Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill

I move, That the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill be now read a second time.

Tonight, we are moving a bill that will fast track the reinstatement of the Canterbury Cathedral and deliver progress on an issue that, after years of frustration and delay, we can finally see some progress on. This is a milestone in Canterbury’s recovery and an important symbol of progress in our city. The devastating earthquakes of February 2011 delivered a significant amount of damage to Christ Church Cathedral. This was, of course, nothing new for the cathedral in terms of earthquake damage. Damage to the building, and especially the spire, has occurred on many occasions: 1881, 1888, 1901, 1922, and, of course, September 2010, but the damage that the February earthquake delivered to the church caused significant damage to that building.

For many people, Christ Church Cathedral is the core symbol of Christchurch. It sits at the heart of our city, both geographically and culturally. The city was, literally, designed around it in 1850, so the origins of the cathedral do date back to the very plans of the Canterbury Association, which had an aim to build a city around a cathedral and a college in a square. The college, it was found after time, couldn’t be accommodated in the square and was later moved on to land designated for Hagley Park, but at the centre of what was then called Ridley Square, it was decided that a cathedral was what the city was going to be built around. Ridley, of course, was named after Bishop Nicholas Ridley, who was a martyr of Oxford of 1550 and who was joined by two other martyrs, his co-martyrs Cranmer and Latimer, whose names also bear squares in Canterbury. This was later called Cathedral Square and is very much part of our history.

But it’s not only our 19th century Canterbury Association and the formation of the city history that the cathedral sits at the centre of. Throughout the 20th and the 21st centuries, this has continued to be an important cultural site for people in Christchurch. In 1974, the Wizard arrived in Christchurch and began to stand on a ladder outside the cathedral. Council attempted to have him arrested in 1974, but he survived and can still be seen in Cathedral Square today. That is a significant amount of time. He arrived the year after I was born; so it’s not hard for me to do the sums on the number of years he’s been speaking.

Since the earthquake, the damaged cathedral has lain unoccupied in our square, and it has come to stand, in the public mind, as a symbol of the slow pace of the recovery, a sign of all that we have lost. This bill begins to set right, and will provide a much-needed injection of momentum and energy into, the rebuild and recovery of our central city.

I want to thank everybody who took part in the select committee process. The bill has, in my view, been greatly improved by the feedback of submitters and members of that committee. Thank you. And I especially want to thank Deborah Russell, who chaired the Environment Committee. It was the first piece of legislation that she chaired through a committee, and I think she did a wonderful job—so thank you.

There’s also a number of other people who I acknowledged in my first reading speech, but I would like to mention them again: the bishop Victoria Matthews and members of the synod; Jim Anderton and Philip Burdon; the mayor; and the former Ministers Gerry Brownlee and Nicky Wagner. I think this has been a good example of collaborative, cross-party work, which has allowed us to get to this point. I thank you for the work you did as Minister, and then your cooperation as a member of the committee.

The bill as it stands now will give huge confidence to people in Christchurch—that there is a clear and practical plan for kickstarting the restoration of the cathedral and ensuring that the heart of our city is once again a vibrant and exciting place. This will give more people the confidence needed to develop, live, work, and play in the heart of our city.

The Environment Committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a few amendments. We support all the changes recommended by the committee. The changes to provide greater clarity to the purpose clause and around the definition of “reinstatement” are positive and will provide clear guidance to ensure this work is done in the best possible manner.

It is also pleasing that the bill will now fully recognise the Cathedral Working Group’s recommendation report as a key document underpinning the process of reinstatement in the bill itself. A huge amount of work and negotiation went into that report, and I think all the groups involved in this process have a very high degree of confidence in it. Giving greater recognition ensures that we’re on the right path, and I think it will further boost confidence in the process. It is also recognition that this legislation builds on a great deal of work that has been going on in the city, from that working group report and the Miriam Dean report that have allowed us to get to this point.

The Environment Committee has also recommended that the time frames in clause 8 be reduced to 15 working days. As the development of orders will be a consultative and iterative process, with potential for engagement to be repeated if there are significant changes to the orders, it is important that the deciding Minister is able to undertake appropriate engagement without slowing the momentum of the reinstatement project. It’s also pleasing to see a faster time line on the process that reflects the wider need for speed and energy to complete the project.

Clause 22 as reported back sets out that an application for review relating to an Order in Council under the Judicial Review Procedure Act 2016 must be made within 28 days. The committee has recommended that the 28-day time frame begin from the date of publication of the reasons for recommending that the relevant order be made. That clarity has been provided by the committee, and I think that is a useful addition to the legislation. This ensures that any individuals wishing to make an application make their decision with all necessary information available to them.

The committee has also recommended clarifying that only specified entities—those being the joint venture or another entity managing the reinstatement of the cathedral—and the review panel are able to propose that the Minister recommend the making of an order. To make sure that there is clarity around that is an important change that has been made. It’s a sensible amendment and will provide a clear framework for the development of orders, which will allow for the reinstatement of the cathedral.

The final change that I wish to mention is the committee’s recommendation to add additional Acts to schedule 2. We thank the committee for carefully considering the recommendation of the Church Property Trustees, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and the Christchurch City Council in recommending additional Acts for schedule 2. This will ensure the Act is fit for purpose and able to manage any issues that may arise during the reinstatement.

I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the submitters, who submitted in a very close time frame and made very meaningful submissions that have allowed us to improve this legislation. In particular, I’d like to thank the Church Property Trustees, the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust, the Christchurch City Council, and other heritage and legal experts for providing their expertise and their opinion to aid the Environment Committee’s consideration with these ambitious time frames.

This is an extraordinary piece of legislation for an extraordinary set of circumstances. For seven years, Cantabrians have had a broken building at the heart of their city. There is now a strong desire in the city for us to mend that broken centre of our city, to move on, to provide the energy required to get our city moving to be all that it can be. This is an important step that we are making here tonight with furthering this legislation. I thank everybody for their involvement, and I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m absolutely delighted to be able to support this Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. I’m particularly pleased because it’s the last piece of the jigsaw—it’s the last piece of the jigsaw as part of the Government’s offer to reinstate this building, and this will mean that the heart of the city will once again have Christ Church Cathedral.

It’s particularly important for reasons beyond just a building. Yes, it’s a cathedral; yes, it’s a church. It’s a significant heritage building—a category 1 heritage building—and, I suspect, one of the best-known heritage buildings in the country. The reason for that is that since it was completed in the early 1900s, it has been the symbol of Christchurch. It was also the reason that we became the first city of New Zealand. You have to have a cathedral to be a city, so Christ Church Cathedral made Christchurch the first city of New Zealand.

I think the important thing about this building is that everybody who lives in Christchurch, in Canterbury, and even beyond it has some kind of connection—so it’s not only a church, but also a community facility, and also a very important part of our tourism industry. But if you talk to any local people, they will tell you about how they relate to that cathedral, and we’ve heard some of those stories from people in this House. Whether it’s that they put a present under the Christmas tree; whether it was that they climbed the steeple; whether it was that they watched the wizard and waved to him, Rino Tirikatene—it was those things that the people of Christchurch related to that building.

