Sitting date: 9 Dec 2025

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT BILL (NO 2)

First Reading

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery): I move that the Emergency Management Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Was there a legislative statement there, Mr Mitchell?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: The bill will replace the Civil Defence—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Mr Mitchell, was there a legislative statement?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: I present the legislative statement, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: This bill will replace the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 (CDEM) and make a number of changes which respond to the Government inquiry into the response—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): It's alright, Mr Mitchell, you narrow it to finish moving to bill; sorry, just to—

Hon MARK MITCHELL: I move, That the Emergency Management Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

The bill will replace the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 with a number of changes which respond to the Government inquiry into the response to the North Island severe weather events of early 2023. I want to acknowledge the work done by colleagues across Parliament who also recognise the need to strengthen our emergency management system.

There are two areas that I feel are really important for us as a Parliament to work together on: one is national security and the other is emergency management. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the outstanding National Emergency Management (NEMA) team, right from the leadership through to our policy team, who have worked very long hours burning the midnight oil to work on this bill and bring an outstanding bill to the House; right through to our people that deploy, that provide advice, that work on education, and man our information centre 24 hours a day, keeping us updated with information as it unfolds around our country. We are a country that will continue to be hit with weather events.

I want to acknowledge the mayors, the chief executives, and our civil defence controllers, and all the stakeholders who have been engaged with us on the development of this bill. I want to acknowledge them and their hard work and their engagement. I want to acknowledge Camilla Belich and Francisco Hernandez for the work that they have done with us on this bill, in a very bipartisan way. Camilla, I want to make a special mention to you: not only has she worked very closely with me on this bill; she is on the ground at several of the events that I've been to that have been local states of emergency. I appreciate your engagement because I think that in terms of emergency management, we all need to be working together on that, and I know that's appreciated when you're on the ground, also.

I want to acknowledge the previous Ministers: the Hon Kieran McAnulty provided me with a seamless handover/takeover when I took over from him; Kiri Allan, who continues to work in emergency management through the Iwi Chairs Forum, and has worked very well with us; and Marama Royal. I want to acknowledge them. The Hon Peeni Henare, as the previous Minister; Chris Faafoi, who I've done a lot of work with, who now has a leadership role with our insurance companies and has done a lot of work with me; Nathan Guy; the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee. Can I acknowledge the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee, who has given me a lot of extremely useful advice, especially around recovery. I don't know if there's another Minister that has been in this House, in our recent history, that has had to deal and do the heavy lifting around recovery. I want to thank him and acknowledge his outstanding guidance advice for me in this role.

Finally, I want to acknowledge Nikki Kaye—and I'll finish there—but I wanted to mention Nikki Kaye because I think the whole House would agree that you would not have found a more passionate Minister of Civil Defence than Nikki Kaye, and the astounding amount of work that she got through in the three years that she was Minister.

The previous emergency management Bill proposed a range of sensible changes that we've taken forward but it pre-dated the inquiry's final report, so it didn't go far enough to address lessons from Cyclone Gabriel and the Auckland Anniversary floods. The frequency, complexity, and consequences of recent emergencies have highlighted the importance of updating the legislation to improve how we manage risks; prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies; and empower and support communities.

New Zealand's approach to emergency management is based on three key principles: first, we need to pay attention to all hazards, natural, and man-made; second, we need an end-to-end approach to managing the risks from those hazards—that means taking action across the 4Rs of risk reduction, readiness, response, and recovery—and third, all parts of society have a role to play in emergency management. Risks should be managed by those who are best placed to manage them.

This was an intent of the CDEM Act, and this bill follows the same philosophy but the inquiry and other reviews have made it clear that New Zealand has not achieved what Parliament envisaged when the Act was passed in 2002. The inquiry, as well as submissions on the previous bill, informed our reform objectives and proposals which were publicly consulted on earlier this year. That consultation has led to over 20 substantive changes being made through this bill, in addition to a general overhaul to modernise the Act.

The majority of submitters agree to our reform objectives which are to strengthen the role of the communities in iwi Māori emergency management; provide for clear responsibilities and accountabilities at the national, regional, and local levels; enable a higher minimum standard of emergency management; minimise disruption to essential services; and ensure agencies have the tools to do their jobs effectively when an emergency happens.

