Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a great pleasure to speak on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. It is actually bringing in some key things that are great and can I start by saying that we will support the bill through the first reading and to the select committee. It builds on a lot of work done by the member that was just on his feet Gerry Brownlee and particularly some of the recommendations from the discussion document of 2015 which is New Zealand's Future Natural Disaster Insurance Scheme—a discussion document. In particular increasing the cap to $150000 from $100000 plus GST is absolutely required. Given the time that's gone since that figure was put in place it absolutely should be moved up to $150000.Removing the contents insurance is also innovative and absolutely needed and was identified in that document I just referred to. Contents insurance is far better held with private insurers rather than a public-good entity like the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and I think that's where it should lie. It also clarifies the authority to share information. I think that is of course with caveats and that will be teased out during the select committee process. I think that's very good.However there is an area I do have concerns about which is enabling claim notifications—instead of within three months going out to two years. I want to explore that a little further. I did put in an Official Information Act request to the Minister for any Treasury advice around that and I'll go into that a little bit more in detail shortly. But I think this is a really serious matter and it is something that we should get full disclosure on. I don't have a lot of confidence I'd have to say because I started out with a very reasonable number of written questions to the Minister and with the avoiding tactics that were coming back with the answers ended up with 480 written questions to try and get some answers out of the Minister including one which asked the Minister: does she agree with answering written questions on time? It came back Yes" but it was late.So I think this is a really serious matter. The information from Treasury should be shared with the House and with Parliament.Clayton Mitchell: What's this got to do with the bill?STUART SMITH: And this does relate to the bill. The issue with extending the time period as was identified in that discussion document—where the reinstatement occurs after an event the definition needs to be much more clear than it is so there's no room for doubt there and also that goes to the matter of apportionment. That is really important from a reinsurance perspective. This is a public-good insurance with EQC but it relies on commercial contracts and those contracts are with international reinsurers. They don't have to be here. They come here. It's a commercial contract. But they want and expect to know what their liability is so they can price it. That is very important and this isn't addressed in this bill. It should have been.We have been promised there's going to be an inquiry. Why we need another inquiry into this I have no idea. It will likely only cover off operational matters. We should have had this substantive bill now and have the minor bill later on. If we don't have and maintain the confidence of the reinsurance industry in our processes here in New Zealand that will have a really potential impact on our country and the confidence in our own building sector. So I think that that should have been put in this bill. I'm calling on the Minister to release that information and advice that she had from Treasury on reinsurance. There's nothing in the regulatory impact statement. There should be but there's nothing in there. So I don't have any confidence on that.Other than that I do support the bill. As I said we will vote for it and we will look to examine it very closely in select committee. On that basis I commend the bill to the House."