It’s not surprising, because it is geographically in the centre of our city. Cathedral Square, for very many years, was the transport hub of our city. All the cinemas were around the outside of it. If you were going anywhere in Christchurch city, you came through Cathedral Square and you walked past Christ Church Cathedral.

Of course, this all came to a great, abrupt halt with the earthquakes. Now, we did have an earthquake in 2010, and we congratulated ourselves on how the earthquake strengthening looked after the cathedral. They couldn’t actually use it for a few weeks, but they had the engineers look at it and it survived very well in 2010. Not the same on 22 February 2011, and I think we were particularly fortunate that there were no deaths in that cathedral. There were some serious injuries for people who were working there, and for some time we felt that there may have been people in the tower. They thought it could’ve been up to a number of 20 people in the tower who might have perished in the building, but I think it was because there were a couple of shakes and people had the chance to run out that, fortunately, nobody was killed.

But we actually killed the building, and the building has been sitting there, neglected, decaying, in the centre of our city. What it’s done is it’s really reflected not what’s happening at all. It does not reflect the development that’s happened in the city, the recovery that’s been going on, the rebuilding of infrastructure, the new buildings, the new houses, and the people getting on with their lives. It has been a very negative effect. It’s been bad for the central city. It’s been bad for businesses that are working in that area. It’s been particularly difficult for tourism, because we do know that up to 60 percent of our tourists come to Cathedral Square and come to the cathedral. What we’re hoping as we reinstate it is that they’ll come to see it being rebuilt.

Of course, during this time there has been quite a divisive debate about what should actually happen to that cathedral. As I said, everybody has some connection to it, everybody’s had an opinion about what should happen, and it’s gone backwards and forwards. What’s possible? Can we restore it to its greater glory? Should we knock it down? Should we build a modern cathedral that we’ll bill to the congregation that worships there?

The debate has been long and hard. There have actually been court cases about it. So it’s been a very difficult time for the people of Christchurch. In an attempt to get some objective information, the past Minister, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, commissioned Miriam Dean to come up with a report to see what we could actually do with the cathedral, and she got a group of engineers together, and they worked in a collaborative way and they confirmed that, yes, the cathedral could be reinstated at a cost of about $100 million. So suddenly we had some facts—for the first time, we had some facts. But, of course, it was only the fact that it could be done and the cost.

We continued from there. The debate went on, and so the Minister, again, brought together a group of stakeholders to work on a bigger picture. They collaborated together and they created the Cathedral Working Group Recommendation Report. The people that were on that group, they came from the Church Property Trustees—the owners—they came from heritage groups, they came from the community, and they really worked hard to try and come up with a collaborative solution.

That report was incredibly detailed. It talked about how the governance would work in a reinstatement, it talked about detailed costings, it talked about how the actual construction could get under way, and then it even looked to the future about how it could be managed. So it was a really important document, and it was a document that brought everybody together. There was quite a lot of trading about what was possible, and everybody signed up to that document. It was a very exciting time when we had some way forward—a blueprint to go forward.

But we still needed to find $100 million. This is where the Government stepped in. I was instrumental in getting this money together. The vast majority of the money—$42 million—came from the insurance funding from the cathedral itself. The Government promised $25 million—a $10 million grant and a $15 million suspended loan. The city council promised $10 million, and I’m very pleased to be able to say that they’ve actually confirmed that. They’ve consulted with the people of Christchurch, and they have confirmed that they are supporting this reinstatement with $10 million. The final money was from philanthropy—the people of Christchurch and beyond who are prepared to put their own money into this project. So we’ve got the amount of money that’s viable to actually rebuild the building and the auxiliary buildings around it. There will still need to be some fund-raising done for the steeple, but that will come after the building is completed and can be in use.

The report was particularly important in terms of going forward, and so I’m really pleased to see that the report underpins this bill. It is mentioned throughout, in the beginning of the bill, and they talk about how we can reinstate using the principles that have been collected.

So what will the bill actually do? Well, really, what it will do is it will streamline the process, it will give certainty, and it will give confidence that the reinstatement can be done. As I’ve said, it covers governance and it covers the construction project and the way forward.

What it will really mean is that the people of Christchurch and Canterbury and the people beyond—we’ll welcome everybody with open arms, and their money to support this rebuild. They can really get behind it and we’ll be able to see that our symbol of Christchurch is actually reinstated and that will have a positive image of our city going forward.

I’d really like to thank everybody who was involved in this process. It has been a long and difficult process. The select committee process, in the Environment Committee, has actually been very pleasant. I think we work collegially together. The submitters were very efficient. They had thrashed this stuff out, so they were able to come forward and make good suggestions. We came back to the select committee. We worked our way through those suggestions, and I think we’ve ended up with a pretty good bill. And I’m certain that it will give confidence to the people of Christchurch and the people who are going to be involved in this process, to allow us to go forward.

In summary, I think this bill is a good solution. It’s a good solution to a challenging issue. It’s good for the people of Christchurch—and we did note this: that it’s good for them culturally, socially, and economically. It will bring the heart of the city back and it will focus on the regeneration of our city. It will be particularly good in terms of revitalising our city centre, and that’s the next step in the regeneration process: bringing tourists back and having a symbol that is in one piece. I will be very excited to see the work that’s going to happen over the next few years.

So kia ora, and thank you to the Minister for all her work.

I’ve been to Christchurch only a few times since the earthquake, mostly to the outskirts and only once to Cathedral Square where, with my family, we rode the tram around and saw the broken cathedral. It was heartbreaking, even for someone who has not come from that part of the country. All I could think was that that building needed to be repaired. But, as we all know, there was an impasse—litigation, discussions back and forth, and no one could quite agree what to do with the cathedral.

It was what sometimes gets called a “wicked” problem. Typically, wicked problems end up on the Government’s desk. The interesting thing about this particular wicked problem, though, is that although Government was involved in helping to sort the problems out, ultimately the solution that was arrived at was driven by the people of Christchurch themselves—by the people that the Hon Nicky Wagner has talked about who are involved in the Cathedral Working Group. They were the people who found the solution. That was people like the Church Property Trustees, Heritage New Zealand, the city council, the mayor, the bishop—all the people who had a stake in that building, whether they were members of the cathedral community itself or members of the wider Christchurch community—that’s how much the cathedral means. It is a symbol of Christchurch itself. The solution they came up with is very much a collaborative solution.

I think this collaborative approach was very much echoed in the select committee process we just worked through in the Environment Committee, and here I would like to pay particular tribute to the Hon Nicky Wagner, who, with her local knowledge and her local commitment to that cathedral, contributed that knowledge and expertise so willingly to help us come up with a good solution and what is, I think, a good piece of legislation.

What this particular bill does is it puts in place a legislative framework by which work on the cathedral can go ahead. What it does is it gets the process going. In particular, it does that because what we have in Christ Church Cathedral is an emergency. It’s a slow-moving emergency, one that has grown over years and years and now needs a fix. The fix that is come up with is a particular process of using Orders in Council—Orders in Council that set aside some of the normal mechanisms of the law, set aside some of the normal protections we have, on the say-so of the Minister, in order to get the cathedral rebuilt.

Now, that’s a dangerous power to give to a Minister, that the Minister may set aside some portions of the law. We have a necessity for that because of the slow-moving emergency, and what we have in this bill is a series of protections—the sorts of protections that are vital to a democracy.

