Financial Review Debate — Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority

Just a few days ago my Labour colleagues and I went to visit the home of Mrs Dot Boyd, who has been waiting for over 3 years for her house to be repaired. On several occasions she has been told that she is just about to move out, so she has packed up all her possessions and waited, and nothing has happened. For over 3 years this fine and feisty woman in her 80s has waited with her entire possessions packed into cardboard boxes, living as if she is in a refugee camp, because of the incompetence and arrogance of the Earthquake Commission and her insurance company. This is not acceptable in a developed country, and the agency that is charged with leading our recovery, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, is, like the Earthquake Commission and the insurance companies, providing more obstacles to our recovery than it is providing support and recovery.

I regret to say that I hold the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery entirely responsible for that bureaucracy, the burden that has been put on Canterbury people, because I think that Minister is out of touch. It may well be because the scale of the job is just too big. It may be that he has got such a massive bureaucracy in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority now. There are over 300 bureaucrats in a Government department that was meant to be an enabler of recovery, that was meant to drive and support other agencies, and that is now being described by everyone across the political spectrum, from the residents through to the property developers in the central business district, as more of an obstacle than anything else imaginable.

I think the Minister is in denial about it. It is exactly the same as the situation with Mrs Boyd. When Mr Brownlee was told by the media about Mrs Boyd’s case, he said it was “disappointing”, and that, clearly, somebody had “dropped the ball”. That is disappointing! What makes the Minister angry? What makes the Minister so fired up that he actually wants to not address individual cases but wants to fix the system so that Canterbury can get back on to a path of recovery? Disappointed is what you might be if a call was a week or two late, but 3 years too late is a lot more than disappointing, and I think it should make the Minister angry. I think the Minister should be getting in the head of his Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and saying “Get some action in our region.” As a constituency MP, I cannot imagine how he is not exactly on top of the issues that our constituents face, but from his response to that case and to others he seems completely out of touch.

That is actually consistent with the behaviour of the rest of his Cabinet colleagues, who breeze into Canterbury, go to the opening of an envelope—it would be the opening of an oyster if we had them in Canterbury—turn a sod, say “Aren’t we doing well for the people of Canterbury?”, and catch the next plane out. Very rarely do they get off the Memorial Avenue highway—a quick zoom into the city, back out again to the airport, and out of town. Come over to our side of the city, other Ministers, and see how we are living. See how day in, day out people are coping with the lack of support from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. The scale of damage both physical and emotional in our region is huge. For some it has been overwhelming.

It is my view that at times like this all our leaders should be pulling together, should be sharing their collective skills and saying “What’s the agreed vision, and how do we all do our bit to get there?”. We have not seen any of that. I think it is a wasted opportunity. We have seen in Waimakariri and Selwyn the mayors and the councillors getting on with it. What we saw for 2½ years was the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery throwing pot-shots at the then mayor, and recently he has started it up with the current mayor. This is an opportunity to work together that should not be wasted. Reconnect with the people of Canterbury, show some leadership and some vision, and use the powers of the authority to help others.

I think that was a deplorable speech. What I have to say is that in the 3½ years since those earthquakes, Labour members who have repeatedly said that they were out there with the people—working with the people, empathising with the people, and dealing with the people—have made no more than five requests for assistance through the Earthquake Commission. Five requests—I have the record here. I am happy to table it. Repeatedly, it is a—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: That’s a lie and you know it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order!

I am sorry, Ms Dyson, it is not a lie. It is an undeniable fact—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, it’s a lie.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Members know that they must not use that term in connection with another member. Members know that.

It is an undeniable fact that only five cases have been put before the Earthquake Commission in the last 3½ years. Plenty of tub-thumping about people’s bad circumstances, but five cases only.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Liar, liar, liar.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do apologise to the Minister in the chair, but I cannot sit here and listen to Ms Dyson continue to use those terms time and again, after being implored by you not to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am sorry. I did not hear the member, but I will now say that the member will desist. If she continues to use the words that I admonished her for, she will leave the Chamber. Members know the rules.

So not only have there been only five cases brought by Labour members of Parliament to the Earthquake Commission in the last 3 years but two of them have been brought to the commission by Poto Williams, who has been in the place for only 6 months. So what we saw the other day was the most despicable political manipulation of a vulnerable person in Canterbury. Did they tell us when they found out that that poor woman was in that bad circumstance? No. They went and organised a photo opportunity for David Cunliffe and Clayton Cosgrove and Ms Dyson to turn up there and grandstand on the misery of that woman. That is utterly despicable and it is typical of the way Labour members have behaved in Christchurch for the last 3½ years—utterly, utterly despicable behaviour.