I'd like to touch on some of the most significant changes the bill will make to deliver on those objectives and make a real difference on the ground. To strengthen the role of communications and iwi Māori in emergency management, the bill provides membership roles for iwi Māori, rural communities, and the wider community on coordinating executive groups. These groups are currently made up of local authority chief executives and senior representatives from emergency services in each area. They are responsible for advising the local political level of emergency management. Having a seat at the table will give iwi Māori, rural communities, and the wider community a direct role in informing what their emergency management committee does to reduce risk, get ready for emergencies, and respond and recover when they happen.

The bill also requires an engagement with iwi Māori and the wider community, particularly those who may be disproportionately affected by emergencies, whether they have existing vulnerabilities or different needs that don't suit a one-size-fits-all approach. Emergency management committees and the Director-General of Emergency Management will be required to identify these groups—such as disabled people, seniors, and our culturally and linguistically diverse communities—and engage with their representatives when developing regional and national emergency management plans.

The bill also provides for more clarity about roles and responsibilities at the national, regional, and local levels of emergency management, to ensure faster decisions are made by the right people. The need for role clarity has come up in the inquiry and other reviews, and I've seen it first hand at emergency events over the past two years. It is absolutely critical that responsibilities and accountabilities are clear. Any confusion about who is making decisions causes unacceptable delays during a response.

Local government has key roles in emergency management. The vast majority of emergencies play out at a local level, and other legislation gives local authorities many of the levers to manage hazard risks. Councils know their own communities best when an emergency cuts communication and knocks roads out of action. Local resources may be all that's available to respond, for the first few hours. The bill retains committees of the councils in each region. Each exists to provide economies of scale and enable regional coordination of emergency management. However, it puts more emphasis on councils' individual responsibilities by creating specific roles for regional emergency committees and their local authority members; making mayors primarily responsible for declaring states of local emergency and recovery transition periods within their own districts; and requiring every territorial authority to have a district controller and district recovery manager with a clear line of accountability to the council's chief executive. Giving territorial authority chief executives an explicit mandate to coordinate resources provided by other agencies in the lead up to an emergency and over the long-term recovery is essential.

The bill also addresses current ambiguity around who is in charge during an emergency by formalising and clarifying the concept of lead agencies as the central government agencies responsible for responding to emergencies caused by specific hazards. Lead agencies will be required to keep the Director-General of Emergency Management informed of situations where there is or may be an imminent threat of an emergency. In turn, the bill places a duty on the director-general to inform the Minister about such situations. Timely and reliable information is a key part to determining whether a situation may meet the threshold for a response under the bill, and provides a better chance of addressing the situation before it escalates.

Regional emergency management plans are key instruments for driving action across the 4Rs at the local government level that identify the hazards and risks to be managed by each emergency management committee, and set out the policies, projects, and other necessary measures to manage them. These measures could include things like identify bylaw changes, setting requirements on each of the committees' councils to build their response capability, or agreeing to progress joint risk reduction initiatives.

I wanted to finish my speech today in an acknowledgment to an outstanding NEMA manager in the Christchurch area, Rochelle Faimalo. Rochelle passed away peacefully on 13 August this year. Wife to Joe, mother to Azure, Zyon, Quest, and stepmom to Jeorgia. She quite simply was—she typified the quality of the people, the qualities that our emergency management people right across the country bring to that role. I met her during the Port Hills fires where she played a critical leadership role. This will be the first Christmas that their kids don't have their mum. She was 40 years old; she was a much-loved member of the NEMA team, and she was very passionate about this bill coming to the House, which she was briefing mayors on right up until June. So I wanted to acknowledge her and I wanted to let the family know that we're thinking of them during the Christmas break. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to acknowledge the contribution of the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery, and also echo our condolences to Rochelle's family. I know that the work on the Port Hills fire was really exceptional, and, as the Minister and anyone who has worked in this area will know, the people who are involved in emergency management around New Zealand are really exceptional people. Often, it's a career that they end up being in for most of their lives, and it's not because of anything that they personally gain from it. It's from, really, a feeling of service and contribution to New Zealand, and we're very grateful to them, and it's always sad to hear of one of our colleagues who has departed. So I want to acknowledge that family. I also want to acknowledge and reiterate the acknowledgment that the Minister made of people who have been involved in this bill.

This bill is something that has gone over a series of Governments, and that is the nature of emergency management. Emergency management is something that is exceptionally important to New Zealand and exceptionally important to our communities. We never know who's going to be in Government when an emergency strikes and all that we can hope on either side of the House is that we can do everything that we can and that we have the best processes in place.