The Minister may request that the Governor-General issues an Order in Council, and that Order in Council can set aside some Acts and say that those Acts don’t need to be complied with. But here’s the first protection: it’s only some Acts, and only Acts that are specific to the rebuilding of the cathedral. And here’s the second protection: it’s only in a very limited area—the cathedral area, which is the cathedral buildings itself and the land immediately around it and the roads immediately around that. So, straight away, we’ve got restrictions on the power of the Minister. Some of the restrictions that the Minister can’t set aside are, of course, health and safety provisions. All this so that the building can get going.

The Minister may recommend an Order in Council, but only for the purpose of the bill, and the purpose is very clearly specified—it’s about reinstating the cathedral. When the Minister issues an Order in Council, the Minister must engage with the relevant local authorities and with the public, and—importantly—there is a review panel. That review panel is not a representative panel. It’s an expert panel—people with the knowledge, the skills, and the experience to be able to make a judgment as to whether what the Minister is requesting is appropriate and needed.

So this is a series of checks on the power of the Minister to ensure that whenever the Minister recommends an Order in Council, that Order in Council is actually needed for the purpose of reinstating the cathedral. These are the sorts of checks and balances we like to see in our democratic system. And even then, when there are all these checks and balances, anything that the Minister orders is still subject to judicial review. Now it’s a limited judicial review—only 28 days—but with the amount of collaboration and consultation and the ongoing discussion that has gone on around the cathedral, all the consultation has already happened, and we have, nevertheless, provided for this judicial review. It’s a final check on the Minister.

The Minister must report to the Parliament every year on the operation of these Orders in Council, and, of course, the Minister is subject to the ultimate review of our triennial elections. In other words, all the checks and balances are in place to enable this cathedral to be reinstated, using Orders in Council, so that the job can get done and so that that broken building can be reinstated, because we want to help the community of Christchurch to find a way forward.

As this Parliament, we are here to help our community in New Zealand. This bill does that for the community of Christchurch and for the wider community of New Zealand, which cares about this cathedral. We want to help rebuild this cathedral, and that is why I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a great sense of pride, standing in wholehearted support of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill in its second reading. There is only one thing worse than a cathedral sitting half-damaged and derelict in Cathedral Square. There’s only one thing worse than that, and that’s a half-built cathedral sitting in Cathedral Square, for the people of Canterbury.

So there was a lot of importance and there was a lot of pressure on the Environment Committee to ensure we got this enabling legislation right. I don’t think anyone wants to see this reinstatement project go ahead only to falter two, three, five, or seven years into the expected period of 10 years. So I think it’s great that we’re bringing this bill back in in good shape.

It’s important that a bill goes to a select committee. It gets hearings by the public. The select committee reflects on the submissions and makes appropriate amendments. I think this bill is in good shape. At the risk of being flippant, one of the reasons it’s in good shape is because it started off in good shape, and I do want to acknowledge the Greater Christchurch regeneration Minister, the Hon Megan Woods, for her work on that but also, of course, the Hon Nicky Wagner, the former Greater Christchurch regeneration Minister, for all her work previously in driving the stakeholders forward, getting them together collaboratively, and tying this up with the Cathedral Working Group report and recommendations.

I feel this bill is coming back from the select committee in good shape also because of the submissions. The submissions demonstrated to the people hearing them that the stakeholders, although acrimonious at times, actually are somewhat speaking from the same page now, are somewhat aligned, as much as they can be, and I think that puts this bill in good stead.

Finally, I think this bill comes back in good shape thanks to the work of not only the members of the select committee—the cross-party members from not only Canterbury but around New Zealand who see the importance of getting this enabling legislation right—but also the advisers, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and also the secretariat of the select committee, who were able to respond and be responsible, responsive, and flexible to ensure that this bill was turned round in a short time frame. So I would like to acknowledge them at this time. Like I say, if this bill wasn’t coming back in a good shape, not only would we be at risk of having a half-damaged cathedral sitting in Cathedral Square but we would also be at risk, potentially, of one thing worse, which would be a half-built cathedral sitting in Cathedral Square.

So when we went down last week to listen to the submissions, we had about 78 submissions and we heard about seven in Christchurch and Wellington. It actually rained last Tuesday, which probably doesn’t sound that unusual, but if you’re from Christchurch, you’d actually know that we went 47 days without rain—the driest period in 75 years of the history of Christchurch—yet when we arrived, it was raining. Without drawing too much of a conclusion, it’s fair to say the drought had broken, and I firmly believe the drought has broken on the issues of the Christ Church Cathedral and its reinstatement. I am looking forward to the passing of this enabling legislation that will drive forward the reinstatement of our loved cathedral.

One of the areas we touched on as a select committee that caused a wide-ranging debate—which was very helpful and very productive—was the inclusion of further Acts under schedule 2. So it includes now the Building Act 2004, the Land Transfer Act 2017, the Local Government Act 1974 and the Local Government Act 2002, the Public Works Act of 1981, and the Reserves Act of 1977. I think it’s important that all these Acts are now in the schedule. We are looking at legislation that will cover a 10- to 15-year period, and so I think it’s quite right that those Acts are now included, coming back from the select committee process.

One of the points I raised in my call on the first reading was how important it was going to be for the select committee to enshrine the Cathedral Working Group recommendations in this bill. It’s important that we knew we weren’t starting from scratch. We weren’t going to relitigate a lot of the debate that had gone on. In a sense, we were going to enshrine the Cathedral Working Group recommendations in this bill. So I’m happy to report back that we were able to do that.

In clause 2A, “Background to this Act”, in Part 1, it says: “(1) This Act fulfils part of the Government’s offer to support the reinstatement of the Cathedral. (2) The proposed reinstatement is the culmination of a long period of facilitation, negotiation, and investigations, and is intrinsically linked to 2 key reports facilitated by the Government, including the [Cathedral Working Group] Report.” So, right from the start, this will direct the readers of this bill and, ultimately, the legislation to the background of this Act, which is, primarily, the report from the Cathedral Working Group and its recommendations.

We also, after much discussion, agreed on inserting under clause 4, “Interpretation”, a reference to the Cathedral Working Group report, as well as under the definition of “reinstatement”: “(aa) [that] any activity in relation to any part of the Cathedral that the [Cathedral Working Group] Report contemplates as being a reinstatement activity:”. Clearly, again, we were able to enshrine the Cathedral Working Group report and recommendations in this bill. That will direct our further direction of travel, because what we’re talking about is a building process that will unfold over 10 to 15 years.

One submission I want to talk to specifically is from the Pacific Youth Leadership and Transformation Council. There’ll be many Canterbury MPs that know this organisation, a Christchurch-based organisation that assists Pacific young people to participate in democracy. I was invited, as well as Poto Williams, from Labour, to be on a candidates debate during the election. They got a fantastic crowd there, and it was great to see the young people engaging in the democratic process.

They put in their submission, which I think is worth highlighting, that they wanted young people to be involved in the review panel for Orders in Council. Now, speaking personally—but I’m sure the other people on the select committee would agree—we would have loved to have had them on the review panel for Orders in Council, but, unfortunately, the review panel is not meant to be representative; it’s actually a technical panel. So, of course, if those young people have the technical expertise, the knowledge, and the skills, hopefully we’ll see them on the panel, but I wanted to state for the Hansard that, in fact, because it’s a technical panel, not a representative panel, that’s why we didn’t proceed with their submission and their recommendations.

