Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill

I move, That the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I will move that the bill be reported back to the House by 2 June 2020 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

It is with real pride that I stand here today for the first reading of this bill. I was first elected to be a member of Parliament on 19 September 2010, about two weeks after the first—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: To be a candidate, surely?

Sorry; that is right—to be a candidate on 19 September 2010. What that meant is that for the whole time I have been a member of this House, there have been extraordinary powers in place in my city of Christchurch. So, it is a momentous occasion to be standing here today, to be bringing forward a bill which actually is about a return to local leadership.

I am proud of all the work that has been undertaken by so many on the recovery, rebuild, and regeneration of Greater Christchurch in the nine years since the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, and all the work that has been undertaken by so many people to get us to the point where we are today. We have seen some amazing innovations and new ways of looking at the world, but I also do want to acknowledge that for many people this has been a difficult time. I, myself, have opposed some steps along the way, as an Opposition member of Parliament and as the Opposition spokesperson. For many people, they have lost so much, particularly the places and spaces where they made their memories. I think that is something that we always have to remember.

The recent commemoration of the ninth anniversary of the 22 February 2011 earthquake was another opportunity to pause and reflect on the devastating and tragic events of that day but also to look at the progress we have made over the last nine years. With the transition to local leadership well under way, the timing is now right to return to ongoing business-as-usual regeneration responsibilities and to return those to local leadership.

Since taking on the position of Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, I’ve been working hard to hasten the path back to local leadership and regeneration in Greater Christchurch. I would like to acknowledge the two other members who have served in this role as Minister in charge of getting things right after the earthquakes in Christchurch: the Hon Gerry Brownlee and the Hon Nicky Wagner. I made it clear when I became Minister that I was very open about my expectation that I believed I should be the last Minister fulfilling this role. This bill further illustrates the trajectory towards achieving this.

Following the quakes, intervention by the Crown was the only way to enable the required recovery, but we’re past the need for the Crown to have such wide-ranging and extraordinary powers, and the structures and the people of Greater Christchurch are more than ready to take on more leadership of the regeneration of the communities. It’s time to give them responsibility. Local decisions should be made at the local level, and this bill goes some way to returning those decisions to those local institutions.

The passing of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act 2016 signalled the formal transition from recovery to regeneration. When I spoke at the first reading of that piece of legislation in October 2015, I made points about my belief in locals being up to the task of making decisions that was for the betterment of their province and their region. Over four years later, I have seen the evidence to know this to be true. In contrast to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act that preceded it, the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act introduced processes and structures to support the regeneration of Christchurch. It represented a change in the approach to Christchurch and a movement back towards more local leadership. I would like to acknowledge the then Minister, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, who did actually work collaboratively with members of the Opposition and local leaders in Christchurch to pull together a bill that could garner broad-based support.

My view is that Christchurch local leaders are the ones best placed to make the decisions about their communities and for their communities without the need for intervention from the Crown. This means the need for bespoke, extraordinary powers which require Ministers to make decisions on discrete local matters is almost at an end. We are past that stage. Crown officials, notably at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Land Information New Zealand, and Treasury have been working closely with the key stakeholders to progress the transition—in particular, at the local level, alongside Christchurch City Council and other leaders on the ground, including Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, and Waimakariri and Selwyn District Councils.

As noted, work undertaken over the last few years has seen significant strides made on regeneration, and, in particular, we’ve seen over the last 12 months significant effort to complete a piece of work. These pieces of work have set the scene for further progress on the transition to local leadership and have included the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor Regeneration Plan, which provides the greenprint for future use and redevelopment of the red zone land; the agreement of a global settlement, which followed significant negotiations between the Crown and Christchurch City Council on ownership of key regeneration assets and matters, as well as on institutional arrangements; and, importantly, in relation to this bill, setting out a framework for how we transition Christchurch back to local leadership. There has, of course, been the revocation of the Canterbury Earthquake (Christchurch Replacement District Plan) Order early, to return control of Christchurch’s district planning processes to the council. In amongst all of this, there has, of course, been significant progress made on the reinstatement of the cathedral and anchor projects, including the convention centre Te Pae, the Metro Sports Facility, and the Canterbury Multi-Use Arena—or “the stadium”, as some people outside of Christchurch like to call it.

The Act has also provided us with annual snapshots on its performance through the requirement for an annual review to be conducted. Much of what is proposed in the bill was identified in the last annual review of the Act, completed in September 2019. This noted that a tipping point had been reached and that the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act is no longer required in its current form. It concluded that given the considerable progress on key regeneration milestones, there is no longer a need for the legislation in its current form to support the progressive move towards local leadership in Greater Christchurch.