This is something that is a genuine era, I think, of bipartisanship. It is something that we on this side of the House in the Labour Party take very seriously and have done when we've been lucky enough to hold those ministerial portfolios as well, and I know that many of those former Ministers hold a lot of interest still in this portfolio because of the importance that it has to New Zealand and to their communities.

I want to acknowledge you, Minister, for your work here, as well, and also your team, especially Bailey in your office, who works very hard to make sure that we're all aware across the House of emergencies when they happen. I think that that kind of approach is really what this bill is meant to legislate for. It's a much more of an all-of Government approach, rather than having little sectors working on their own. So this is an important bill, and it's kind of the antithesis, really, of the previous bill we were discussing.

This bill has really had its genesis in changes that were seen to be needed in the 2002 Act. There's a consensus, I think, from everyone that that piece of legislation is no longer fit for purpose any more in New Zealand and there have been so many reviews, and various Governments have looked into trying to amend this. I suppose the issue that we have is that we keep having emergencies and we keep realising that there are issues in our system. I think it's important to acknowledge that we will never have a perfect emergency management system and we will never be able to do everything, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do everything that we can and that we shouldn't learn every lesson that we can in order to be better prepared.

When Labour was in Government, we did introduce a bill, and we're happy to see that a lot of the sensible, pragmatic suggestions that were in that bill have been carried through into this new piece of legislation, as well. The big thing that happened in between the introduction of that bill and now was the North Island weather events, which was a significant event for New Zealand. I want to acknowledge the 15 people who lost their lives in those very sad events, including children. I think it couldn't be more serious that we get this system right. Certainly we will not stand in the way of making sure that these changes are implemented as soon as they can be, and so it's timely to see this bill introduced.

We had a slightly different approach, it's fair to say, at the select committee when we saw the report into the Government inquiry into the North Island weather events. We thought that maybe we could amend the existing bill and that that would be faster, but the Government took a different view. That's their call. It's not something we agreed with at the time, but I think, as you've heard through the Minister's reflections, we tried to work very constructively with that decision, and as chair of the select committee where this bill will go, we will definitely be taking the scrutiny of this bill very seriously and making sure that we put forward the best possible bill to the House in order for this to be enacted, hopefully, as soon as possible.

I don't think we will ever have a perfect piece of legislation, but we certainly must implement the lessons that we learnt from that Government inquiry. That Government inquiry included at least six separate reviews, and also several other studies into what was happening in our emergency management system. So it's really imperative now that we do implement this.

This has been well-thought-through. We were talking about regulatory impact statements. This is the regulatory impact statement on this bill: it is extremely long, extremely thorough, and extremely well-thought-through. This has had a previous select committee process, on the last bill. It's had an initial consultation process from when the roadmap was set up by this Government. It's had significant amounts of submissions from the public already, and I understand it will go through a full select committee process, as well. So it will have the full democratic parliamentary process and all the tools we have in relation to looking at the quality of our legislation have been utilised. I want to commend the Government for that. It really should mean that, hopefully, there won't be any barriers to this bill being passed and being legislated for.

I wanted to mention an important area which I think is reflected still in this bill, but is a bit of a difference from the previous bill brought in under the Labour Government, and that's the role of iwi Māori in emergency management. We have seen it again and again, and one of the key findings from the Government inquiry into the North Island weather events was that every time there is an emergency situation in New Zealand, iwi Māori and marae—whether they are asked to or not; whether they are at the table or not—step up in emergency situations. They take care of the people. They house people. They feed people. They have been taking on this role for generations, and whatever the legislation says that's not going to change. The manaakitanga in emergencies that iwi Māori have is not going to change, and my colleague Cushla Tangaere-Manuel took me out to Tairāwhiti and I met some of those very people who took on that role during Cyclone Gabrielle.

So it's really important that that is acknowledged. The current legislation does not acknowledge that at all. This legislation does have a seat for iwi Māori at the committee on emergency management group—the CDEM group. That is something that we very much support, and I should note that it's not just one seat. It's one or more seats, and so it depends on the differing area as to whether more people should be involved. There are also another couple of areas where iwi Māori can participate through being consulted, as well.