Just to point out for that organisation, under clause 9—and I know I’ve got the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration in the House here—there is an opportunity for the Minister to seek comments and engagement from young people. So I would request that the Minister would do that, not only with this young persons organisation but with all young people’s organisations in Canterbury, because we do know that in Canterbury we are rebuilding and regenerating, not necessarily for our generation but for our children’s generation, what this city will look like in 20 and 30 years’ time.

Just a final point and remark as I close: it was fantastic to see the Christchurch City Council agree to the $10 million funding grant that they had previously pledged. They voted on that this morning, and that will go ahead, as well as the Crown contribution and other fund-raising initiatives. It gives me great pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

It’s a great pleasure that I rise to support this second reading of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. Of course, the purpose of this bill is to expedite the reinstatement of the Christ Church Anglican Cathedral—a project that has been dogged by delay, by legal disputes, as we have been hearing. This, of course, is not totally unexpected given the historic nature of this building and the emotion that it evokes. Of course, as we’ve just heard from Mr Doocey, it’s not an inconsiderable level of funding that has been required to get us to this point too, and I note the Christchurch City Council’s vote this morning, and also the Government’s proposed contribution of $10 million.

This is the most important of buildings—a building that above all others symbolises Christchurch and Canterbury, a building that sits proudly at the very centre of that great city, surrounded by its very own Cathedral Square where generations of Cantabrians have come to worship or to celebrate our great occasions. It’s a heritage 1 building, and it’s a magnificent—or it was, indeed—example of gothic architecture. It has stood as a symbol of strength, stoicism, and pride of those early settlers who settled Christchurch and Canterbury.

While the recovery, particularly in the inner city, has been slow, particularly around those anchor projects, I think it’s important and I am pleased that we are not playing too much politics around this. In fact, I believe it is important to the people of Christchurch that no less than a bipartisan approach is required, and it is this solidarity of this House that we need to signal this evening. The people of Christchurch have suffered enough already.

In the first reading, I spoke of the powerful impact it had on me personally—just watching the coverage on television and seeing that magnificent building fall. While Christchurch has exploded to the west and to the north, there is something not quite complete about that recovery while this most special and, may I say, sacred of buildings sits in ruins. It symbolises a job not yet done, a job not complete, and Christchurch can never fully move on while the cathedral sits in this damaged state.

I’m proud to say that New Zealand First are not johnny-come-latelys in this debate. We have been there all the way through. I note the words of Winston Peters, as he stood in front of the cathedral on 28 May this year. I quote: “It’s time to play ball, and you have my personal undertaking that if this Government doesn’t start now, we will start this project after the next election.” Today we deliver on that pledge, putting our shoulder to the wheel of this coalition Government.

I commend Dr Woods on her sense of urgency in bringing this bill before the House, on behalf of this coalition Government. I commend the Environment Committee, chaired by Dr Russell, and I also note other members of that committee in this House who have worked very collegially. I particularly note my colleague here Jenny Marcroft who did most of the heavy lifting here on behalf of New Zealand First.

As has been noted, this was a truncated select committee process, but it is important to note, as has been done before, that there has been a lot of work going on here by the comprehensive report brought by the Cathedral Working Group, and this bill pretty much enshrines those recommendations.

But it is a bill that deserves some scrutiny when you are granting Ministers special powers over planning laws. Of course, there is a precedent to this. Unfortunately, we are getting quite a lot of precedents with the natural disasters that we’ve had lately. But I will note the sunset clause there of 15 years, and that the select committee process actually worked as it should. It moderated aspects of that bill and put some checks and balances in place, as Dr Russell pointed out earlier on.

I did sit on the select committee as a guest on occasion, and I particularly noted the submission from Heritage New Zealand and the pragmatism that they showed within their submission: “We cannot exactly replicate this old structure. There needs to be leeway to design and build a faithful reproduction but without dogmatically insisting on replicating 170-year-old materials and techniques. Technology has moved on, and it promises to be able to build a spectacular reinstatement, safer and better than what went before.”

As I speak to this bill—and when it passes, we can finally put in place another important step in returning that cathedral to the heart of Christchurch, where one belongs. New Zealand First has much pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to talk at the second reading of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. It’s the first time I’ve taken a call on this, but I’ve had the privilege through the select committee process of reacquainting myself with a symbol of Christchurch that was very familiar to me when I was a young horticulture student many years ago at Lincoln University.

As the Hon Nicky Wagner has said, the cathedral has always been a proud symbol of that city. As with many who have expressed views in the House tonight, and on other occasions, it was a particularly poignant and sad time when we witnessed the destruction of that cathedral. I’d almost forgotten, until the Hon Nicky Wagner spoke of it, about how we thought in the first couple of days that there might be up to 20 other people underneath that ruined steeple. So there were layers of horror and some relief, but, ultimately, this is a situation that has gone on far too long.

This enabling legislation, I think, gets the balance right. The legislation that we were debating a little earlier tonight—fiercely debating—the truncated process around the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, we feel doesn’t serve the public well. This is a piece of legislation, by contrast, that does need to be put through in a hurry, because it does need to be moved on. It has been there too long, in a state of ruin. The select committee process—the 28 submissions that we received, and the seven oral submitters whom we heard in both Christchurch and Wellington, all made very good points that were carefully discussed.

I commend the officials and the other experts who have worked on putting this together over weekends and late at night. They have really pulled out the stops, as we all have. I understand that, and commend the current Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, who has done a very good job in shepherding this through her caucus, along with you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and other members of the committee—I’ll try not to spill my water all over my notes, but that didn’t work too well—who have really brought to this process a great degree of knowledge and heart. The intellectual rigour has not been lost, and also the emotion of what this means to the city.

I commend, in particular, the Hon Nicky Wagner for her years of dedication to this. I know, because I was sitting around the Cabinet table, how hard she fought to get that $10 million from the Crown and the extra $15 million in the suspensory loan. I’m delighted that the city council voted it through today. It is indeed serendipitous, and it’s an auspicious occasion when, on a day like today, the House comes together across all parties to support an enabling piece of legislation that will do this city proud, and that building will get what it deserves.

There will always be detractors. There will always be people who claim it should have been demolished or it should be restored to the absolute perfection of 100 percent heritage values, using the integrity of the old materials, and so forth. But there’s been a level of pragmatism, which has shone through this process, and I think we’ve arrived at a good place.

Other speakers have acknowledged Heritage New Zealand. Having had more than a passing acquaintanceship with them over the past three years as their former Minister, I would say that they are an organisation who very well combine pragmatism and practical solutions, but they never lose the integrity of the spirit and the wairua of the buildings that they’re talking about and making recommendations on. So when they came and spoke to us about some of the semantics—you know, what should we call this? Reinstatement? Restoration? These words are loaded. Everyone has a different definition of them, but it was very important to steer that middle course and to ensure that we acknowledged that there was a strength and a unity of purpose about this enabling legislation that would serve the city well. So although there were detractors and there were people who made submissions attempting to relitigate the entire nature of the project, we were able to steer it through.

