Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): That's certainly five minutes of my life that will not be returned to me. What a nasty bitter little speech from a member who supports the legislation who attacked us for only introducing four of the nine measures who was part of a Government that did zero—zero—for changing the Earthquake Commission (EQC). What a disastrous way to end a Thursday for the Government—for the Opposition.This is just one—nine years of habit—of a number of measures that our Government is putting into place to clean up the mess that the National Government left behind. There is a lot of cleaning up to do and I am very proud of the leadership that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has shown in this space. We're working so well with New Zealand First and the Greens. This is a great combination of three parties with separate ideas but shared values and principles who are working together to improve the lives of New Zealanders and this legislation is another example. So I want to particularly congratulate the leadership of my friend and colleague the Hon Megan Woods. She has taken to this challenge like a duck to water. She has accepted the resignation of the former chair of the Earthquake Commission and I think with considerable insight into the needs of the leadership of the Earthquake Commission has appointed the Hon Dame Annette King. If there's anybody that can see a problem and get it fixed it's the Hon Dame Annette King. I can't get used to calling her Dame Annette but it does suit her. I feel really confident in the increased pressure that will be on the commission to ensure that finally after seven years the earthquake damage needs of our constituents in Canterbury are met.I want to also acknowledge what I think is the new template for the regulatory impact statement (RIS). I think that having a really clear—what the decision is going to be the problem that is laid out the options that were considered; this is a much better format than previous RIS' were. This is the first one that I have seen in this new format. I might have missed others because even though I really love reading RIS' I don't always read them. But I think this is a document to be commended and I want to acknowledge Treasury for giving Parliament a document that makes it easy to understand what problems the legislation is seeking to address what options were considered and how these options came to be viewed as the most favourable.So this is the start of a series of reforms of the Earthquake Commission. It's not the end. These are areas that everybody agreed needed to be fixed during the review that was instigated by former Minister the Hon Gerry Brownlee in 2012. I think they make sense. They do also reflect the lessons that were learnt from Kaikōura as well as from the Canterbury quakes. They're widely agreed they're common sense and they can be instigated quite quickly. We needed to make some progress but this certainly does not reduce the amount of work that still needs to be done following the inquiry into EQC that we are instigating.We acknowledge the problems of the past. I think one of the biggest faults of the previous Government was that they acted as if everything was going right and actually it wasn't. Nobody from Labour when we were in Opposition then wanted anyone's head on a platter. We wanted acknowledgment that this was not the way that we needed to recover from the series of earthquakes.The Earthquake Commission was not in a position to respond appropriately and in a timely way and now we have that acknowledgment we can find a way moving forward. So increasing the cap limit on EQC is a very good idea. Lengthening the notification time that EQC can accept a claim is a good idea. In fact I was surprised at Stuart Smith having been a member of Parliament representing an area that has gone through that querying that. In fact it was a recommendation from the Ombudsman is my understanding of it—removing EQC's insurance cover for contents. That will be picked up by private insurers and obviously clarifying the authority to share information. That's been a big gap in the way that we've operated.So I think we've had a good debate. I'm sad that the National Party has chosen to continue to ignore the problems of the past. It has used political point-scoring—actually not very effectively—during this debate in a way that I think is inappropriate because everyone in this Parliament should want to make improvements to an area that is so important to the well-being of New Zealanders' lives. That's what Labour and New Zealand First and the Greens seek to do with these changes and I look forward to the bill's progress through this House.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.