The bill proposes amendments to the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act to revoke the section 71 power, which provides for an expedited way to make changes to planning documents. It provides for the early disestablishment of Regenerate Christchurch, which will reduce the number of institutions working on regeneration in Christchurch. It will extend certain land powers required for the reconfiguration of land titles in the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor, to ensure the Crown can undertake agreed work prior to transfer of that land back to council. It will also make other required changes to implement the three major changes I have just noted, such as amendment to the regeneration plan process to account for the early disestablishment of Regenerate Christchurch, and to remove the requirement for an annual review of the Act.

Essentially, this is about simplifying things to make the transition to local leadership seamless and efficient. It will simplify the organisations working on regeneration in Christchurch and remove the Crown’s extraordinary powers under section 71 to make changes to planning documents. It is important here to acknowledge the institutions that have gotten us to this point. In particular, I want to recognise the work of Regenerate Christchurch over the last four years. Its task has not been easy, but the work it has done has enabled this next step, and I thank them for this. Existing local organisations are now able to continue the momentum established for regeneration in Christchurch.

I would like to conclude by saying it is with great pride that I stand here, coming from a city that I think has made significant strides, and we are now at a point where we can return to local leadership. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

All of the Acts of Parliament passed since 2009 in support of Christchurch through the earthquake sequence that saw, from 2011, some 13,500 sizable quakes shake the city have been unanimously supported by this House, and I’m sure that’s going to be the case today. There’s no doubt that things have moved on, and it was always the intention of the group that put together the current legislation that has enabled a bit of speed around Christchurch—or should have enabled a bit of speed around Christchurch, in the planning aspects of it—that this would have a terminal point. There is a sunset clause in the bill. The fact that we are getting there a little time ahead of that is no bad thing—or is it, is the question that I might just pose.

Firstly, I still don’t think anybody outside of Christchurch fully appreciates exactly what has had to be done down there. People who have lived there, people who have lived through it, people who have put up with all the trials and tribulations of their own circumstances and the, I suppose, disappointments of the unavailability of various civic facilities know full well what’s gone on. The people who’ve constantly lived with road cones, who had compromised services for extended periods of time, all know what this has been all about. I don’t think, though, that in a wider context around New Zealand, there is an appreciation of that, to the extent that perhaps it is only ever real if you experience it yourself.

This bill today does allow the continuation of aspects that will be of value to the Christchurch community, but it does, in my opinion, too, end possibilities of more speedy planning, particularly in the area of the Resource Management Act, that have not been as well used by the city council and others who had the opportunity to use those processes as perhaps they could have been. So a thing like a recovery plan, that we all thought, sitting around the table from across the Parliament, would be a useful tool for all sorts of people has only been used on two occasions. On one of those occasions, the planning for it had already begun. So on the one hand, you might say that this means that the council and the councils and all the bodies involved didn’t need the tool. I’m not convinced that they saw the potential of it to the extent that they could have. None the less, there is progress there.

I don’t want to say anything today that in any way mars what people have been able to achieve over the last couple of years, but I do want to say, for example, that when it comes to the city council, they could have dealt with the collection of buildings they refer to as the “Dirty 30”. These are buildings that, you know, 10 years on nearly, are still in a derelict condition post the earthquakes; buildings that have—what are they called?—shipping containers providing shelter for anybody that might walk past them, for fear that they might fall into the roadway or somewhere else; buildings that are barricaded up so that the public can’t enter, or no one can enter, except for those who want to tag them, who clearly take their life in their own hands by putting some pretty impressive tags on those buildings. While some may see those as artistic, I see them as ugly, and I think they are a mar on the face of the city. I’m disappointed that the council did not use the capacity that was there, under the law that we are, effectively, repealing today, to deal with those situations.

It is appropriate that some of their land amalgamation facilities that were in that other bill carry through after today. People seem to forget that the land that people had to exit because it was no longer strong enough to economically provide housing on it is in excess of the size of Hagley Park. Hagley Park—anyone looking at a map of Christchurch will see what a dominant land structure that is right in the middle of our city. So those red zones are slightly bigger in accumulation than that area.

It does provide an opportunity for the city, and I think the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor is going to be a splendid thing. Some of us might like to see more things go in there, and I think over time that will happen, but you’ve got to remember that they were people’s residences, they were individual titles, they were roads, they were easements for all sorts of services, and sorting that out in the context of good land management does take time, and it’s appropriate that there is that facility provided in this particular bill.

When it comes to the Christchurch City Council, one of the things that bothers me slightly is that they have become a very closed-shop organisation. They’re not easily accessible, and they seem to have a view—they have a view—that the city has an indeterminate amount of capacity to pay higher rates. When you have rating increases on an annual basis running at a percentage-plus higher than some of the highest floating mortgage rates available in this country, then I think there is a question that needs to be asked about their capacity to deliver good services for the people of Christchurch. I am a critic of that openly; so I hope that when they reassume all responsibilities they want, they do bear in mind that there is not an endless capacity for people to continually pay higher rates on properties that have escalating values on them. That is a thing that I think they need to be very cautious of.