I commend Dr Deborah Russell on her first outing as a chair in Parliament, as a new MP, and putting this one through. Well done. The spirit of cooperation across the parties, as I say, meant that we could have reasoned and sensible discussions. I think that there’s a great deal of trust in this process because it has been going on for so long and so many different entities have been involved. We were able to peel away some of the layers and get to the points that really needed to be made. So some of the safeguards that on this side of the House we wanted reassurance on were there.

We were a little worried initially at increasing the number of Acts that the Minister would be able to use in a truncated and abbreviated form, but because of the narrow focus and scope of this enabling legislation it was very apparent to us, after broad discussions, that we could trust the process of the Order in Council, of having a local committee. We have spoken of this, and other speakers have alluded to the fact that it is an expert committee—that they will be people who will be able to test the waters, who will be able to reflect what the people of the city want and what the visitors want—you know, just to continue to tread that fine line so that the Minister has the right advice to be able to make the right decisions, and we are satisfied that it’s not open to abuses or precedents.

The Order in Council process, which is very focused on reinstating the cathedral, I think, will also enable a pace of restoration reinstatement to occur that will not be able to be held up by vexatious individuals who would seek to stop it for whatever reasons. So I have, and we have on this side of the House, real confidence that the arrangements that have been arrived at, with the Orders in Council, will serve the city very well.

The judicial review process, if it comes to that, is very clearly set out as again wanting a judicial review to occur within a reasonable period of time. Twenty-eight days is enough time for people to consider it, argue it through, prepare the right material, but they won’t have a great deal of time or the ability to hold things up in a way that would not be helpful to the overall project. I think, again, it shows a level of pragmatism around these things. As the Hon Nicky Wagner said, by streamlining the process, and by giving it a very good firm structure of enabling legislation we will provide confidence and certainty in that process.

I think the construction of this building will be watched very carefully by many people around New Zealand, and particularly those in Christchurch. We were all interested to ensure that the tram, which has given an opportunity to open up the world, as it were, of restoration—this has gone extraordinarily well in many of the buildings in Christchurch. The Christchurch Community Arts Council is world-class and the Christchurch Arts Centre. Because of the nature of the project, the way it has been achieved, the way the experts and others have collaborated, and the use of new technology and new methods—all around the world people are grappling with earthquakes and how to preserve heritage. These are vitally important issues.

The world is a small place and we need to be able to talk to people in Japan, throughout Europe, and throughout other countries that have experienced what Christchurch has experienced and come up with good, modern solutions that will provide ongoing safety and yet stability to this very important building: being able to inject mortar with particular substances that will lend it strength, to wrap an invisible wallpaper around some of the structures to hold them in place so that the safety of the public is reassured. For any of us who know and love that city and who have felt for the ongoing horrors, really, of the times that those people have lived through, who have lived in that city, we know how important public safety is. And while the heritage values and the look of the cathedral are vitally important, it is also absolutely important that the safeguards are there in terms of the materials that are being used and that this cathedral, after so much trouble, after so much discussion, and after so much effort by so many can be preserved in perpetuity with the integrity of its heritage values intact.

So I would feel very confident—and if people are listening and concerned that this has been a short process, let me reassure them that we have lacked no rigour behind the scenes in examining what might go wrong and how it must not be allowed to stand in the way of the solution that the majority of people have worked through. The people that have worked in the past, from the Miriam Dean report onwards, the trust, the synod, the church itself—there are so many people that have contributed to the right outcome. They’ve given their time and their efforts generously and without charge, and they are remarkable individuals. To me, the body of work that has gone into getting us to where we are here today in the House is a tribute to the love that the people of Christchurch have for their cathedral and the strong desire for us all to work together to achieve the right outcomes for this extraordinary building. In this legislation, which I commend to the House, we have achieved all that we set out to do.

Tēnā koe, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, huri noa ki ōku hoa kaimahi, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and to all my colleagues, greetings to all.]

I rise with pleasure to support the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. I welcomed the opportunity, as a member coming into this particular issue quite cold, to be honest, and also as a non-Cantabrian, a non - Christchurch resident. I really enjoyed, I have to say, the process that this particular legislation has been through to this point, which allowed me to get a clearer understanding of both the importance of this bill and what it is attempting to do to reinvigorate the community in the heart of Christchurch by reinstating the cathedral, which, of course, was badly damaged by the earthquakes in February 2011.

As we heard from many of the submitters and many of the local MPs from Christchurch as well, it almost has not changed its look from the time it was actually damaged. People were quite concerned that even today, almost seven years later, it still looks somewhat the same. It still is an eyesore in the community and has not allowed people to move on—not to move on to forget the tragedy but to move on and acknowledge what has happened in a way that is positive, where people can see a rebuild, a re-enjoyment of what the Christ Church Cathedral has to offer, and the absolute impacts that the current broken state of the cathedral—the state of disrepair of the cathedral—has on the whole regeneration of Christchurch, and not just its immediate surroundings.

So we know that the recovery, the reinstatement, of the cathedral was delayed a bit by some of the stilted conversation and the stilted debate, including litigation, and so it came to us, the responsibility, to somehow try and restore the process alongside the cathedral itself. That is where this bill has come from, in my understanding: to make sure that with expedience, in a way that is cost-effective and gives earlier and greater certainty for the community of Christchurch, we can actually move forward and progress the rebuild.

I have enjoyed being our permanent member on the Environment Committee for the Green Party, to sort of walk me through this process. I too welcomed the select committee’s advice, our advice, to make sure that the work of the Cathedral Working Group, and their report, was put front and centre into the consideration and the read of this legislation. It is the spirit of the recommendations of that very report that this legislation balances on.

The report from the Cathedral Working Group concluded that to repair only, or to restore only, would not be viable engineering options because they would not bring the cathedral either in part, or in whole, up to 100 percent of the seismic requirements of the new building code. And so, we have this legislation to facilitate a building that also helps us to live up to those safety requirements.

So what does the bill actually do? And this is where I do appreciate the process of the Environment Committee, because the bill most certainly does give extraordinary powers to the Minister responsible for the reinstatement work of this cathedral, and we must at all times be cautious and considered with granting extraordinary powers to any representative in this House. And so, cautious and considered we have been, I believe, and someone might want to correct me if I’m wrong, but that is indicated by the fact that this may be one of the first unanimously agreed pieces of legislation in this parliamentary term so far, I think. That is because we did absolutely take care in the granting of these extraordinary powers, bound and restricted by the checks and balances also contained in this legislation. The extraordinary powers manifest by an Order in Council, and an Order in Council are simply a way where the relevant Minister will be able to perhaps put to the side, extend, or add extra bits on to specific legislative requirements.

Now, the reason why this is extraordinary is because it, you know, on face value, can seem like it’s a way to step around laws that we have made—and it is. And that’s the heart of why we’ve had to be so careful about this. But I am satisfied—which is why our Environment Committee report was unanimous—that we have got in place good, careful checks and balances.

I do want to touch on the select committee process and the submissions that we heard, and I absolutely have to thank the officials, who, in this truncated process, did some incredible work for us to bring to us all of the changes and all of the suggestions, and did the investigations for us on the questions that we demanded an answer to so that we could be sure that we were granting extraordinary powers in a way that was appropriate and safe. So thank you so much to those officials.

