Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of the men and women of the New Zealand Fire Service our rural firefighting communities the New Zealand Defence Force and other members of local communities who have been fighting and will continue to fight the devastating fires around Christchurch. I think nothing illustrates more the risks and danger that the men and women of those services will place themselves in to protect the lives and property of others than the tragic death of Steve Askin who was killed in assisting to help fight those fires. I think it is appropriate that we as a Parliament take a moment to acknowledge and extend condolences particularly to Steve's family friends and colleagues both current and former. It is a terrible moment but it does reflect on what the men and women of those services will do for others.It is an absolute pleasure to serve on the Government Administration Committee which looked at this bill. I commend the Hon Peter Dunne for bringing this bill to the House. As has been said the nature of the functions of the Fire Service has changed dramatically over the years since the legislation was last dealt with in a major way. For a number of years for instance the Fire Service and I knew this through school friends when I was growing up and their fathers—principally their fathers—would be involved in attending things such as motor vehicle accidents.In fact I offer my thanks to the Fire Service. Some many years ago when I was first learning to ride a motorcycle quite frankly they came and scraped me off the road in Pukerua Bay just north of Wellington when unfortunately as a new rider I did not quite understand what would happen to that bike in the wet weather. The point is that the Fire Service has not been funded for those types of activities. So this new legislation will bring about a better model one where the service can be better and more appropriately funded for all of the activities that it takes on.I think a wonderful thing I have noticed through it as well—particularly in Ōhāriu—is that we have a large number of volunteer firefighters and brigades. I would like to commend the Fire Service for doing a great deal of work in recent years to really work on the relationship between the professional Fire Service—or permanent firefighters—and the volunteers. I think this legislation reflects well the sort of legislation I think we want to endure in the Fire and Emergency New Zealand organisation.A number of people have mentioned that the levy got a lot of scrutiny in the committee work and that is true. I also join with my colleagues across the House in saying that we had concerns about what the case might be for organisation such as museums. I would just reflect that officials were clear to us that for instance if a museum only partially insures what is a total assessable value of their collection it would not be treated as any form of avoidance and the maximum levy payable would be on the amount they chose to insure not on what some expert might say a certain item or a total collection might be worth. I think that is a very sensible approach and it will be interesting to see how these things are teased out through regulation.Overall I think this is an extremely good bill. I think it is a very welcome sort of movement for the Fire Service as a whole and it can do nothing but good across the communities of New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.