O'Rourke Denis: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3329. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 For the first time in a very long period of time the performance of the Earthquake Commission has been tested with the various Christchurch earthquakes. Of course Kiwis have been paying their earthquake levies for all of that very long time and obviously have a right to expect excellent performance by the commission. I am afraid to say that many people in Christchurch and I mean especially those who are actually affected by the earthquake are not in fact satisfied with the performance of the commission and I am one of them. Firstly this is because I think one of the problems is the definition of the liability for which the Earthquake Commission is liable. Secondly I think it is because of an initial lack of experience with earthquakes and how to deal with them although that has improved since. Thirdly it is because of the way the commission has addressed these claims and fourthly because of the concern over some of the commission’s internal practices. 
On the first of those issues the scope of liability the Earthquake Commission did attend to claims for contents within the first year quite adequately I feel. So the question really is: should the Earthquake Commission actually have to deal with claims for contents or should it be liable only for property? I think that is something that needs to be addressed in the relatively near future in case such an event happens again. I do not think that the commission should have to deal with contents claims. They are mostly covered by insurance. The contents damage causes inconvenience but not the loss of a place to live. It causes delays in the reinstatement of houses because the commission’s time and effort has to be taken up with contents claims and of course it has got the capacity to exhaust or certainly reduce the size of the resources that the commission has. So that is an issue for the future. 
But on the second issue the lack of initial experience I did feel that the Earthquake Commission was not properly prepared for the event that happened at the magnitude it happened. The commission did not have the people it needed it did not act fast enough it was very bureaucratic in its procedures and it constantly inspected things and did not do very much on the ground. So hopefully the commission learnt from that and will improve in the future. 
On the third issue I mentioned it has taken in fact far too long for the commission to attend to the repair or replacement of damaged homes. There have been multiple inspections as I said and too little action. Well after a year since the February earthquake thousands of people still live in seriously damaged homes and unrepaired homes. Many live elsewhere and cannot afford to do so. These are properties in the green zone. Many need to be replaced and many still have to be demolished. 
I realise that the numbers of claims are extremely high and that tens of thousands have in fact been attended to. But that is no comfort to the thousands whose claims have not yet been actioned this long—almost 1½ years—after the February earthquake. So the question really is: why is that? I feel that one problem has been the employment only of Fletcher’s as the sole provider. I think perhaps it would have been better to consider others as well. I think a monopoly may have created something of a lack of competition for good results and of course more resources should mean speedier attention. Overall progress has been too slow and it really needs to be better. So that is another lesson for the future. 
The fourth and final issue I raised was some concerns that people have expressed and I think with justification over some of the internal practices. Initially it did appear that there were conflicts of interest between some of the staff of the commission and the commission itself. I do note that the commission imposed a self-imposed review of that and this went some way to solve some of the problems. However suspicion still exists out there about some of the internal practices like that. So the conclusion that I am afraid I have to draw is that the performance of the Earthquake Commission was not as good as it should have been and of course it has never been tested as I said at the beginning. In trying to meet that test I do not feel it reached the standard we would require but I do not want to say that it has been a complete failure because it has not. The commission has done a lot of good work and I want to pay particular regard and acknowledgment to the people who have been employed by it.