McAnulty KieranSEVERE WEATHER EMERGENCY LEGISLATION BILLFirst ReadingHon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): After discussions at the Business Committee I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I move That the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 16 March 2023 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Order 196.The recent severe weather events in the North Island have caused widespread damage to land waterways infrastructure and roading. Most of these areas are now moving away from the initial emergency response and into the recovery phase where the needs of our communities are broader and more complex. We need to make sure that recovery is not held back by the existing legislative framework and that the actions that need to be taken to support the recovery can happen in a timely and efficient manner. The Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill will enable this. The bill is intended to assist people their communities iwi and hapū and local authorities with the recovery and improve resilience for the areas affected by severe weather events. It will make urgent changes to statutes to facilitate recovery in the areas affected by recent weather events. The bill will ensure emergency powers are available when needed and that these can be carried out efficiently. The amendments will help local authorities to take immediate action to improve resilience to future weather events. They will also help all local authorities and civil defence and emergency management groups to operate safely and effectively. We have experience with previous emergencies such as the earthquakes in Canterbury and Kaikōura which required urgent legislation to change existing legislative constraints to support recovery. We have used these experiences and the lessons learnt while drafting this bill. The bill will make urgent direct amendments to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 the Local Government Act 2002 the Resource Management Act 1991 the Food Act 2014 and Food Regulations 2015 to provide relief to those people and communities affected by the severe weather. This will support recovery and provide authorities with the powers necessary to facilitate an efficient timely and effective recovery. In particular the amendments will help local authorities with their planning and decision making and will also allow for concurrent declarations of states of emergency and transition periods and enable remote attendance at meetings. It will also modify statutory time frames—that are not always practical for businesses or individuals to meet during an emergency or response—for a limited time to permit certain emergency response activity carried out by rural landowners and occupiers. The bill amends the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act—or the CDEM Act—to address some known issues around concurrent declarations of states of emergency and notices of transition periods. Making these changes will help civil defence and emergency management groups access emergency powers when they are needed which will reduce delays which cause risks to health and safety. It is essential that CDEM groups have quick access to the full range of powers available under the CDEM Act to respond to any other emergencies that may impact their communities while we respond to and recover from emergency events. The bill also makes time-limited changes to parts of the Resource Management Act (RMA) to permit certain emergency or remedial actions to be carried out by owners or occupiers of rural land. The RMA changes also extend time frames for advising local authorities that emergency work was undertaken and applying for retrospective consents of emergency work. Under the RMA local authorities have rights of entry without prior notice to any place. Given the large number of evacuations that have occurred the bill requires that anyone entering a place under those RMA powers when the occupier cannot be found there must display a notice with the date of entry reasons for entry and the contact details of a person who can provide further information. This notice must be in a prominent place on the land and written notice must be served to the relevant ratepayer. This is the same approach taken following the Hurunui/Kaikōura earthquakes and tsunami events. We know that it may not be possible for the people dealing with the impacts of the severe weather events to comply with the RMA planning and regulatory requirements or to meet existing time frames for retrospective consents. These changes are similar to provisions in the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Emergency Relief Act. I understand that after these earthquakes these provisions provided significant help and certainty to local authorities infrastructure providers and rural landowners and occupiers.These provisions help carry out emergency works quickly and enable the return of critical services. I'm inviting the committee to consider the most appropriate drafting to ensure that damage to infrastructure that was initiated by the severe weather events—but occurs some weeks or months after the event—is sufficiently covered. This relates to the wording in section 330A and 330B(1) of the Act.The bill amends the Local Government Act 2002 to enable local authorities and civil defence emergency management groups to enable local authorities and civil defence emergency management groups to meet by audio or visual link and for the members to be counted as present. Currently these groups are able to attend remotely but their votes are not counted. This restriction can become particularly difficult during an emergency as some elected officials may not be able to attend meetings in person because of damaged roads or bridges. This amendment will help with timely decision-making as part of the response and recovery. The bill also proposes amendments to the Local Government Act to ensure that local authorities are not prohibited from amending their current long-term plans in relation to water services and infrastructure. Currently due to the recent water services reforms local authorities cannot include any content relating to water services in their long-term planning given these responsibilities are due to be transferred to new water service entities. The recent extreme weather caused significant damage to water infrastructure and water services. This will require local authorities to amend their current long-term plans in response to this damage. The bill proposes that the Local Government Act be amended to enable local authorities to amend their current long-term plans in relation to water services. This change is also extended to local authorities that are unaffected by the cyclone who may also wish to amend their current long-term plans to take immediate action to improve their resilience to future weather events. Finally the bill amends registration and verification requirements in the Food Act 2014 and the Food Regulations 2015. These changes will extend the registration period for a food business so these businesses can continue to operate during a time where their registration may have expired. It will also exempt food businesses from verification requirements during an extended period. Alongside the changes to the RMA we recognise that it may be difficult for affected communities to follow the regulatory requirements for food businesses and this will allow them to stay open. This is an important change not just to provide certainty to businesses but to ensure these businesses can remain open and provide food throughout this uncertain period particularly for small and isolated communities. The risk of not making these changes is that the recovery will be slowed down or stopped by the current regulatory environment. These urgent amendments under the bill will help facilitate the initial stages of the recovery and provide legal certainty where needed and we need to make these changes as soon as possible. The Government recognises that passing emergency legislation can reduce the ability of the public and other organisations to provide input into the bill and for the full scrutiny of parliamentary select committee processes. However this needs to be balanced with the need to provide certainty for the recovery effort on what emergency legislation may be provided. This is critical as recovery efforts will likely encounter substantive repair and rebuild issues and individuals and businesses may face regulatory requirements that they struggle to meet. I've considered the issues and I believe that a shortened parliamentary process is justified for these changes. I ask Parliament to support the bill and acknowledge the collaboration and cooperation from other parties in planning for this and its procedure. Cyclone Gabrielle Cyclone Hale in the North Island and heavy rain events—including the Auckland floods—have been devastating for our communities and it is vital that we have the tools we need to support people to recover as quickly as possible. This will not be a short process but this is part of the many ways we can support those impacted by those devastating severe weather events. And therefore I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): The question is that the motion be agreed to.