We had a suggested having a national Māori emergency management advisory group. That hasn't been taken forward in this piece of legislation. From our perspective, that's regrettable, but at the same time we see that there has been a concerted effort to improve the status quo, which is nothing at all at the moment, by the Government and the Minister. I want to acknowledge that and also the significant Treaty analysis that's been involved in the regulatory impact statement, and the intention of recognising what was in the Government's report into the North Island weather events and making sure that there is recognition for that key role that iwi Māori play in our emergencies in New Zealand and the fact that they have a right to have a seat at the table when decisions are made. So this bill is an improvement, and we do support that, so thank you to the Minister for taking that forward.

There are other things in this bill that are significant changes. There are changes to ministerial powers. There are changes in relation to information sharing. I should acknowledge as well one of the benefits, although we didn't support the bill being discharged at the time, has been that issues that we've seen in very recent events have been incorporated into this bill, and I think that is a benefit. One of those things is information sharing. There have been issues in recent events where information hasn't been shared in a way that it could most usefully be shared in order to assist the emergency management response. So I think that is a very good change as well.

There are also, as the Minister said, changes around decision making. We know that there should be a really clear decision-making process in emergencies. That hasn't been as clear as it should be under the current legislation. I think this legislation will improve that as well. So that is something that we definitely support.

The situation in emergency management in New Zealand is that we need to take seriously the fact that, as the Minister often says—and it's recorded in the Government's report, which this bill is really based on—we are the second most at-risk country in the world and we are one of the developed countries with the most at-risk profile in the world. That means that we should be, in theory, the best in the world at emergency management, and I'm sure that it is a shared desire across the House that we need to do whatever it takes to ensure that emergencies, when they do occur, are run with the best available information and the best systems. We know we have the best people, so it's just about utilising that collective information to do the things we know will assist in the response.

I thank the House, this Government, and previous Governments for the work on this bill. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just before I take the next call, I acknowledge that we did have an error with the clocks. First reading speeches after the Minister speaks are five-minute calls, so from now on there will be five-minute calls.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill, and I wanted to thank the Minister for his leadership and engagement on this. We know that, in this portfolio, he's been willing to make some hard but not so popular calls, so we do think that is a mark of leadership. We also wanted to echo the condolences you've expressed to the family of Rochelle and the thanks that you've expressed to the emergency management workers all around the country.

The Greens are always uncomfortable supporting any legislation under urgency, but I've been assured by the Minister that it will go through the full select committee process, so that's assured us. I also appreciate my colleagues across the House, and the cross-party nature of the way that we engage in emergency management. I always appreciate everyone's passion and engagement at the Governance and Administration Committee, ably chaired by Camilla Belich, when the topic of emergency management comes through. Everyone's passion for emergency management, and a genuine desire to serve the country, really comes through in those discussions. I think, sometimes, when we scream at each other across the Chamber like animals, we lose sight of the fact that everyone here is an intelligent adult that is doing their best to serve the country, and that does come through in those select committee discussions. It does show what we can do when we work in a cross-party way; we can make good law, and we can go through the full select committee process.

While legislation like this is really welcome, we do need to actually address some of the drivers of the emergency management events that are increasingly occurring. Since 2023, New Zealand has been, either nationally or locally, in some state of emergency for 224 days. Every single one of these days has been due to a fire, coastal hazard, or severe weather or flooding. Most of these events are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. Every single greenhouse gas we emit contributes to heating up our atmosphere, and every single fraction of a degree exacerbates and amplifies the impacts. In the same urgency block that we are passing this needed and necessary legislation with cross-party support, this Government has also introduced a bill that would gut the Climate Change Response Act by weakening our emissions reduction targets, watering down the independent Climate Change Commission, and gutting our emissions trading scheme. It's a little bit like increasing the funding to the fire service—something that's urgent and necessary, by the way—at the same time you're handing our fire starters.

We do support this bill; it is a good and necessary bill. We support, in particular, the increased coordination between local and central government that this bill enables; the requirements for lifeline services to contribute to emergency management plans; the increased protection for animals in emergency management situations; the increased oversight for emergency management powers; and increasing the role at the table for iwi Māori. But there are things that we think this bill could go further on, and these are the things that we will push during the select committee stage, and we do know, as my colleague Camilla Belich has said, that the original emergency management bill that was introduced by the then-Labour Government had stronger provisions for working with iwi Māori. We also want to ensure that disabled people are included in the emergency management planning, and we will continue to push for greater integration with climate change adaptation frameworks, because the risk-reduction aspect is really complemented by efforts to ensure that they're being aligned with climate adaptation efforts.