The comments about the size of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority I find quite amusing. Firstly, it was never meant to be just a small policy shop. There was a massive gap in the capability of the Christchurch City Council to deliver on any recovery plans. So I would simply ask Labour members this: tell us what work the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority should stop—tell us what work the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority should stop. And what do we get? Blank faces and more ranting—blank faces and more ranting. Just tell us one thing that the authority should not be doing.

There has been a huge job done in Canterbury by the workers who are part of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. There are some 24 recovery plans in place. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority leads 14 of those. It sits alongside community organisations that lead others. There has been a massive effort to re-zone land and to make it safe for people to occupy. Yes, I have to say it is disappointing—again that word—because things could have gone more quickly. But the courts have had far too much to say, in my opinion, and have, in fact, not understood what natural justice is for people who are waiting even now to find out what they are doing. [Interruption] Now you see the sort of reaction that is being exhibited over there—ranting, screaming, raging, mock anger. That does not do anything for anyone who has got a difficult circumstance to deal with.

I say again that I have got the evidence here and I am going to table it—only five complaints to the Earthquake Commission by Labour Party members. There were two from Ms Dyson, one from Ms Dalziel, and two from Poto Williams, who, to her credit, in only 6 months has managed to get those complaints up. It was a shocker the other day. To use that 85-year-old woman in the way the Labour Party did was simply outrageous. There was not a darned thing that the photo opportunity with David Cunliffe could achieve—nothing. And did they tell us how long they had known it? I understand they knew for 3 months. They knew before Christmas that that woman was living in those disastrous circumstances. Did they tell us? No, they sat on it because this was an opportunity for David to come down and do some big grandstanding over this.

I am going to seek another speaking slot [Bell rung]. Mr Chairman?

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The Hon Gerry Brownlee.

There are over 55,000 damaged homes that have now been completed through the Earthquake Commission’s earthquake recovery programme. I take the Committee back to just immediately after these disasters, when there were three important things that were said to us. Those things were, firstly, that our population would fall and start to leave the city; secondly, that real estate values would fall dramatically and perhaps take up to a decade and a half to recover; and, thirdly, that we would have widespread unemployment and other social deprivation that is typical of disasters around the world. Partly because of the Government’s response, but mostly because of Cantabrians’ response to what the Government has done in this process, we do not have any of those statistics facing us at the present time. We have got a growing population in Canterbury. We have in Canterbury the lowest unemployment of anywhere in New Zealand, and we have real estate prices rising to a point where some would say it is now a problem.

The one thing that is absolutely certain is that if people are to live good lives, they need to have income. The Government moved very quickly after the earthquakes to put in place the wage subsidy—an amount that meant that any employer could claim up to $500 per worker per week while that business was reorganising itself to get back on its feet. That held employment in Canterbury. It gave time for businesses to move into new premises and to relocate in order to offer their services or their products, or whatever it might have been. The consequence of that is that we have had record levels of exports out of Canterbury over the last four or five quarters, and we have an economy that is now growing at close to 7 percent. All augurs well for the future of Canterbury. The remaining Earthquake Commission properties that are still problematic are, in fact, mostly multiple units—there may be up to, in one case, 43 units on one title—with a range of insurers all trying to work out who pays for what. In the future we will have to look at land tenure, we will have to look at conveyancing rules, and we will have to look at the way in which bodies corporate are required to operate in order to ensure this disaster does not happen anywhere else in New Zealand.

To suggest that there is total doom and gloom in Canterbury is quite wrong. There is despair at the inability—it would seem after 5 months—of the new council to get on top of its bureaucracy. I say again to Labour members that if there is anything they can definitely demonstrate that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority should not be doing, then I want to know about it, because I cannot think of one thing it is doing that is a duplication of council efforts or a duplication of any other efforts. I can think of a lot of well-meaning NGOs that want to be doing more in this space, but the reality is that there has to be the resource available. This Government has not been stinting in making money and resource available to move things forward.

I would like to take time, if it was available, to talk about some of the Earthquake Commission cases that have made their way into the media in recent times. I would like to talk about some of the Southern Response cases that have made their way into the media in recent times. All I would say is that if people want to go to the media and complain that they are not being fairly treated, they have an obligation to put all of the information on the table so that everyone can see exactly how they are being treated. I suggest there would be many throughout New Zealand who might struggle to understand that there was mistreatment involved in many of those cases. It is a big job, and no one is resiling from that. It is a big job for the insurers. It is a big job for the Earthquake Commission.

One thing that I must comment on is a Marsh report just recently saying that private insurers in Canterbury have performed worse than in many other disasters in the world. The subtle difference, but the extremely important difference, is that we had 21 months of shakes before we got a 3-month period when the insurers could start their work. Further to that, we have got a penetration rate of insurance in New Zealand of over 98 percent. No other jurisdiction in the world has that level. So, yes, it might be easy to say: “Oh well, the insurers have done their work somewhere else.” The fact is they had a lot fewer insured.

Report noted.

Ministry of Transport