Just as an aside, they’re not the worst. The Canterbury Regional Council—ECan—want to put a 9.45 percent rate increase on people. I think the excuse that keeps coming back, that we’ve got infrastructure deficit as a result of the earthquake, is extremely thin when anybody can see how much was spent in the city on the infrastructure during the relatively short time. And we didn’t argue—no one argued—about betterment. So if the 3-metre pipe was taken out and it was replaced by a much bigger diameter and a longer length of pipe and generally in materials that have a much longer life than some of the asbestos piping that got taken out, then that’s all to the good. But it’s the advantage of the city that unfortunately is not being seen enough by the current rating base.

I do hope also that they don’t continue to have a proliferation of other organisations. If there was any mistake, it was that in moving from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority—which I think was absolutely necessary at the time, but was a big proponent of getting into the new structure, the regeneration structure—there are now too many bodies in Christchurch. You have the Christchurch City Council, along with their sister councils in Selwyn and Waimakariri, who I think do perform very, very well—that excludes Christchurch City—and then they have Christchurch, New Zealand. No one really knows what that does, but any ratepayer having a look at the salary structure there would have good reason to be concerned about what it does. And then there is the Christchurch Foundation. No one quite knows what that does but, once again, it has a bureaucratic structure with a lot of costs that, ultimately, will come back on ratepayers.

So I hope that if they are taking the leadership opportunity that this passing of this legislation today affords them, they do so with a mind that says, “We are doing this in the best interests of the ratepayers.”, and that they’re not just getting themselves into all sorts of talkfest organisations that can’t really put their finger on anything that they’ve actually achieved. I hope also that they become more open—just the chief executive actually having a phone number that would be answered by the chief executive might be a reasonable start.

Can I also just say that I do hope that the goodwill that’s been expressed here—and I certainly express that goodwill to the Minister who has brought this bill here. I do think it’s timely. I agree that it was always a stopgap thing and, although I’ve been critical of their not being used, you can’t have legislation like this that is so exclusive going on for ever. So I do respect the fact that you’ve brought that forward. But I do hope that we’re not sort of seeing some kind of a rewriting of history here, because, as I say, no one can really ever know or capture the feeling that was in the city—which we do know about, no question about that—in those very early days and the fervour there was to have mechanisms and facilities to get things done.

With those comments, can I say that the National Party is going to be part of what I hope will be the unanimous passing of this bill today, which is really just an extension of the goodwill, the care that this Parliament has shown toward Christchurch from the outset.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to just start by saying I acknowledge former leadership in this space, I acknowledge current leadership in this space, I want to acknowledge members of the Canterbury Mayoral Forum who have joined us here today, Their Worships Dan Gordon and Sam Broughton, and I want to acknowledge my ministerial colleague and lead Minister on Greater Christchurch Regeneration, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, and the fact that it’s an absolute privilege and pleasure to be her associate, and the specificity that I have in my delegation, which is around Regenerate Christchurch.

I’m really grateful to have had that role; it’s been a short time, but it’s been a really interesting time to support the Minister in this piece of work. I want to pay particular acknowledgment to Ivan Iafeta and his team, and Dr Thérèse Arseneau and the board, and just thank them for the work that they’ve done. A few weeks ago, we were with them to share with them our thanks for the work that they had completed—to acknowledge the fact that this legislation will bring forward the end of that particular organisation. But I wanted to let them know how proud I was of the work that they have done in various guises over the years, and that they can be very, very proud that, when they look around the city, they have had a part in what is actually becoming a very extraordinary place.

So while I’m very mindful of the fact that this legislation does bring forward the end of that particular organisation, what I’m very confident about is that the expertise that has been developed there will actually remain and will continue to be leading in the future work of that city, and I think that’s something that we need to underscore: that we are not losing that expertise, but it is actually now in a position to take a much more local, much more focused look at what needs to happen going forward. So I’m very proud of that work, and I want to thank the teams for everything that they have done.

The other thing that I want to talk about too with this is that the second part of this legislation is the revocation of the special powers that exist under section 71. I’ve had to exercise my power under that particular section a couple of times and, while I think some of this is useful—I do tend to agree with the sentiments of the Hon Gerry Brownlee that it is a useful part of the legislation—I’m not entirely sure that deciding whether a carpark is actually a regeneration activity is what was actually intended. So I think it is actually time that we can hand back to the city the decision making around that and that the Resource Management Act can actually be used to its full extent on that.