Outside of the legislative process, we will continue to fight for what we have always fought for: fair funding for workers at the climate emergency management front line, like firefighters, so they can have fair pay and conditions and safe equipment. I wanted to close by thanking the emergency management workers, not only at the National Emergency Management Agency, and not only the people working across the different councils, but also the people at the front line of emergency management response, whether they be police, ambulance workers, nurses—people who are really dealing with the actual front-line impacts of emergency management events. I really wanted to thank, in particular, the firefighters who came to talk to us on the Parliament forecourt last night: we do stand with you and all the other emergency management workers around this country, and I hope that you can see, with the cross-party support that this bill is getting, that we do support emergency management in this country across the House. Kia ora.

LAURA McCLURE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this piece of legislation. I also want to acknowledge the Minister and his work and the Opposition members for their work in this reform that we greatly need. I also want to acknowledge Rochelle and her family. Being from Christchurch I did not know her personally, but I do have quite a few friends and family that had worked with her.

Some of you may know, or may not know, that before I became an MP I actually worked in this space for the last 15 to 20 years I'd been doing emergency response planning, mostly in the evacuation side of things. But I'd been working quite a lot out there with our communities, with our councils, with our iwi around improving the systems that we have. Time and time after we would often hear that when disaster strikes there was a lot of confusion, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape around what could and could not be done.

What I'm really happy to see is that this is enabling more of a community-led approach. I think that's a really important thing, because we all know that communities know the person to get on the phone and call up when they need a generator. We know that central government rolling in to do that job is not going to have the same effect. I think that this bill's a really great start and it's heading in the right direction to empower those communities.

We also know that failure to prepare for a disaster means that we prepare to fail ourselves. That is something that I've always said to people and it's highly important that we actually go into the preparation a lot more. I hope to see that these established groups really do get into the preparation and actually go through some of the scenarios. I know that the member across the other side of the House talked about how we could have any system and it would never be perfect, and that is actually true, because you can never prepare for some things. But what you can do is you can make sure that people know their roles and they know who to call and they know where to go. That has to be led from the community.

I do have concerns with the bill that the community part of it doesn't include our NGOs, our other community organisations, and our other groups that are actually on the ground as well. I think that we need to consider that and I really look to those, particularly to the councils that are going to be setting up these groups, to think about the other people that are often involved in a disaster and also that recovery phase as well, because we want to decentralise this process as much as possible to empower those communities to do the right things.

We also have a bit of a concern about the mātauranga Māori and the tikanga into the committees. I think, while we definitely need local voices and local iwi, we have to have that; it's really important. But we don't want, you know, someone coming in from central government just saying, "Oh, I know the tikanga. This is how it's going to be." So I really want to make sure that when the select committee goes through this that they actually consider that; that these are locals, these are people from the marae that are involved, because that's how we're going to derive the best outcomes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House, and I'd like to see where it goes in the future.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First, and also as a member of the Government's Governance and Administration Committee. I'm looking forward to considering this bill later on.

I just want to start by saying thank you to Minister Mark Mitchell, both for the work that's gone into this but also for the way in which you've engaged with the select committee every time you've come along. It's been a very open conversation and I think that's great, and so I really, really appreciate that.

It was Sir Humphrey Appleby who said that "Civil defence is a joke; everyone knows that civil defence is a joke." I don't think he'd have given that advice if he'd been living in New Zealand. I look at the information—which many of you will have seen—that National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has given us. In New Zealand since 2016, there have been 87 local and two national states of emergencies declared for a total 559 days, at least at the time that this was published. That's equivalent to one day every week for 10 years that somewhere in the country or the whole country was under a state of emergency.

So it is a big deal in New Zealand, and, looking forward, NEMA talk about the likelihood of serious and significant events. You can look at this and say that there are some certainties in life: there's death, there's taxes, and, I'll tell you what, in New Zealand there is emergency, because there will be some. I mean, even if you look at one particular one, which is the Alpine Fault magnitude 8 (AF8) situation, in the next 50 years, there's a 75 percent chance of that happening. That's not quite certain, but it's getting right up there. So being prepared and being able to respond to an emergency is absolutely essential.

The Emergency Management Bill (No 2) has been long awaited. It's been great to see a lot of engagement. If we did lots of engagement before all pieces of legislation, that'd be a really good thing because there'd be much better legislation for it, and I'm sure that this will improve the legislation that we've got in front of us at the moment with the level of public input. It's important, I think, that this bill delivers all that we need in terms of emergency management. I don't know how hard it is to get a legislative slot, but I don't imagine it's easy, so this is the shot that we have to get emergency management right in this country.

