Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): ACT cannot support this piece of legislation as currently drafted. This is nothing but a naked power grab by the Labour supermajority. It gives the Labour Government huge powers unrelated to cyclone recovery the power to override any one of a number of Acts while masquerading as cyclone recovery. It requires only a three-day review by a committee—a committee that doesn't include anyone with infrastructure experience anyone from local government anyone with planning or property development experience anyone involved in development of ports. This bill is a joke and an embarrassment for a Labour Government.It is more than two months since the floods hit Auckland—two months it's taken Labour to come up with a piece of legislation called the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill when every engineer I know every civil contractor I know has been telling me exactly what they need to do to clear streams to re-form channels to build stopbanks and to start rebuilding infrastructure. What they've asked for is quite simple: that the provisions of the Resource Management Act which make it so difficult to build anything are simply suspended for the benefit of restoring and reconvening the infrastructure that was lost or damaged. But no that's far too simple for Labour—it's far too simple.When we think about the damage in Auckland the slips that have destroyed homes and communities in West Auckland and Muriwai Pīhā and Kerikeri the flooding in communities in subdivisions that were only built in the last 10 or 15 years in West Auckland when we think about the damage done in Hawke's Bay where stopbanks have failed where orchards have been inundated with debris and silt because of a failed infrastructure and when we think about Gisborne and Wairoa cut off because their roads were not resilient—and then Northland. Northland where Waka Kotahi produced a programme business case for resilience in 2020 that said there are 40 extreme risks to the State highway network—40 large extreme risks including to the Brynderwyn State Highway 1 over the Brynderwyn and that that required a whole lot of additional strengthening work to be done to the alternative routes while a permanent solution was devised for State Highway 1 to the North to Whangārei to Kerikeri the Bay of Islands and Kaitāia to connect those tens of thousands of people and all of those businesses who depend on transport links.The Minister of Transport Michael Wood did nothing about that. Labour did nothing about that. The Brynderwyns have closed again and again; the alternative routes have never been upgraded. Then we think about Mangamuka Gorge State Highway 1 to Kaitāia where tens of thousands of people lived in some of the most deprived communities in New Zealand and where this Labour Government could have come up with a permanent solution to reinstate State Highway 1 through the Mangamukas to connect the people of Kaitāia to connect the timber mills to connect the dairy factories and all their customers in Whangārei and further south.But instead what they've done is nothing. They've missed a whole construction season in Northland while Waka Kotahi Michael Wood bang on about mode shift getting people out of cars and on to buses. And here we have the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. The emergency was months ago; Labour is months late and absent AWOL. That's what the people of Hawke's Bay told Nicole McKee when she visited on the weekend. They said You were absent when we were terrified when people were shining torches in our homes." AWOL absent.So what is this piece of legislation? Well two weeks ago I sat through a similar piece of emergency under-urgency legislation and what was missing then was actually allowing people to get on with recovery by suspending the requirements of the Resource Management Act. You know when it comes to cleaning up all the slash and all the debris that's lying all over private property and in rivers and creeks piling it up and being able to burn it to get rid of it. No the legislation didn't include any provision for that. Now we've got the emergency recovery legislation bill which still doesn't give anybody a clear steer. What does economic recovery look like?This will be another COVID-19 mess. What happened with the COVID-19 recovery fund? Well it got spent on ballet—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! This is a bill being debated we understand under urgency and I am listening very carefully to the member's speech but I now find that he is straying too far from matters that are not considered in the bill. So I'm going to invite the member to come back to the first reading. Thank you.SIMON COURT: Thank you Madam Speaker. So it's true we have examples. We have the Kaikōura earthquake recovery. We have Christchurch and the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. And then we have the COVID-19 emergency response fund which is where ACT believes this bill will end up funding ballets school lunches and museum exhibitions.Anna Lorck: What's wrong with ballet?SIMON COURT: Well it's nothing to do with COVID-19 recovery Anna Lorck. If the people of Northland expect their road to be reinstated and Labour's offering them ballet Anna Lorck I'm sure they will express their opinions at the ballot box in October.So what would ACT do—what would ACT do? Well firstly we know where the severe risks are the extreme risks because Waka Kotahi has already identified 40 extreme risks. They're not in here. There's nothing in here that says "Here's the 40 extreme risks we're going to fix." This is what ACT would do: we'd remove the RMA barriers—that's what we said on 6 March in Hawke's Bay at Taylor's pack-house when we met with Cam and we met with his staff. There's 300 of them who were flooded out of the pack-house whose apple trees won't be producing fruit that can be packed and exported for two three maybe four years. What Cam said what the staff said is "We need an urgent economic response that sustains the 300 jobs in the community that we live in." This has got nothing about an economic response.ACT says establish a special economic zone. Let's focus on what the principles of any cyclone or severe weather recovery should set out. Firstly the Government should get out of the way—get out of the way. What did the last piece of legislation the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill do? It required 20 days' notification for anybody who might have found a culturally significant site and they weren't going to be able to start any work until they had permission.We would ask Labour to reprioritise the wasteful spending away from Auckland light rail away from forcing people out of private cars on to busways. And what we would do is actually allow councils to rebuild their water infrastructure that Labour said under three waters you're not allowed to rebuild.Now ACT hopes that this bill can be panel-beaten at select committee and to that extent I have personally invited 120 submitters—business immigration consultants hospitality energy infrastructure—in the 24 hours we've got between now and when submissions close tomorrow at 6 p.m. to come to select committee and tell us what they think this bill should do because Labour hasn't asked them. We won't know unless the ACT Party asks—unless the ACT Party asks.The Government needs to help people affected by cyclones severe flooding not give itself "Henry VIII" powers to do whatever it wants and spend money on ballet and school lunches. ACT opposes this bill."