill under urgency. But I want to lay on the record in this first reading that this is only the beginning for New Zealand getting a robust regime in place to ensure that we have the warning systems the recovery systems and the assessment systems that we need.Having said that I want to thank the Acting Minister of Civil Defence for the way he has gone about including parties across the House in the development of this legislation. I want to thank the officials who have worked incredibly hard to put it together in a short time frame. I acknowledge to the House that the Labour Party will certainly be supporting this bill.