The bill talks about three things: taking an end-to-end approach—I'll come back to that in just a second—considering all hazards, and having all parts of society playing a role, and we've had a lot of discussion already about the importance of community and the importance of iwi being involved in emergency management and emergency response. We also talk about the four Rs: reduction, readiness—we can't avoid risk, but we can consistently work to reduce that risk—and there's also response and recovery. The danger, I think, in these things is that we focus too much on the response and recovery and not necessarily enough on making sure that we don't have a problem in the first place.

There are three quick lessons that we've had with the engagement, particularly, with you, Minister, and our engagement with NEMA. The first one of them is that we need to stop reinventing the wheel with every single different event. With every event we have, it's "Who do we need to get involved in this event to try and respond to it?" We've got to do better than that and be switched on right from the start. That's the kind of bureaucracy, I think, that we've just heard about from the previous speaker.

Secondly, we've got to stop building dumb things in dumb places. I just want to think about the Auckland situation. We've had to change the planning laws so that we didn't put 3,000-plus homes in a place which was subject to flooding. So we stopped building dumb things in dumb places, and you get a lot of support from that from the insurance industry and our Natural Hazards Commission. But also the question is: what is the role of NEMA in saying to stop building dumb things in dumb places, because I think that they should have a role in doing that.

The third one is adaptation. We've already heard a little bit about adaptation, but I just want to call out one particular thing. We were at a meeting in Hamilton not that long ago, in the middle of the year, I think it was, and Shane Jones was talking to that meeting. He was talking about investment in the regions, and somebody stood up unprompted and said, "Thank you very much for the work that was done under the Provincial Growth Fund in protecting Taradale." What that man said was that the floodwaters under Cyclone Gabrielle got within a few feet of the top of that flood bank. If they'd got over that flood bank or had that flood bank not been there, just think of the loss of property and, worse, the loss of life that would have happened. So preparedness is really, really important.

Just to finish off, there are a lot of aspects to emergency management. At a recent visit to the West Coast, they said that they're very anxious about emergency management. I mentioned the AF8 situation, the availability of Bailey bridges, fuel, and equipment, and how we manage events in tunnels. We visited the Mines Rescue Service and they raised issues not only of those tunnels that they have there but also of road and rail tunnels, and so there's a lot that goes into preparing for emergencies and then to responding to them.

I'm looking forward to the Governance and Administration Committee hearing submissions and considering the bill, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā, tēnā rā tātou e te Whare.

[Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Te Pāti Māori supports this bill, and I just want to extend our mihi to the Minister, Mark, and also the condolences to the whānau who have lost a great wahine and also acknowledging all the kaimahi within the emergency response team throughout the country.

This bill implements parts of the Government's response to the 2023 inquiry into North Island severe weather events, finding that the current emergency management system was not fit for purpose and lacks the capacity or capability to deal with the significant emergencies affecting many regions at once. The inquiry also underscored the fact that Aotearoa has not achieved the whole of society approach to emergency management that Parliament envisioned when the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act was passed in 2002—I was born that year—a point strongly understood by marae throughout the country.

Iwi and Māori communities may be offered seats on committees and involvement in emergency responses that they would have led out anyway, because iwi and Māori don't sit around waiting for somebody else during and after a disaster. Rather, iwi and Māori choose to lead together where no one else will and can. Iwi, hapū, and marae often place themselves forward as bastions of protection and manaakitanga to all communities affected. Tikanga steps forward where Government legislation is inadequate. Iwi and hapū step forward where Government agencies and authorities do not know where to look, who to speak to, or how to help. These acts of manaakitanga and rangatiratanga rang true during the Christchurch earthquakes and, later, the Kaikōura earthquake. More recently, the profound role of iwi Māori was demonstrated further during the Edgecombe floods and the Whakaari / White Island disaster and Cyclone Gabrielle.

It was the late Dr Ranginui Walker who said this: "The marae is the focal point of Māori culture and communal activities, but the contemporary history lesson here is that the marae are often the focal point of emergency management and communal uplift." The marae is not only, as Dr Ranginui puts it, a place to stand for Māori people; it is often a place of refuge and aroha for all people who enter its gates, and deeply held notions of mana and good faith towards all people who make up the diverse communities. Maraes are not businesses and most don't have regular income and resources to support their functioning, so at times I must acknowledge the Provincial Growth Fund that many marae have had across the country, and yet they are relied upon heavily by both Government and the public to provide support and relief, despite the taxpayer-funded role and obligations of authorities.

