Financial Review Debate — Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority

When the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority was established it was at a time when it was replacing the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Commission, which the Government had set up after the September earthquake. After February the Government felt that a stronger body was required, and that was true. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Commission simply did not have the powers that were needed under the circumstances of the February earthquake. It was insufficient. It was a coordinating body, a recommendatory body, and it simply did not have the powers. But it did have one thing that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority does not have, and that is independence. So it was an independent body that did not have sufficient powers—a powerless independent body. The Government replaced it with a powerful body that has no independence—it is a Government department.

Just prior to its establishment our then leader Phil Goff wrote to the Prime Minister, John Key, and suggested that if the Government really did want to do things well in Christchurch, and to have a genuine bipartisan approach to rebuilding Christchurch, which the Government had said it wanted to achieve, for it to be meaningful there had to be full engagement before decisions were made, and consulting on proposals when they are ready to go to Cabinet does not make the resulting decision bipartisan. I think that is a very good point for us to note.

Then he went on to say that Christchurch requires a separate recovery model so that the Christchurch City Council can get on with business as usual, with key personnel seconded to a separate authority, which is given all the powers to implement the recovery component of the city council’s civil defence emergency management obligations. Unfortunately, the Government did not listen to us, and that is because it does not understand international best practice when it comes to recovery. I know that that is the case, because I listened to the Minister when he responded to a contribution that I made to the panel on Radio New Zealand National’s Afternoons with Jim Mora on 10 February this year, when he suggested that what I wanted in terms of community engagement when I was talking about international best practice was that I was suggesting we sit around and play guitars and sing “Kumbaya” over it, which I thought was very funny. I mean, he is a very clever speaker when it comes to making humorous points such as that, but this is a serious matter. What he told us in that same public statement was that he can rewrite the evidence, he can rewrite the experience of the past when he said: “I think we are actually rewriting international best practice down here on a day-by-day basis.”

I just want to remind the Committee that international best practice comes from the experience of failure and success. When things work well we learn from those, but when things fail we learn from them as well. If we do not learn from failure we condemn ourselves to repeat it over and over again. What the Minister was actually telling the people of New Zealand was not that they were rewriting international best practice on a day-by-day basis in Christchurch. What he was telling New Zealand was that they were making it up day by day, and they are getting it so terribly wrong. The people of Christchurch are finally starting to cotton on to the fact that this Government has no idea what it is doing.

I want to tell the Committee that the Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee, headed by the exceptionally brilliant professor Sir Peter Gluckman, has done an exceptionally brilliant briefing paper to the Prime Minister, and I would like the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Education, to actually respond to this paper on the psychosocial consequences of the Canterbury earthquakes. He says this: “It would appear that key to minimising this phase of anger and frustration, which becomes inevitable when people are treated the way they are treated by this Government, is the promotion of local empowerment, engagement by working closely in a collaborative way with the affected population in coordinating and co-leading the response effort. If the population do not sense this is happening, then the phase may well be longer and the symptoms of anger and frustration more intense.”

Sir Peter Gluckman knows exactly what he is talking about when he is talking about evidence and international best practice. Unfortunately, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has not been set up to undertake that approach at all. I understand that tomorrow the Government is going to announce a new direction for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority to take over that role from the council.

I rise to speak on the review of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, at pages 47 to 52 of the combined reports of select committees. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, as the previous speaker, Lianne Dalziel, has alluded to, was established in March 2011. It has extensive powers under one of the most Draconian pieces of legislation this House has passed since World War II. Its task is to plan and coordinate Christchurch’s recovery until 2016. I certainly acknowledge the considerable work that it has done in carrying out land and building assessments as a basis for rebuilding and insurance decisions, and its work with the Christchurch City Council, Orion, and others in coordinating the rebuilding of water, sewerage, electricity, and other infrastructure. But I want to concentrate on the authority’s role in overseeing demolitions, which is specifically referred to on page 50 of the combined select committee reports.

In the last year the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has decided that more than 1,200 buildings should be demolished in Christchurch’s central city, with 900 of these in the cordoned-off central business district area. This is roughly half the buildings in Christchurch’s commercial and cultural heart. They include more than 140 heritage buildings that are recognised in the Christchurch city plan, more than 70 buildings that are listed and registered with the Historic Places Trust, and hundreds of buildings that have contributed to the city’s character even if they are not formally recognised as heritage buildings. Yet because the public has had such limited access to the red zone, with only a few bus tours, very few people know how much has gone and how little is going to be left.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has, in its haste to demolish, failed to heed international best practice and international experience. Dr Kit Miyamoto of Miyamoto International, which has helped and advised a number of cities recovering from more than 100 natural disaster events, from hurricanes to earthquakes, warned that Christchurch was headed down completely the wrong track with the authority’s strategy of demolishing half of the central city. He said it was more appropriate to have a take-down rate of between 10 and 20 percent of buildings. He said that many of the buildings now—or that have been demolished by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority—could be repaired for 20 to 30 percent of the cost of a new building.

So it is the haste and the extent of the building demolition strategy of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority that is impeding the city’s recovery. The authority is creating a stark and bleak wasteland with huge vacant lots, which may remain that way for decades, particularly if the former owners of the buildings that have been demolished take their insurance payouts and go elsewhere—as the owners of the big Crowne Plaza Hotel are understood to be doing.

Christchurch is known internationally for its stone Gothic revival buildings. They include the Arts Centre of Christchurch, the Christchurch Cathedral, the Canterbury Museum, the Canterbury Provincial Council Chambers, and numerous churches. They are a key part of the city’s architectural heritage. They are objects of beauty and of considerable artisanship, and they have a key commercial value in attracting visitors to the city and providing the backdrop to a vital cultural life. Yet the authority’s enthusiasm for demolition and its failure to seek proper advice from engineers who are experienced in retrofitting, rebuilding, and strengthening heritage buildings mean that the Wizard is now conducting regular pray-ins to try to save that symbol of Christchurch—the Christchurch Cathedral.

The Listener reported last November: “ ‘We have owners desperate for us to say the building has less than 33% of new code strength, and is therefore classed as a dangerous building’. Then they go along to Cera and have an exchange of letters. The owners hand over the letter from the engineer saying it’s under 33%, and Cera hands them a letter saying, ‘Tell us how you’re going to knock it down within 10 days.’ ” Because of that, when owners have the option of repairing their damaged buildings or getting an insurance payout, there is a very powerful incentive to go for the cash. With the cathedral, not enough has been done to investigate ways of repairing and strengthening the building. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is encouraging, with its haste to demolish to meet its April deadline, a bleak and stark wasteland within the city.

We need the authority’s extensive powers to be curtailed. We need the city council to go back to making decisions on the buildings that should be demolished, using a public process where there is an opportunity for public submissions. The Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act has a lifespan of 5 years and it includes a commitment that it will be reviewed annually. The previous speaker has indicated that the Government is going to make some announcement tomorrow. That 1-year anniversary is approaching, and the powers of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority need to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is the member going for another call?

—be substantially curtailed.

If the member keeps talking after I have rung the bell, that constitutes another call. I did not dock you for one, and I did not dock the previous Labour member as well. But just be mindful, if you continue talking and I call you again, that constitutes another call. It means that later on you will not have that call if you want to speak on something else. So I just remind all members of that.

Report noted.

Ministry of Transport