The other aspect of the legislation is how we support going forward the reconfiguration of the titles in the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor and how we can facilitate that. So there is some extension within the legislation that will allow that work to continue from Land Information New Zealand. It’s a complex and long piece of work that we need to support, and they’re working their way through that, and I think that allowing them enough space to continue to do that is really vital—really important. And as we move from recovery through to regeneration to, now, what will be the state of our new going forward, our new normal, the Government really does need to reduce its presence in the city and actually hand back the power to decide and to implement to the locals.

The amendments that we provide for in this legislation also give certainty for Christchurch for its future institutional arrangements and removes the extraordinary arrangements, which are no longer required. What we also do is, with this, we acknowledge that post-quake we’re in a different space in time, and anyone who has visited our city in recent times who hasn’t perhaps visited for a while can see that we are actually quite a different place. There is a buzz, there is a mood, there is a shift in the city, and there is definitely an ability that has built up over time for us to have confidence that we have the right people in place to take our city forward into the future. I think it’s entirely appropriate that we as a Government step back from that and create the space for that to occur.

There is one thing that I do want to say, though, and I just want to reflect a comment of the Hon Gerry Brownlee, and that is that one thing that really has disappointed me as the local member of Parliament for Christchurch East, when the original legislation first came to the House, was the redrafting which saw the removal of the specificity around New Brighton. I have to say that that did disappoint me. What I am really heartened by, though, is that this Government has, in its wisdom, decided to have the Christchurch Regeneration Acceleration Fund funding of which there is a portion which has been allocated to the work that will go into the residential red zone.

Now, what I’m heartened about with that is that there is an allocation which will create activity which will then drive people—and hopefully people from all around the city—through the red zone out to New Brighton, because what that beautiful part of our city requires is, actually, greater economic activity. So while it was taken out of the original legislation—and I do want to put that on record because I do believe that if we had been able to act sooner, then our fantastic, iconic community in New Brighton perhaps would have been regenerating at this point. But I’m hopeful that the work that we will engage throughout the red zone will actually help drive that activity, and hopefully soon.

I just want to thank the leadership that has occurred. It has been—did you say 10 years? I think it is timely, it’s appropriate, and I want to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As you heard, National will be supporting this bill. It’s been really interesting listening to the conversation that’s been going on today, because it does remind us of a very traumatic time in Christchurch and it does remind us of numerous—13,000 or 15,000—earthquakes that happened in our city. I think that it also reminds us that during that time, politicians, whether they were local government politicians—and I recognise the people sitting in the gallery today—or whether they were central government politicians, got together and worked together to deliver the best way that we possibly could for our communities.

It’s good to see this bill coming through now. It’s good to be having this discussion. Although, I do note that there is a sunset clause in this bill. The original bill was going to disappear only 12 months later. So I’m wondering whether this discussion is a particularly useful use of parliamentary time.

Just going back to that thought of April 2016, when the original Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill was created. It was created with the very best of intentions, it was a cross-party group, it was a multi-stakeholder process, and it was really good to see it pass unanimously in this Parliament. It was created in the face of a need to build the rebuild of Greater Christchurch on, to move it on from the immediate disaster response to regeneration, and to support that regeneration as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Now, what this original bill did was it allowed for regional stakeholders, the local governments, the Canterbury Regional Council, the Christchurch City Council, the Selwyn District Council, the Waimakariri District Council, Ngāi Tahu, and then Regenerate Christchurch—which was the agency established through the legislation to deliver development plans—to have a role in decision making, to have a role to put regeneration plans forward. And once those plans were put forward, there was a streamlined process to complete that planning in land management—really, to help speed up the whole recovery process as we worked through the earthquakes.

I think it’s interesting what the Hon Poto Williams spoke about in terms of New Brighton, because, of course, originally it was in the legislation and then, I think, it was an accepted idea that a regeneration plan would be developed by the Christchurch City Council to do exactly that. I do remember the discussions at the time, and that’s what the mayor was particularly interested in because, of course, it was an area that she was particularly connected to.

So, again, it’s with a bit of regret and disappointment that we look back to how this bill has actually been used, because it was designed as empowering legislation. It was designed to have the power to cut through planning red tape, and to speed out well-thought-through planning developments, and that would lead to that faster regeneration and lead to those areas that have been severely damaged—and, of course, the east of Christchurch was particularly one of those. Obviously, by supporting the legislation unanimously in Parliament, Parliament hoped that those provisions would be fully utilised. We believed that we wanted to streamline the rebuild process and we wanted to support the quicker and more efficient regeneration of Greater Christchurch. But, in reality, it wasn’t.

Although other cities and areas of the country were particularly envious of the empowering nature of this legislation and the opportunities it allowed, it was never fully appreciated in Greater Christchurch. Stakeholders never seized the opportunity they had to create regeneration plans, to take those opportunities and the advantages that they were provided. In reality, they were only rarely used.

