Court Simon; McAnulty KieranSIMON COURT (ACT): OK well look thank you. I'd just like to move on because I think it's important that we do actually progress this legislation as far as practical today. I just want to come to new section 331B with respect to the Resource Management Act. It's about what an owner or occupier of rural land can do if they're taking emergency preventative or remedial measures. And we assume that that includes things like clearing slips reinstating drainage and potentially standing up buildings sheds and shelters but also dealing with the huge amount of debris: the slash; entire trees including their root balls; all of the debris from fences that have been ripped up that still include their wire; telephone poles power poles and all the electrical wire which is plastic-coated copper wire; and potentially tanalised timber and other materials.I've travelled to Hawke's Bay with David Seymour. We visited the devastated rural areas: orchards vineyards and sheep and beef farms. And it was clear that sorting out the debris even if you bought the latest forestry gear or demolition excavators with grapples with buckets and thumbs and you shook it all out as you would do if you were doing demolition on buildings and structures it would be almost impossible to remove residual contamination like pieces of plastic-coated copper wire or the occasional tanalised timber - treated fence post. It's just not feasible. And we know that Federated Farmers and other landowners have been asking Please when can we get on with clearing up? Because until we know we're allowed to deal with these materials by burning there's no point in us picking it up. We don't have any other option. There's no landfill we can take it to. We can't even put it in a truck because it's way too bulky and messy."And so what they've asked for is permission to burn it or for a relaxation of the laws knowing full well that it's a prohibited activity particularly in the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's regional plans—prohibited activity—to burn any material that contains plastic-coated copper wire which you might find in bit of broken telephone cable or power line. It's a prohibited activity to burn any tanalised timber. And of course you can understand why that would be in normal circumstances but what that means is under new section 331B(3) inserted by clause 21 those activities—the burning of any incidental material—would not be permitted. It won't be because it's prohibited in a regional plan.So what the ACT Party wants to know on behalf of farmers and landowners who want to be able to stack up this material; clear creeks; clear land; get ready to remediate their pastures their orchards and their properties; and dispose of this material—will they be allowed to burn it? And will they be allowed to burn it using a suitable site management plan such as the US Army Corps of Engineers plan I referred to before—the procedure for open-air solid-waste burning in contingency locations which essentially is after an emergency when you've got heaps of stuff to dispose of—published by the US Army Corps of Engineers the Engineer Research and Development Center will it be acceptable Minister; would you accept a further amendment so that with a suitable site management plan such as one I've described farmers should be allowed to get on with stacking and burning this material?Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): I thank the member for their contributions it's an entirely fair point. And his description of the complexity of this is absolutely accurate. Anyone that has been on the ground and has seen the extent of the damage has been able to see that there's absolutely no way that these landowners or occupants could ever separate the debris that has unfortunately landed on many of their properties.At no point has the Government indicated that it wouldn't be supportive of a straightforward practical and simple way to deal with it. Although we have looked at that as a potential inclusion in this the advice was that obviously the burning of tanalised timber does create a serious environmental and human health risk and so that needs to be considered very carefully. And so I asked the Minister of the Environment about this specifically this morning and asked if we were able to give people an indication as to whether it is the Government's intention to allow the sort of thing that the member was describing once the provisions in the second bill are passed. And he said quite clearly yes it is. So I would say to those people out there that are wanting clarity around this it may not be included in this bill the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill but it certainly is the Government's intention to address it once we've worked through those serious environmental and human health concerns around that."