I want to mention, in particular, the submission from the Christchurch City Council, who, in all fairness, wanted to be heard: that they needed to be involved from the get-go; that they want to be a close partner in developing and commenting on those extraordinary orders with the Minister. And I absolutely understand and hear that, which is why the select committee included into the legislation a proactive engagement with the Christchurch City Council and we urge, with the leadership of the Environment Committee, that that be one of the many relationships that must be upheld and handled well.

We did, absolutely, add more pieces of law to the schedule, so we sort of said—we did agree—that there were other Acts that should come under the net of these extraordinary powers. That can seem like a dangerous thing, and it should be seen like that, and so we had to again make sure that the Acts were relevant and that the relevant Ministers of those pieces of legislation will be consulted with. So I’m happy with the way that we have added more pieces of law into the net of the Minister’s extraordinary powers.

I want to talk about the select committee making sure that reinstatement—the definition of it in the bill—includes construction, reconstruction, and restoration. We wanted to capture the heart of what we mean, and allow for the necessary flexibility when reinstating the cathedral, and it included, as the Hon Maggie Barry has already stated, the new materials which could include new technologies. So that’s about understanding that there is more than one way of us getting to a place where the mana and integrity of the cathedral are upheld in the spirit that the Cathedral Working Group have intended.

So moving forward—oh, a little bit more on the checks and balances, because that is really important. The Minister’s reasons for making an order for these extraordinary powers have to be published, and, again, the select committee noted that those publications should be dispersed in a way that is proactive and that for relevant organisations and people, regardless of whether it’s in the actual legislation, we fully recommend that those proactive approaches to those organisations are made where at all possible.

The review panel absolutely must review the draft of that extraordinary order and make sure that it checks that this is OK, that this is safe and appropriate for what is intended, and, of course, that the public engagement mechanism is still included in this draft. I think, just to end off, really what we want here is the balance of making sure that we can heal and assist the Christchurch community to heal, heal the cathedral, and maintain a balance of making sure that the relationships and the community are taken with this process and that they are never forgotten. And that was, in particular, one of the recommendations from the Christchurch Heritage Trust: that there is a way that we can do this that takes the community with us. And so I endorse this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am really happy and proud to take a call on the second reading of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. This is the first bill that I’ve been involved in via the select committee process, and it was a fantastic introduction to how well parties from all sides of the House can work so well together.

Firstly, can I thank Deborah Russell. She was our chair—fellow 2017 newbie—who did a fantastic job of guiding us through this process. Environment Committee members worked collaboratively and with a shared purpose, and the outcome was a bill that has some changes that reflect a balance of views that we heard from the submitters.

I heard the word “healing”, not only from Marama just now but many times in the select committee process, and, for me, that was the word that summed up the combined purpose that we all felt on the select committee. The perspective that I brought to the select committee, and to this debate, is one of a non-Cantabrian. Although I lived in Christchurch for a year while at university, and I fell in love with that beautiful city, I cannot in any way claim to know how Cantabrians feel or start to imagine what they went through.

The select committee, however, had some true-blue Cantabrians on it—and some true-red Cantabrians as well. The contributions from Nicky Wagner, Matt Doocey, Ruth Dyson, and Duncan Webb reflected their commitment to Christchurch, their knowledge and their understanding of the wider context and the background to this legislation.

We were given a very short time frame to consider this bill, and we did an exceptional job in only a couple of weeks. It is important to note, however, that the two-week select committee process was truncated. However, in regards to the work that has already been done in this area, we believe that those two weeks were sufficient to finalise the legislation. And despite the short time frame that we had, can I say that after this select committee process, I have a number of new understandings and appreciations, one of which is how very important the Christ Church Cathedral is to the people of Canterbury.

It was my initial task as a member of this select committee to understand the wider context of the issue of the reinstatement and to understand the background to this very important bill. Six years ago, Christchurch’s devastating earthquake changed lives for ever. The devastation that occurred to the cathedral was immense, and it has come to be seen as a symbol—a poignant visual reminder of what happened that day. Through this process, I came to understand that the reinstatement of the cathedral will be symbolic in its own way. It will be a symbol of healing and a symbol of moving forward. There are, of course, many people who feel passionately about the cathedral who were prepared to go to great lengths to put forward their views, and understandably so. However, after six years, it is time to move forward, time to get this project under way, and time to heal.

The wider context of this bill, and something that was very much on the minds of the select committee members, was the deliberations, the litigation, and the inaction for six long years that was holding up any work around the cathedral because of these competing passions. In 2016, the Cathedral Working Group brought together all sides and prepared a report, which was the basis of a compromise between all of those competing parties. It’s really important that I take the time at this point to acknowledge my colleague Nicky Wagner for all her work in Christchurch to bring together all sides to come to this agreement. This report is a testament to her hard work over many years.

Our initial discussions in select committee were very much around the working group’s report. It was our intention to refer to the report in this bill so that the good-faith negotiations that took place would not be undermined and would not be compromised. We considered it vital that any person reading the legislation should understand the context in which this came about. We wanted to be clear that the approach that the bill proposes comes out of a long period of negotiation, the success of which was assisted by two key reports that were facilitated by the Government. One of these was the Cathedral Working Group Recommendation Report of 2016, and so we had this written into Part 1 of the bill as part of the background to the bill. New clause 2A(2) reads, “The proposed reinstatement is the culmination of a long period of facilitation, negotiation, and investigations, … intrinsically linked to [the] 2 key reports facilitated by the Government, including the [Cathedral Working Group] Report.”

So the mention of this working group report was a major consideration for us on the select committee. We wanted to ensure that these negotiations, undertaken in good faith, were recognised as the foundations to this bill, and I believe that the insertion of the working group’s report in Part 1 of this bill achieved what we were after in terms of recognising that report. It was always important to us to make it known to all parties who have been involved in the cathedral deliberations and involved in the Cathedral Working Group report that this report will be the basis of future work.

The committee received 28 submissions, and we heard seven in person, both in Wellington and in Christchurch last week. For the most part, the submissions were in favour of the bill and called for some adjustments. The general themes from the submitters were around justification for the bill’s enabling powers, the need for clear purpose and definitions to ensure an appropriate reinstatement, judicial review and time line, the process for engagement and participation, and the potential need for other enactments to be included in schedule 2.

But the crux of the matter, for me, came down to the urgent need to get the cathedral reinstatement process under way, and to start that healing process I talked about, versus the potential precedent-setting of giving wide-ranging Order in Council powers to override a number of Acts to a Minister in a non-emergency situation. The committee considered both sides of this issue very carefully, and I can say that all members of the select committee worked collaboratively to balance these competing issues. One of the submitters was the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, who were particularly concerned with a few matters, in particular that there had not been a showing of sufficient urgency to enact this legislation now and with a shortened process. It was their view that this situation wasn’t akin to other situations where such legislation had been introduced, such as Kaikōura. It was their opinion that we should consider waiting for a detailed proposal for reinstatement, which hasn’t been completed yet, so that a more tailored bill could be put in front of the House, and that would contain specific consents that would be required for reinstatement. In their view, it would limit the powers further that we’re giving the Minister under this legislation.

