Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe. Thank you. I'm very pleased to speak on the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. It's a very good bill. There are over 2000 claims from the Canterbury earthquakes still awaiting resolution. This is an initiative that was in the Labour Party's election manifesto and I think it will go quite a considerable distance in helping resolve those claims because of course the tribunals that we have in New Zealand are different from the courts. A tribunal is an independent judicial body set up to deal with particular issues—in this case the earthquake insurance claims—and they tend to take a more informal approach in examining the available information talking to the parties directly and sometimes seeking more evidence to get the right outcome. So it's not as adversarial an approach as you often get in the courts partly because of the way the tribunal is constituted and partly because of the procedures that it will operate under. It is this focus on ensuring—and the amendment that the select committee made to insert fair" in the purpose—that it is cost-effective and that it is speedy and that it is fair that may see we hope those very complex technical claims that have yet to be resolved being able to be progressed through the tribunal and brought to a conclusion. Now it was interesting listening to Stuart Smith and his concern about the fact that cross-examination won't be a major feature of the tribunal's proceedings. But that is one of the advantages of having a tribunal over the court—that more inquisitorial approach by members of the tribunal the ability to have experts present the ability for parties to either have people advocating on their own account or have them advocate for themselves. So it's a genuine inquiry into what the facts are what the potential ways of resolving those are and moving on to make a decision rather than the parties being engaged in quite an adversarial position where people get lawyered up and it's often the weight of expertise and the procedures themselves that can weigh on the outcome. So here the focus is on getting to a good outcome and using good processes to do that. One of the strengths I think of the tribunal will be the ability to access mediation. Where mediation is used in some of the other court systems like the Environment Court where the parties actually try to think outside the box and where experts can be brought in to share their expertise that can help progress to a resolution more quickly. So the mediation powers in this bill I think are quite significant. So is the fact that it is a process where the parties bear the costs themselves. There aren't any fees to actually access the tribunal so that means that it won't be a barrier as the court process can sometimes be because parties don't have the funds to resource lawyers to advocate on their behalf. So it is with this flexibility and less formal process than a court system but a very fair process that we should aim to get to the bottom of the backlog of 2500-odd cases. I think Mr Stuart Smith raised issues too about the fact that it can only be the policyholders and homeowners who can access the tribunal rather than insurance companies. There are other opportunities through the court process. That is of course still open to the insurance companies to take claims there. It has been a huge amount of stress on homeowners who haven't been able to resolve their claims that has meant that the earthquakes have had a major legacy in terms of impacts on social well-being as well as the fact that people haven't been able to move on with their lives and that's what this tribunal will help people to do. I think that the quite extensive work that the Governance and Administration Committee has done in inquiring into the detail of how the tribunal process will operate and the amendments that have been suggested to the bill through the select committee process really strengthen the way the tribunal will operate. They seem very well-founded and sensible amendments and this ability to bring in experts and for parties to call on experts themselves and not just rely on the tribunal to do that—some quite practical changes that are being recommended through the select committee process. The ability to refer questions of law to the High Court to ensure that the parties can comment on that before the tribunal does that the need to have at least the chair who has a legal background—and I know the Opposition is saying that all members of the tribunal should have a legal background. But if you compare this tribunal with the Environment Court for example laypeople with significant expertise contribute a lot to that court and laypeople with technical expertise I think will be able to contribute a lot to the tribunal. The fact that mediation is going to be fully funded again removes that cost barrier and it's a fairer process all round. It's providing another option to the one that already exists through the court system and we really need to see these claims resolved. This bill with the establishment of this tribunal is a major way of doing that. So the Green Party commends the bill to the House."