Brownlee Gerry: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18546. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission):I should respond to some of those comments offered by the Hon Ruth Dyson. The first point I would like to make though is that the Earthquake Commission has to date settled 141000 claims and that is an 83 percent settlement rate. Yes Ruth Dyson is right to say that multi-units present a problem. Part of the problem is that where you have multiple buildings—these are blocks of flats apartment buildings or anything else—then there can be multiple insurers over them. There is also the problem which Ruth Dyson illustrated very well by talking about her constituent whom I would like to know a little bit more about I must say because that does cause me some concern—Hon Ruth Dyson: What so you can abuse me again? No way José.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well you see there is the problem. I genuinely stand in the Committee and say that if you have got that person and they need help I would like to be there to help them and I am told that all that is going to happen is that the member will get abusive. This is ridiculous. Here we are. Here is the deal. That lady clearly has got a problem with her house no doubt about that. But what Ruth Dyson said is that the property next door is going to be demolished so that means that the adjoining house—if we look at this box here with all those boxes that is a multi-unit. I do not know where in the units her house is but if one has to be demolished next to it it is going to cause damage to her house. There is no question about that. So the question has to be who pays where and what insurance gets triggered.The worst we have got is a block of 43 flats or apartments all together where there are 16 insurers. The insurers are all saying: “Well hang on a minute. My responsibility is for this bit over here. If you fix your bit you’re going to cause me more expense.” So behind the scenes there has been a huge effort to get insurers to try to sort this out. In the end guess who is truly responsible for this appalling problem? It is the legal fraternity of Canterbury frankly because there have been body corporate laws in place and repeatedly lawyers have conveyed properties ignoring the body corporate laws—willy nilly ignoring the body corporate laws. So when I see some of these flash lawyers around town start pontificating on what the Earthquake Commission should be doing or what private insurers should be doing I just put it back on them and ask about how many multi-units that particular lawyer has conveyed in their time ignoring those body corporate rules.All I am saying here is that this is a very real problem. It is not something that you can fix by standing up and screaming and yelling at people; it takes a lot of work to get through it. We are making those commitments and we are settling those particular issues bit by bit. I have got to say that coming into the House or going on the TV or getting in the newspaper and having a flick at some of the Earthquake Commission people is far too easy. They are Canterbury residents themselves. Many of them have got damaged houses themselves. They know what the reality of living in the city is and they come to work every day and deal with people’s problems. I admire them for doing that and frankly the statistics show that they are doing a very good job.I want to briefly finish on the comment from Eugenie Sage when she talked about the latest wellness index from Canterbury. Firstly the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority contributed to that cost as did private insurers and I understand that the Earthquake Commission did as well. So we want to know what the situation is. The international literature tells us that the third year after an event is always the hardest. We need to know the extent of that problem and we are not walking away from it. There are services available for people who are suffering those stresses in their lives. We know that getting people through this is going to be settling all of the Earthquake Commission issues and getting people back into as much as possible of the groove that their life used to be. That is the commitment the Government has made through the Earthquake Commission and we have not walked away from any responsibility we have in Canterbury one little bit. It is disappointing that people find a need to misrepresent situations to try to paint the worst picture of them.I say again to Ruth Dyson to tell me what that poor woman’s situation is. I would like to look at it because I think something more should be done for her. To suggest that the member has let her sit for 3 years in a cold house and has not told someone who can do something about it is equally disgraceful.