Plans were used to fast track housing in the Cranford Basin and, of course, they have been used to coordinate planning in the Avon-Ōtākaro residential red zone. They were also used with more minor details around the district plan, such as the correcting of the coastal overlay, which was an issue that was very concerning to people who lived in those areas. It was used to expand the Yaldhurst sports centre, and, more recently, as we’ve heard from the Hon Poto Williams, to upgrade the Hagley Oval so that Christchurch could host the Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2021.

But the legislation could have done so much more. It’s hard not to feel disappointed that the opportunities provided by this legislation were not as fully utilised as we as politicians in Parliament envisaged, and that the agency that was created under the bill—and that’s Regenerate Christchurch—has really not had the opportunity to work with regeneration plans and has not performed as we hoped and as we expected.

However, the Act still has some relevance. We note that the Minister is seeking to retain certain provisions for use by LINZ—that’s Land Information New Zealand—in relation to titles in the Avon-Ōtākaro corridor, and possibly extending those provisions to 2023.

So National will support this bill. But it is with disappointment that we reflect that the original legislation was created by a cross-party parliamentary group, it was designed to give local councils and stakeholders in Greater Christchurch a real hand up in terms of regeneration, but, I believe, the full potential was never realised. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, there’s nothing worse than a speaker getting up and rotary hoeing the same paddock over and over again, thinking that they’re adding quality to the debate. Less is often more, and I mean to take my call with such a reminder firmly implanted in my head.

I do want to make a couple of acknowledgments as we progress this first reading. I do want to acknowledge Gerry Brownlee. Gerry, being the Minister at the time, holding the seat at a very difficult time in Canterbury’s history, came under a lot of flak and lot of pressure from a lot of people. I know because my whanaunga were all from down there. I want to acknowledge Dan Gordon, the Mayor of Waimakariri, who is sitting up there in my old patch, and an old friend of mine, being a local who lived in Rangiora for some time and lived in Christchurch on and off for about 30 years. My children and the bulk of my grandchildren are still living there. I acknowledge my local MP, Matt Doocey, for the time that we were down there.

Christchurch went through some very difficult times, as we all know, and there were some difficult decisions to be made by the Government of the day. It needs to be acknowledged that the cross-party team that was utilised by Mr Brownlee at the time to put together the legislation to aid and assist Christchurch did a good job. In our part, from New Zealand First, Denis O’Rourke played a role in that, and I want to acknowledge Denis.

Putting together a multi-entity agency as a mechanism to assist and expedite the regeneration and redevelopment of Christchurch was clearly a smart move. We all know how frustratingly slow developments, construction can be when subjected to the rigours of the Resource Management Act in its current form. We all know how devastated Christchurch was at the time, and that quite simply, the legislation in place was not going to cut it, given the urgency that was required. So I just want to say that.

This is the first reading. I congratulate the Minister Megan Woods for bringing this legislation forward. I look forward—despite everything that’s happened, it’s always been known that the Christchurch leadership, the duly elected people of Christchurch, would eventually take over responsibility for completing the job. There is still yet much to do. When I go down to Christchurch and I drive around, I sometimes struggle to recognise exactly where I am because landmarks are gone, and there’s a lot of vacant land—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s just age.

Sorry? It’s age—ha, ha! How unkind of you, Gerry. I do despair when I see—as Gerry Brownlee has stated in his speech—the number of buildings that are still boarded up, the amount of graffiti.

I do chuckle, and I’ve actually started photographing it for all the rural-based members of Parliament here. I’ve started photographing city pollution so I can show it to the rural folk who are getting hammered and slammed so much by townies who want to chastise our farmers for contributing to dirty streams and all the rest of this stuff. Sometimes folk in the city need to have a good, quiet look at what they’re doing to their environment. Nothing stands out more than the graffiti and the pollution inside of cities.

These are big challenges that the duly elected representatives of Christchurch and the wider territorial authorities are going to have to deal with. But it is their responsibility, and this legislation is a step back towards full democracy and putting the responsibility where it lays, and so it should be.

So with that, I would just say that on behalf New Zealand First, we support the legislation, and congratulate all parties involved thus far for the progress that has been made in Christchurch and Canterbury. Kia ora koutou.

Look, can I start by saying, as a very proud Cantabrian, there is a saying that when Canterbury rugby is doing well, the All Blacks will do very well. It’s great to see Canterbury at the top of the Super Rugby table. Long may that last for the All Blacks’ success.