While I've got the last minute, I also just want to shed light on some of the young rangatahi Māori who have used their studies to contribute to te taiao, climate resilience, and also their maraes. I want to acknowledge one person, Haukapuanui Vercoe, who has used his PhD for future planning for all maraes across the country in how we can better use our infrastructure of maraes, because the majority of our maraes are actually close to wetlands and are predominantly exposed to flooding. That would be a great person to have on the future Māori advisory committee. Nō reira, tēnā rā tātou e te Pīka.

TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. Our philosophy for civil defence emergency management in New Zealand has always been one of everyone in the community having a role to play. As a small nation, we rely on each other, and this bill formalises that. Whether it's in bringing in iwi, our rural communities—these groups that have people. They have manpower, they have infrastructure—not just marae—and they have machinery, and I think that's a great thing. I commend the bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Emergency Management Bill (No 2), and in particular, I would like to acknowledge the Minister but also my colleague Camilla Belich, who is the chair of the Governance Administration Committee. I'm really pleased that I'm a member of the Governance Administration Committee because we will be scrutinising and looking at the bill when it gets to select committee.

I do want to just mention that Labour did have an Emergency Management Bill. The bill had been—our version—through extensive policy development and a select committee process. Progress could have been faster; however, we are now at this point. I want to acknowledge, as the Minister highlighted, a family who have lost their loved one. We want to pass on our condolences, but also too, in terms of the weather events that have happened for quite a while, it is important to remember it wasn't just the people that we lost through those tragedies but also all the communities that have been affected by these weather events. This bill represents a very important step for New Zealanders throughout Aotearoa in terms of strengthening and understanding the pivotal points where, when you're designing a framework, it's important to understand the differences of a community but also the strengths that can be represented through an updated emergency management system.

I have a personal story because, in the Auckland anniversary events, we were in a car and the whole motorway got flooded. There was chaos. It was a Friday evening, and people just did not know what to do. In my local community, in Māngere, it was absolute chaos because the floodwaters were rising on the roads and many families were affected. It was before 6 p.m. that evening. People were coming home and picking up children; it was just absolutely chaos. In that specific Friday event, we had just left a tangi at Hoani Waititi Marae. It was a scary time for many citizens who were going about a Friday evening and then bang—there were torrential rains. It was a very scary time. If I reflect back at that time, my immediate thoughts were: what is our emergency management system? Cellphones were not going; the flood waters were rising. It was a very scary time, and I was thinking about our elderly, our non - able bodied community members. It was a very, very scary time. I do want to acknowledge all the first responders. People were checking their phones. We were trying to reach family members. It is really important that citizens in our community understand the readiness and the response. I want to acknowledge everyone that has been through it. We actually lost 15 New Zealanders through those events. And so, through those difficult times, what are the lessons and who is responsible in providing specific leadership either in a central government capacity or a local government capacity?

When we're thinking about emergency management, one of the things and, tulou, respectfully, we immediately think that everyone speaks English. We don't think about our mātua, we don't think about our citizens, where English is the second or third or fourth language. When we are interpreting and when we are designing frameworks, it is important that those who are contributing keep different nationalities and ethnicities in mind but also the ages. Not everyone and not all of our citizens are going to understand the instructions that come out either on your device or on paper, which is important.

I'll just move to the last point that I wanted to make: it's important that we reflect back on personal stories but that we get this right. I really appreciate the bipartisan approach in terms of acknowledging those. Lastly, I want to focus on the role of iwi Māori. In every tragedy or circumstance that has happened, specifically in Māngere, specifically in South Auckland, iwi Māori have always been there. They don't come to, or reflect on, "We want this." They just say, "Here we are. This is what we need to do." I want to emphasise and focus the importance of their role in every, or any, planning committee in a community. I also want to make sure that the leadership and clarity for iwi Māori is understood in the framework. I commend the bill to the House.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thanks very much, Mr Speaker. Many people today have traversed the content of the legislation, so I actually want to spend just a brief moment acknowledging the leadership of the Minister himself—the Hon Mark Mitchell—a really humble, diligent, hardworking Minister who won't want people to point out what he does in his role. But the first thing he does in states of emergency is get there on the ground, be with the people, hear them, listen to them, spend time with them. I think it's 19 states of emergency this term, and he has been there for all of them. He has provided exceptional leadership on the ground—relatability, understanding them, understanding the situation—and he has used that to be reflective in this legislation. I think he has done a superb job, so I'm going to put on record our thanks to him for his incredible work. I commend it to the House.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare.