These were all issues that the committee considered very seriously, and, in fact, some of those issues came up in other submissions. One of the considerations that the select committee came to was that this is very complex and, frankly, it’s a massive project. Some of the work that will need to be undertaken will have never been done before and will require new and innovative techniques. Needless to say, there will be many unknowns, many challenges, and many issues that arise that will not have been foreseen in the detailed proposal. The select committee were of the view that even a detailed proposal, completed in advance of any legislation, would most likely be—that given the complexity of this project, the Minister would still need that flexibility that this bill offers in order to get the reinstatement done in a timely and cost-effective manner.

On balance, the committee felt that although this bill is not in response to an emergency situation like Christchurch or Kaikōura, which have seen similar legislation enacted, it is in response to something that is, as I said at the beginning of this speech, vital to the healing of Canterbury and to ending the prolonged litigation between very passionate advocates on all sides of the cathedral debate that has been going on for six years.

There were many other issues that were raised, and other speakers have mentioned and will continue to mention those in their speeches, so I will leave my contribution here, apart from to say that I am happy that our select committee worked incredibly hard over a short time frame to deliver a bill that we believe, unanimously, is fit for purpose. I am pleased to say that I commend this bill to the House.

I call Duncan Webb. I understand this is a split call—five minutes.

I really want to address only one thing, but I think it’s a matter of some importance. There were a number of submitters who raised considerable concerns around the measures in this bill. Indeed, this is extraordinary legislation, but I would say it is extraordinary because of extraordinary circumstances. Certainly, it does give the Minister the power to, essentially, suspend legislation, and also indeed to add through Order in Council to the list of legislation that can be suspended, and those provisions are well recognised as being quite out of the ordinary and to be used with the utmost caution. I recognise the considerable skill and knowledge of many of the submitters in the area of constitutional law and legislative design that raised these issues, and indeed the Regulations Review Committee of this House advised the Environment Committee of its concerns—

💬 Chris Bishop: Not a patch on you, Duncan.

There’s some great membership in both of those committees, if I might say—ha, ha! But, having said that, there are significant limits on these powers and I just want to touch on those. Firstly, this legislation relates only to a relatively small parcel of land in Cathedral Square. It’s also limited by time. This legislation will indeed expire, and, of course, the rules—the Orders in Council—may be made only for limited purposes, as set out in the bill. There’s also a very rigorous process by which those Orders in Council can be made. They can be made only by the appropriate proponents and with an appropriate consultative procedure as set out in clause 9.

Probably more important are the protections in place including, once again, the Regulations Review Committee and indeed this House. It’s also worth noting that the right of judicial review was preserved, and that is really important, because, ultimately what that means is any decision of the Minister is subject to the law, and the fact is that government always must be according to law and that will remain the case. And, of course, there is the review panel, which plays an important role in advising the Minister in respect of those orders and, ultimately, an annual report to the House in respect of any steps taken.

So I want to acknowledge the very important and well-founded concerns, and the debate in this House that has recognised them, and I commend the Minister for being here and taking note of those concerns. I’m sure she’ll take them into account when she comes to exercise those powers. But this is an extraordinary building. I hope that this building will, like the Arts Centre, be deserving of Unesco awards and architectural awards, because the restoration of this building will give back to Christchurch one of its greatest monuments. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and I stand to make a brief contribution to the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. I first of all want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Megan Woods, the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, for picking up this bill and being a strong advocate for ensuring that it meets a very satisfactory end for all Cantabrians and all New Zealanders to do with the reinstatement of the cathedral. Because this is my first contribution on this bill, I also want to acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner. In one newspaper article she was noted as being the “Minister of Sunshine”, and you are, Nicky. You have always been the “Minister of Sunshine” and a great cheerleader for everything that happens within Christchurch City. I want to also acknowledge her predecessor, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, for the work that he did in making sure that the Hon Nicky Wagner had some good packages to move forward with, and so too—handing over to the Hon Megan Woods.

I just want to talk a little bit about the Christ Church Cathedral and its connection to the Anglican Church and how it all came about. As we know, in 1532 Henry VIII wanted to marry Catherine of Aragon, and in order to do that he had to get a divorce. Because England was part of the Catholic community and Pope Clement VII refused him consent to divorce Catherine of Aragon, he decided to take the whole of England from the Roman Catholic Church, and, hello, the Anglicans came to be. One of the things I just also want to say about that is on my visit to London this year I actually went into the only Catholic church that’s actually in England, and that’s in the basement of Parliament House. So that’s really quite interesting. However, I digress.

I just want to talk a little bit about my connection to the cathedral, because I visited the cathedral when I was in high school, and I thought, “What an amazing cathedral. What an amazing church.” I thought it was highly ornate. I’d never seen anything like that. This was a country girl, who’d been brought up, you know, in a farming community. I’d never seen anything like that, and I was absolutely stunned. And so years later I took my youngest son there, also, to have a look through one of the iconic buildings that this country has amongst its historical events.

But as I keep moving forward to today, as a list MP for Christchurch East I have had on many occasions people come up to me on the street talking to me about: what are they going to do with Christ Church Cathedral? I’m really pleased tonight, as the Hon Nicky Wagner said, that the Christchurch City Council agreed for the $10 million to come across to support the reinstatement of the cathedral. I’m really pleased about that. Some people wanted it; other people didn’t. Other people said, “We want our cathedral, but we don’t want to pay for it.”, but I’m pleased that the Christchurch City Council has taken it upon themselves to make that good decision for all the people of Canterbury.

As I end my contribution, I just want to say that throughout this whole process over the last six years to do with Christ Church Cathedral, there have been many emotional times faced by the population of Christchurch. Some anger, frustration—and here we are today. Everything’s come out. Satisfaction—as they say, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you’ll never please all of the people all of the time, but I think in this case the people that wanted to be satisfied by this outcome have been. I want to say thank you to the Environment Committee members. You’ve done an amazing job—I’m jealous I wasn’t on your select committee. I want to say thank you to the chair of the select committee, Deborah Russell. Well done to you. It is the first big bill to come through your select committee, so well done to you. I just want to say I look forward to the rest of the progress of this bill and a speedy conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and I too am delighted to speak at the second reading of this bill. We are putting in place what would be—well, they are extraordinary powers, but it’s all in aid of giving momentum and giving some fast-forward impetus to this project, which is to reinstate the Christ Church Cathedral. They are extraordinary powers that we are granting, but I’m delighted that the Environment Committee has put in place many checks and balances and processes to ensure that the Orders in Council that are, ultimately, promulgated will achieve the objective and have the buy-in from, and a sufficient engagement with, the local community, because that’s what this legislation is all about. It’s about reinstating the cathedral, reinstating the heart of Christchurch, that symbol that every Cantabrian holds dear.

Whether it’s Māori or Pākehā, everyone from the South, from Christchurch, has a connection to that cathedral. I’d like to acknowledge my whanaunga Tutehounuku Korako, who reminded me that there are also our forebears that are buried in the vicinity of the cathedral, as well. So the connections to the place and to the cathedral itself do run deep, and I’m delighted also that with that engagement in the Orders in Council, I’m sure there will be participation from Ngāi Tahu. Likewise, on the technical review group there is provision for someone of the mana whenua, as well.