Look, I want to join in in this bipartisan approach across the House today and acknowledge the current leadership with the Hon Megan Woods as the regeneration Minister, ably supported by the Hon Poto Williams, and also that Minister’s local advocacy in Christchurch East; to another Canterbury member of Parliament for the Green Party, Eugenie Sage; of course, for the Hon Ron Mark; and MPs who are no longer here: Denis O’Rourke from New Zealand First. I must say, we miss Denis. Bring back Denis, is what I say.

What we do have to remember is that here we are talking about the Canterbury earthquakes, not just the Christchurch earthquakes. Of course, the town of Kaiapoi in my electorate was hard hit in the first earthquake in 2010. I want to acknowledge former Waimakariri MPs the Hon Kate Wilkinson and the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, as well. Of course, on my team, how good is Gerry Brownlee—how good is Gerry Brownlee?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the mayors, and Jim Palmer?

I’ll get to that, Gerry. The speech you wrote for me, I’ll say that in the next paragraph. But how good is the Hon Gerry Brownlee? His leadership post-earthquakes—the history book on the earthquakes will show that the success of the earthquake recovery and regeneration was largely due to the huge role that the Hon Gerry Brownlee played. Yes, there’ll be some who say that they actually, you know, didn’t agree with everything he said, but he made a decision. You know, I won’t get too political, but I tell you what: we’re lucky we had a Government that was confident in making decisions, because if it had been a different Government—wow. What a difference that would have made.

Could I also acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner for her role as the regeneration Minister as well, and, of course, her huge advocacy for Christchurch Central and, of course, the CBD that was hugely affected in the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.

My colleague Jo Hayes, based in Christchurch East, for her advocacy of a region that is hard hit and still needing a lot of support. So that’s where I’ll start my contribution. Even though we are saying this bill will be a transition back to local leadership of regeneration, I must say we should be very clear that we do not want to see the Government or Parliament walking away from Canterbury, from Greater Christchurch, from Christchurch, because Cantabrians still need central government, and we need to play a big role in that.

Also, I think we need to be clear in this bill—what are we talking about when we say local leadership? Because times have changed down there. When I grew up in Bryndwr and I went to Belfast to play rugby as a young fella, and I would have been taken over the Styx Mill Bridge, that was a day trip. You’d pack your lunch. Belfast was out in the country, out of town. Now, Belfast is actually in Nicky Wagner’s electorate of Christchurch Central. So, spatially, how we view Greater Christchurch has changed. Now towns like Kaiapoi, Rangiora, Lincoln, and Rolleston are all part of the bigger picture for Greater Christchurch. So I will acknowledge at this time the Mayor of Selwyn, Sam Broughton, the Mayor of Waimakariri, Dan Gordon, deputy mayor Neville Atkinson, and Waimakariri councillor Joan Ward. Joan and her husband led Continental Catering—a huge North Canterbury company that was hugely affected by the earthquakes and will know firsthand the stresses that those earthquakes put on local businesses that, ultimately, employ local people in our community and support them and pay wages.

So I know they will be thinking, as well, as leaders of local government, what does local leadership look like? Because when we say local leadership, we can’t default just to Christchurch City Council. Those days have gone. And you look at the issue playing out at the moment—to my alarm, Environment Canterbury (ECan) wrote to the local government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, and, in a law change, made it possible for ECan to pass on public transport. Lianne Dalziel, when she was elected in the last election, on her first day, in front of the Christchurch press, said she wanted to take control of public transport—that won’t be good for Greater Christchurch. We need an overarching—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Why not?

The Hon Phil Twyford says, “Why not?” And he’s allowed to. He’s the transport Minister, but I know transport Minister Phil Twyford is going to be looking forward to meeting the Waimakariri mayor for his advocacy of the Woodend bypass. And I’m sure the Hon Phil Twyford in his role as transport Minister will respond accordingly in the upcoming Budget to give the town the Woodend bypass that they need. We’re looking forward to that, Minister, as well.

What we are also talking about here is ensuring that things keep moving, because I’m pretty sure, in the next few days or the next few weeks, we’re going to hear how the Christ Church Cathedral has not got back on track, and, in fact, behind the scenes, has stalled. I think in the next few weeks we’re going to hear about the Christchurch Convention Centre that is not going to open on time and there’s going to be significant delays. I think we’re going to hear how we’re not going to get a stadium on time and how we’re not getting the Metro Sports Facility on time. So there’s a huge role. You can’t just dangle $300 million. We need action. That’s why it’s important that the Government stays involved—whoever that Government may be—with the people of Christchurch. Christchurch is the second-biggest city. We punch well above our weight, not only in rugby but in GDP as well, and they need to make sure that central government keeps it a priority, because, of course, in the last National Government the rebuild was one of our top four priorities. So when we hear of infrastructure announcements when Auckland gets billions and Canterbury only gets $159 million, we want to make sure that people are listening to us and we feel heard.

