Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7157. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 “On behalf of the Government let me be clear that no one will be left to walk this journey alone.” Those were the words that the Prime Minister used to make a commitment to the people of Christchurch that they would not be left to handle things on their own. And what has happened? We have got individual Christchurch people having to deal with insurers and having to deal with the Earthquake Commission. They have been left alone they have been abandoned by the Government and that is why they have said that John Key’s speech to them has been very disappointing in terms of the delivery. He has made many promises; that no one would be worse off that the red zone offer was extremely fair and then in relation to the land grab in the central business district—which I questioned him about today—that the Government would work very fairly with people. “We’re certainly not trying to rip anyone off.” he said. He said that a gun would not be held at the landowners’ heads. 
Today in the House the Prime Minister has stood by these commitments despite the outrageous treatment of these landowners by the National Government. It was said in the House today that it is fair to pay a commercial property owner 50 percent of the amount offered to a homeowner in the residential red zone—that is fair. Why is it fair? I mean even the residential red zone offers were not fair for everyone. There were people who lost tens of thousands of dollars but they were offered 100 percent of the rating valuation. Why do commercial business owners get offered only 50 percent in order to clear out of their land? 
He pretends that it is a voluntary offer but it is not very voluntary when you are staring down the barrel of a compulsory acquisition; when the compulsory acquisition provisions of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority say that it is the market value of the property at the time of the purchase not at the time of the incident. That is not fair either. He has said that it is fair to threaten owners of buildings in the central business district with compulsory acquisition and to hold up the money for at least 12 months so that they are forced to take less than they should essentially because they know that the result might in fact be worse under a compulsory acquisition. 
The threats are being made to people who thought they could rely on a National Government. The most polite word said by former National Party supporters whom I have spoken to is that this is very “disappointing”. Others say that it is a travesty and that they had been betrayed by a Government that promised them so much. It promised to stand by them and it has not stood by them at all. Who would have thought compulsory acquisitions—a land grab—would be the hallmark of a National Government? It is something that it would accuse us of doing but it is not doing it for the sake of the central business district recovery. 
All the Government is doing is compulsorily acquiring land in order to put in a frame. That is why a lot of people are saying that they are being framed in order to reinstate an increase in the property values inside the compact central business district inside the frame. That is not within the purpose of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation and I think that the Government is going to find itself very hard-pressed to actually run an argument that this is required for recovery. It is actually about property values and nothing more nothing less. 
People are frightened of speaking out and it is not surprising because the Government attacks everyone who speaks out. Carpers and moaners are the people who live in the technical category 3 land areas who answered an online survey run by a residents association. The “enemy of recovery” is how the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery describes the Christchurch  
Press 
. I mean for goodness’ sake! It is the enemy of recovery for daring to on occasion want to hold the Government to account. 
I want to read from a constituent who is too frightened to be named because she is fearful of what will happen: “We cannot afford to sell at this price and we can’t afford not to. If we do not agree to the offer there will be a compulsory acquisition and we won’t see a payment from the Crown for maybe up to 2 years. During this time we would still have to pay the mortgage on the land and rates and we would not have funds available to buy another property to operate our business from. It is an impossible situation for us.” It is impossible. They are terrified of speaking out because if the Government finds out who they are then they know that they are going to be put on the back-burner and they know that there are going to be consequences to them speaking out. There are every time. It is not good enough.