[Authorised reo Māori text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

[Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

I want to support the mihi to you, e te Minita, for your proactivity during these times, and I have had the pleasure of being on the ground with you. "Pleasure" might be the wrong word, but I appreciate you and your staff, as our wonderful spokesperson for this kaupapa, Camilla, has acknowledged, for including us and keeping us informed. I don't know if you're trying to make sure our emergency responders are so well prepared by creating all these disasters, but tēnei te mihi atu ka ki a koe.

There's so much I could say on this, so I will try to encapsulate it in one focus, and that is the value of local. When Gabrielle hit us in Te Tairāwhiti, we were ready to go because, through not only our nature but through COVID, hapū had gathered, hapū had organised, so we had teams on the ground in every community, ready to go—ready to work with whichever organisation we had to and, indeed, lead them, because of the local knowledge.

I want to acknowledge everyone here who appreciates the value of iwi and marae, but I want to talk about what that really, actually means on the ground. Recently, Camilla and I went to Ūawa, and, like all our communities, they had opened their doors. I must acknowledge Pene Brown, who described to the then-Minister, Grant Robertson, their response in Te Karaka. He said, "Our response was threefold: our people, other Māori, and everyone else." When people open their marae, their impact is not just, "Hey, we're providing four walls and a roof." The impact is that these people—also volunteers—have to go to work in the morning. They're still worried about whether the waters are going to breach. Where do we go to? There's no roads. The impact is we're taking a resource out of the community. That marae is no longer available for 21sts, for weddings—for tangihanga, even. I think we need to take a deeper look when we talk about iwi and marae responsibility.

On that note, there's so many acknowledgments I could make, and one of course is Māhaki Tiaki Tangata. Te Karaka was so badly impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle, and one of the things we've learnt from that is that while councils, etc., who do a great job, have monitoring devices, have technology, the reality is sometimes those cameras are about half an hour behind the local monitoring. We've got people who actually stand by and go and man their rivers, monitor the levels, and then inform the councils and Civil Defence Emergency Management (CEDM). This is the true depth of iwi and marae input, so while I acknowledge, I think we have to go beyond advising and embrace more leading. It was my work on this that really made me determined that Māori have to go from being the response to being the decision makers. Thank you, Minister, for the advance we're making, and we can certainly go further.

I want to thank Mr Foster for acknowledging the investment that Labour made in the response through the Provincial Growth Fund—tēnā koe e hoa—and acknowledge that that's another positive thing that's come out of this: the level of resource in our communities. I've talked about Te Karaka; I want to talk about Tokomaru Bay and all our communities—Hauiti—who now have fantastic resources beyond the people. At the end of the day, the best resources we have in our communities are our people, but now they have physical tools in our communities. I want to thank Ben Green and all the other amazing CEDM workers across New Zealand who are going into our communities and upskilling our people even further.

We support this bill because, at its heart, it's about manaaki—it's about looking after people. The investment that's being made, and that will continue to be made, will make sure we have resources and even more skills and resilience to continue to care for our communities. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'd like to, first of all, start off with my acknowledgment to my learned colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell, who has done an amazing job in this portfolio. I thank him for this bill that's come to the House. Apart from everything else that other members have actually said, this bill formalises and clarifies the concept of lead agency. I think that's a wonderful thing. It reduces the ambiguity and clarifies who is actually making the decisions so everybody knows who to follow.

This actually takes me back about 11 years ago. It didn't happen in New Zealand; it happened in South Korea, where a ship called Sewol sank. I think it was 304 people that died as a result, and 250 of the dead were students who were actually on a school excursion. That's 82 percent of the total who actually died. Out of the 172 who actually survived, more than half were rescued only by fishing boats that were nearby. The coast guards were 40 minutes behind them. The reason why that happened was that no one actually knew who was in charge. There was no leadership. They did not know if the national guards were in charge or the coast guards were in charge or if the military could actually go and help. Even a foreign vessel, an American naval ship, was nearby and wanting to provide help, but they weren't allowed, because they were a foreign ship, and they could not actually help those children. That is an utter disaster that I hope never, ever happens in any other country. I commend this bill, which will make sure that it doesn't happen.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is, That the Emergency Management Bill (No 2) be referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

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