My final point I want to raise today is this bill will also disestablish the Regenerate Christchurch entity, and I want to join some of my other colleagues who have voiced the opinion that, potentially, there has been too many entities. We have some council-controlled entities that people are unsure what their roles are, but they are taking significant ratepayer money. We need to ensure that when we transition back to local government, there are the right structures in place; that they are going to deliver for the people of Christchurch, but also the people of Greater Christchurch, because I can’t stress enough that this view of Christchurch has changed significantly since the earthquakes. No longer are we talking about Christchurch City Council, but everything we talk about is how it impacts on Christchurch City Council, but also Waimakariri District Council and Selwyn District Council, as well. I proudly support this bill to the House.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. I’m very pleased, as the Green Party spokesperson for Ōtautahi/Christchurch to speak on the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill. There has been a lot of legislation that this House has debated about Greater Christchurch, about the Canterbury earthquakes, and about the Hurunui/Kaikōura earthquakes as well.

This bill is significant because it is bringing to an end the extraordinary powers that central government assumed after the quakes in Christchurch. I note, as other speakers have, that a lot of that legislation went through with the unanimous support from the Parliament, but there was a feeling in Christchurch, with the powers that Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) had, of being alienated from decision making—decisions about the investment of millions of dollars being made without a public hearing process, without the ability for people to see who was making the decisions: those being made by CERA behind closed doors.

So this legislation is really significant because it is bringing those powers—particularly the section 71 powers in terms of the override of the Resource Management Act—to an end. As others have done, I would like to acknowledge some people. I’m really pleased that the Mayor Gordon and Mayor Broughton from Waimakariri and Selwyn, respectively, and their councillors are here today. Picking up on the point that Matt Doocey made, a lot of the response to the earthquake has been about Greater Christchurch, not just the city, because, of course, it did affect Waimakariri, Kaiapoi in particular, and because the first of the September quakes was Selwyn, and that big Greendale fault, and the impacts that that had.

But, I think, where Regenerate and Ōtākaro—in terms of their planning for urban development, and one of the reasons that they have been successful with the Greenprint, goes back to actually all of the local authorities cooperating with the urban development strategy and the vision there for Greater Christchurch, not just Christchurch City. So, like Matt Doocey, we’d like to see that strength of the wider city—Waimakariri and Selwyn as well—being a big part of how Christchurch City Council works, and how Waimakariri District Council and Selwyn District Council continue to work. This legislation is significant because, as Minister Woods noted, there was provision in the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act in 2016 to make that transition from recovery to regeneration. We do acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee because the original proposal in that bill was something that the Green Party had some concerns about, and Minister Brownlee, at the time, was prepared to engage with Opposition parties and to have discussions about how that legislation was changed so that in the end, at the third reading, it did have the unanimous support of the Parliament.

We’d also like to acknowledge the Hon Megan Woods and her work on the cathedral. Matt Doocey is saying that there are issues happening behind the scenes. In big projects like the Christ Church Cathedral, there will be issues behind the scenes, but Nicky Wagner achieved what was thought impossible at the time in getting agreement with the Church for the restoration of the cathedral at that heart of Cathedral Square. I’m really proud to speak in support of this bill and to support the work of the Hon Megan Woods and her leadership now, under this Government, on the recovery process. It is a very different city now, and I’m really proud, as a Christchurch citizen, to see the developments around the urban centre and further out. Yes, Mr Doocey, some things like the convention centre will take longer than expected, but the trajectory is going forward.

I acknowledge—as the Hon Poto Williams did—the work of Regenerate Christchurch, the leadership of Ivan Iafeta and Thérèse Arseneau, because the planning process that Regenerate Christchurch implemented was very solidly based on the community. They did things differently in terms of running hui in school halls, with a lot of visual material—a lot of maps—so that Christchurch residents could really see the potential of the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor, what sort of land uses could happen there, and where the flood hazard zones were to really give a spatial picture of the potential of that corridor. So that was a very different and a visionary way of doing things.

One of the other things that’s been special about the earthquake recovery and regeneration has been the leadership and the co-governance, effectively, with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, and the way in which we have much more of a Te Ao Māori perspective in our city of Ōtautahi than we had prior to the quakes. So even though this bill is seeing Regenerate Christchurch come to an end—those Draconian powers come to an end—I hope that the Christchurch City Council, Waimakariri, Environment Canterbury, and Selwyn make sure that Ngāi Tahu is very closely involved in carrying on what was established post-earthquakes.

The work that I’m also really proud of is the work that Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has done, under the leadership of the Hon Megan Woods, in working to consolidate titles in the city to provide the basis for planning for what happens on the land. In the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor, there are 5,500 titles which still need work in terms of amalgamating legal road with what was private land—those smaller house sites—so that there is secure title for future land use decisions. The bill provides for those powers that LINZ has had around title amalgamation to continue, but there is the ability for an Order in Council to have those end more quickly.