This is a great piece of legislation. I am delighted to support it. I won’t prolong my contribution, other than to acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Megan Woods for ably leading this waka and ensuring that we get everyone on board. The funders will be doing their bit, and we’re doing our bit, as a Parliament, to ensure that we get the legal framework in place to really get this project underway. We’ve got a 15-year time frame—a 15-year time frame—to make this happen, to complete the—

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: Reinstatement.

—re-establishment of the cathedral. So I’m really looking forward to the time when I can climb back up that steeple and gaze back out and see the wizard still on his ladder, casting his spells and doing his wizardly work, and be able to behold that beautiful sight that I hold so dear, taking in the beautiful surroundings of Christchurch City from its heart, the cathedral. Kia ora tātou.

I’m delighted to be able to join with colleagues from both sides of the House this evening to support the second reading of this Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. Firstly, I’m delighted because, in my view, in the recovery of Christchurch this is the last big outstanding issue for the recovery of the city after the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The second reason I’m delighted is I think if this Parliament reflects on our heritage buildings across the country, the Christ Church Cathedral would be one of our most iconic buildings. Yes, you could take Skycity in Auckland, and probably this Parliament and the Beehive here in Wellington, and then the cathedral in Christchurch. And because I’m a bit old-fashioned, actually, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a building that is of more heritage value anywhere in New Zealand than the cathedral. Thus, it’s a delight to see it now being reinstated. The third reason I am delighted is that tonight Parliament is at its best—and I do want to pay tribute to both Nicky Wagner and Megan Woods. In a Parliament where it’s so easy to fight for differences, it actually came together and did the right thing.

I remember when my colleague Nicky Wagner was appointed to the role. I had a conversation with her. I said to her, “Look, the biggie that Gerry Brownlee has not yet been able to nail is a conclusion for the cathedral, and Nicky, if you achieve nothing else in your role as Minister, in nailing a deal on the cathedral you will have done your city a great service.” I suspect, because I know how hard Nicky worked, that if she’d put a bit more time into the campaign and a little bit less into the cathedral she might still be the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central. But I still say to Nicky, “Actually, this achievement, in nailing that deal, is actually a bigger thing for the long term.”

I do want to share that compliment with Megan Woods, for the way that I know the two of you—in the way that you worked in Opposition, and didn’t play politics, to try and get us there. So to Megan Woods, the Minister, I say, “Equal compliments to you for this bill.”

My connection to the cathedral—I can still remember, as a six-year-old boy, getting on the red bus from where I grew up in Rangiora and going to this huge building of the cathedral that at that time I thought was the tallest building in the world. I remember climbing up those steps of the spire and looking over the plains of Canterbury and being inspired to be an engineer and one day, maybe, getting the opportunity to build magnificent structures of that sort.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Got a new job for you.

Yeah, yeah, although I have to say I’m actually very, very proud of my brothers who are in the crane business in Christchurch, who actually did some of the work in the weeks following when there were those constant aftershocks. I have to say, as an engineer, it is incredibly challenging, when you’ve got a broken building, trying to have workers work around it and protect enough of that building, installing that big steel frame, so we might even have the choice of being able to restore that building, given the severity of the aftershocks. I pay tribute to both of my brothers that were involved in the work with Smith Crane & Construction that did some of the initial work that ensured we had the choice of being able to restore the cathedral.

I remember meeting with Bishop Matthews only two weeks after the major quake in February of 2011 and pleading with her to recognise that this building was absolutely restorable. I do accept it’s been a big call for the Anglican Church in Christchurch. The really tough part is that while there is the functional aspect of the cathedral as a place of worship for the church, actually, the Christ Church Cathedral in 140 years has grown to be something considerably bigger than that. It is a tourism icon. It is a place where the people of Christchurch and Canterbury connect—those who are Anglican or not.

So for the church community, if they wanted a purely functional building for them to be able to worship in and do their church stuff, it was not necessarily the perfect building—that originally designed in the 1860s and completed in the 1890s. So I accept the difficulties that are there, but have always believed that the only right thing to do was to restore that cathedral for Christchurch.

I hold that view for a number of reasons. First, we’re a young country. We don’t actually have that many heritage buildings. I have to say I was with Gerry Brownlee when some of the passionate heritage advocates came out of the woodwork and wanted to protect a number of the buildings in Christchurch. Some of them were, as Mr Brownlee said, old dungers. Actually, the right choice was for those buildings to be demolished.

But the cathedral stands way above that. You look at the effort that countries in Europe put into restoring their great cathedrals that were demolished, to a far greater degree than the Christ Church Cathedral, after World War II. None of them regret the investment that they made in restoring those buildings, and so too the right choice has been made in respect of Christchurch.

I do want to reflect on the difficulty of pulling together the financial package to be able to afford the $100 million. I think our Parliament needs to be honest. There is no magic formula. What share should rest with the ratepayer or the taxpayer or the owners of the building? I too have heard those people that say, “Look, the Anglican Church is a wealthy organisation. It’s their damn building. It should all be their cost.” But equally so, we need to acknowledge the church has an ambition to have investment funds that enable it to continue its community, its pastoral, and its social work in the city of Christchurch and they cannot afford to meet all of this cost for themselves. Given that there is that strong tourism and there is that strong cultural connection that goes beyond the church, in my view it is absolutely proper that public money from both taxpayers and ratepayers is used.

I accept that there is a pragmatic deal that my colleague Nicky Wagner has had to lock together, between that from the ratepayer, that from the taxpayer, that from both the church and the trust, that has had to be struck. I simply praise those that have the good wisdom to stop the ongoing argument and to come to a conclusion.

There are a couple of last points I’d like to make. Yes, the reason this bill is, effectively, going to be passed unanimously actually mainly rests with the Opposition. The reality is that the most contentious bills are where the Opposition takes effect. I do say to the new members of the Government, “Please reflect on what you said about the bills that we passed in the years and months after the earthquake. If you reflect on the contributions that were made by Clayton Cosgrove as the Opposition spokesperson on the earthquake, he was absolutely torrid in his criticism of Gerry Brownlee in wanting exactly the sorts of powers that we are granting with our permission in this bill today.”

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: That’s not true. That’s not actually true.

That is absolutely true, and the way in which members opposite—absolutely true, and I say, I was in Parliament and I saw the criticism by Clayton Cosgrove and others. I do say to this Parliament—I do say to this Parliament—that when we have issues of emergency, we need to come together, and I am proud to be a member of the National Party that was not only prepared to grant those emergency powers in Government but has been prepared to support them from Opposition, which is putting a large amount of trust in the Minister, because we know common sense will rule.

My very last point is this: I look at the schedule of laws that we’re having to arbitrarily override to be able to repair the cathedral, and I do pose a challenge to the Government, and that is that every time we come to issues of restoring cathedrals—and I’ve got a beautiful Nelson cathedral that is substandard and needs earthquakes strengthening—why is it that we have to undo all the bureaucratic processes that are associated with the Resource Management Act, the Building Act, the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act, and others? I do challenge this Parliament that we actually do need to look into some of those processes that are excessively bureaucratic so we need less of these laws to be able to do the right thing. I commend the bill to the House. It’s a credit to a great many people.

Bill read a second time.

Procedure