This bill replaces the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 and gives effect to the Government's response to the Government Inquiry into the Response to the North Island Severe Weather Events.
This bill has been accorded urgency in the House. First detected 11 July 2026, 9:20am UTC.
Urgency compresses the timetable, not the politics. Until the third reading, the committee of the whole House can still amend the bill — changes are moved right up to the final vote. The channels that operate at this speed:
| Stage | Sitting day | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Second reading | 30 Jun 2026 | The Emergency Management Bill (No 2) was read a second time. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
Dates are sitting days as recorded by the Office of the Clerk; a sitting extended under urgency continues under its original day. Readings are decided by party vote: each party casts its members’ votes en bloc (proxies included), so the whole House needn’t be present and individual attendance isn’t recorded — the party-by-party tally for each reading is in that day’s Hansard, linked per stage above.
Topics in the OpenBrief corpus matched to this bill’s title, with their volume over the last six weeks — how loud the subject already was when urgency was moved. This is retrieval against our existing corpus, not model judgement.
| Topic | Press items · 6wk | Social posts · 6wk |
|---|---|---|
| emergency management | 0 | 1 |
AI-assisted analysis · every claim links to primary source ·
corrections
Published 13 Jul 2026, 7:21am UTC (separate from, and later than, the alert timestamp above)
· model: claude-opus-4-8
In short: The bill repeals the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 and replaces it with a new emergency management framework of powers, duties, and role-holders.
“An authorised Controller or a constable may requisition property by— (a) directing the responsible owner to immediately place the property under the control and direction of the authorised Controller or constable”
“An authorised Controller or a constable may direct— (a) the evacuation of persons or vehicles from any premises or place, including a public place: (b) the exclusion of persons or vehicles from any premises or place”
“The specified person authorised Controller or constable may enter on or into, and if necessary break into, 1 or more of the following: (a) premises, other than a marae”
“A person to whom this section applies may apply to a court for an order for compensation for loss or damage to the person’s property.”
“Liability for the loss of, or damage to, personal property resulting from an action or measure must not exceed $40,000 for an application.”
“The person is protected from liability in civil proceedings for any act that the person does or omits to do in performing or exercising in good faith the person’s functions, duties, or powers under this Act”
“ensure that the essential service delivered by its essential infrastructure that it is responsible for providing is able to function to the fullest possible extent”
“The Director-General may serve on a person (A) a compliance order that does 1 or more of the following”
“to increase the fine for a breach of a regulation or rule to $2,000 for an individual and $10,000 in any other case”
“The Speaker may, by notice in writing, change the place of meeting of Parliament set out in the Proclamation summoning Parliament.”
“Each local authority must be a member of an Emergency Management Committee, unless it is a unitary authority that is a unitary authority Emergency Management Committee”
“An office holder may apply to the District Court for a warrant authorising a constable to enter and search any 1 or more premises, other than a private dwelling or marae, for the purpose of obtaining information”
Taken under urgency; the compressed timetable limited scrutiny even where a committee stage existed.
Method: the model reads the bill as published (claude-opus-4-8); every claim above carries a verbatim span of that text, checked mechanically — claims that fail the check are dropped, not softened. Text analysed from an archived copy of the official text. Full methodology →
A motion to accord urgency to the following business was agreed to: - the remaining stages of: - the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill; - the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill; - the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill; - the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill; and - the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Building Amendment Bill; and - the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill; - the Crimes Amendment Bill; - the Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill; - the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill; and - the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill; and - the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill; and - the Emergency Management Bill (No 2); - the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2); - the discharge and re-committal to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill; and - the remaining stages of: - the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill; - the Mental Health Bill; - the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill; and - the Constitution Amendment Bill.