So there has been major progress with the global settlement with the extra $300 million to accelerate regeneration that the Government announced recently, but this bill is quite significant because it is signalling that major transition back to local councils, local democracies, and having decisions made locally in Greater Christchurch. The Green Party is very pleased to support it and hopes it goes quickly through the Parliament to provide the people of Ōtautahi and the democratic institutions of Ōtautahi with the certainty that we need for the institutional arrangements that will make the decisions for the future working with central government. Kia ora.

First of all, I would like to acknowledge the great work and outstanding contribution of the Hon Gerry Brownlee for the regeneration of Greater Christchurch. I’ve been back to Christchurch many times since the earthquakes of 2010-2011, and it was sad to see the damages to the beautiful garden city. Nevertheless, I have seen the redevelopment of a city. I’ve witnessed events in the beautiful modern city library, and I stayed in new hotels, and I could see fewer and fewer pieces of land in the city and also I could see more and more people in the city. So it’s like Christchurch has been reborn.

Now, following the earthquakes, Parliament passed the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act. The intent of the Act was, of course, to put in place alternative and extraordinary legislative and institutional arrangements to support the regeneration of Greater Christchurch. Though the intent was good—however the Act was fully used—it became clear that local authorities were not particularly interested in the particular Act, and so much of the power in the Act was kind of redundant.

In 2016, Parliament passed another bill—that’s the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act. This Act would enable local—

💬 Hon Member: Sit down.

Down?

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe. Look, I just really wanted to make a very brief comment, having heard Mr Doocey speak, and, really, it’s about cooperation. I want to recognise now in Canterbury and Greater Christchurch how important cooperation will be. There are plenty of vehicles for that cooperation: the Greater Christchurch Partnership and the Canterbury Mayoral Forum, who’s going to shout me lunch in a couple of weeks’ time, I understand. I’m really looking forward to doing that. I would invite Mr Doocey to come, really, across the floor and to really join in with that partnership, because we’ve still got a lot of work to do.

This is a great piece of legislation. It’s one which really puts it back into the hands of the community, including the MPs and the local body government. I look forward to working with Mr Doocey and every other Christchurch member on this. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to stand and take a short call on this amazing bill. I want to acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee. When I went to Christchurch, he was described to me as the godfather of Christchurch, and I totally believe it. Without any further ado, he has done an amazing job in Christchurch, along with the Hon Nicky Wagner, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

As someone who spent a month in the red zone immediately following the earthquake, seeing Christchurch at its worst, I feel privileged to be able to stand and speak on this bill. It is a significant stepping stone in Christchurch moving back to the beautiful city that I once lived in, and I’m sure it will be again. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to support this bill. I also won’t take much time but would like to acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Gerry Brownlee for what he did during that period. I remember my son moved after the February earthquake to Christchurch, and the resilience shown by the Cantabrians also should be commended in this House. I hope that the plans which are in place, which were left by Gerry Brownlee, will be carried on with this bill. I support this bill.

The words have been said in this House about the significance of this bill and what it means to the Christchurch region. Can I commend both sides of this House for the collegial debate and acknowledge that this will be a significant transition for the city to enable it to move forward. So with no further ado, we commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

on behalf of the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration: I move, That the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 2 June 2020, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

I want to set out the reasons why we believe that there needs to be a shorter time than is normal for consideration of this bill at select committee. It’s necessary to truncate the normal time in order to obtain the most benefit from the proposed amendments to this bill, and for this to occur the amendments need to be enacted in the middle of the year.

The amendments in this bill will provide certainty for Christchurch on its future institutional arrangements and remove extraordinary arrangements that are no longer required. This will provide the people and the communities of Greater Christchurch with clarity on what and how regeneration will be handled into the future. In order to achieve this, I’m requesting consideration by the select committee and report back in three months, as well as allowing the committee to meet at times that would otherwise be prohibited by the Standing Orders.

Given that this bill is removing provisions and only extending some of the land-related powers in a geographically limited area, I think this is reasonable. In addition, no new powers are proposed for introduction. The revocation of the section 71 powers and the disestablishment of Regenerate Christchurch were always intended. This bill just sees them happen earlier. As noted, the extended land powers are geographically limited in their application and only relate to a limited set of powers.

Finally, I want to reiterate that the proposed amendments in this bill are about showing progress in Greater Christchurch while continuing to support ongoing regeneration as intended.

It’s not our usual habit to support the truncation of a select committee time, but it would be strange if there wasn’t a speedy select committee process when there is unanimity across the House about the purpose and effect of the bill. For that reason, we do support the shortened select committee time on this particular occasion.

Motion agreed to.