Parker David: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9950. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I have to say that shortly after the House had risen at the end of last year—it was not the most thrilling news that I had—I had to sit for 3 days on the Local Government and Environment Committee in Christchurch to look at the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. But having been somewhat less than thrilled to get the opportunity I actually enjoyed the experience in the end because I thought that the submissions that the submitters brought forward were heartfelt they were well considered and I thought the committee was well chaired by Scott Wilson—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Simpson.Hon DAVID PARKER: Simpson—sorry Scott. Scott Simpson—memory blank there. I thought that we did do justice to the submitters many of whom were giving up in the end their weekends because we continued to hear submissions on the Saturday morning.The theme that was clear to me which is expressed in Part 2 of the bill was that as we transition from the state of affairs post-earthquake back to normality there is a need for a gradual transfer of power back to the city. Of course after the earthquake this Parliament under urgency passed legislation that effectively took control of the aftermath of the earthquake away from Christchurch City and gave very wide regulation-making powers to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery to essentially take over any function that the Minister thought was necessary to take over at a central government level in order to pursue the recovery after the earthquake. I think overall the Minister has exercised those powers sparingly and although the powers that were granted by Parliament were very wide—in fact probably too wide—the Minister has been responsible and has not sought to garner too much power to himself.Having said that the form of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill that came to the select committee and was submitted upon by submitters was seen by many of the residents of Christchurch—Canterbury I should say with not just Christchurch but also Kaiapoi being affected—as being broader than was necessary. “Paternalistic” is probably the wrong word but the bill did not sufficiently begin to devolve powers back to Christchurch City Council.The Christchurch City Council is not a small council. It is one of New Zealand’s largest councils. It has got a large staff and a lot of very competent people and so I was one of those who thought that perhaps the mayor and other submitters had something when they were saying that too much power was being retained by the Minister as to what would or would not be done by Regenerate Christchurch.The point was well made at the select committee that Regenerate Christchurch cannot spend the Government’s money. If the Government is making contributions to things then either those contributions are bound by other deeds that have already been entered into between central government and local authorities or it was unspecified spending by the Government which of course it can control by refusing to spend it. So it was not a matter of who controlled the purse strings because the Government always does—central government always does—in respect of central government’s money. No one else can force central government to spend central government’s money.I thought that the proposals that came forward from Mayor Lianne Dalziel and others were reasonable. I had expected that they would be put into the bill by the select committee. I was somewhat surprised to learn that by the time the bill came back to the House some of those amendments had not been made. Having said that I am pleased that the Minister has seen sense because I do not blame the select committee for that. I am sure that Government members had at that stage—I am not implying any wrongdoing here—a Minister who was not yet willing to make those changes. The Minister through consultation with other parties and perhaps with members of his own party came to the view that it was proper to move further and Part 2 is where we do that.The description in the explanatory note of Supplementary Order Paper 159 which includes the alterations to which I have just referred makes it clearer that the board of Regenerate Christchurch which is an amalgam of people from central government Ngāi Tahu and the city council now has an enhanced role and effectively the Minister’s roles are truncated by the additional roles that are given to Regenerate Christchurch. I think Parliament can be pleased that it has got to an outcome that parties on all sides of this House can agree is a fair enough compromise. My understanding is that the Christchurch City Council is happier with this than it was with the previous provisions.I will say one other thing. I think we now do need to learn the lessons from the Christchurch earthquake more broadly in respect of what powers we should take off local authorities and what powers we should leave with them. I think some of the broad regulation-making powers that this Parliament voted for—and I was one of those who did vote for them—were broader than they needed to be. The ministerial powers of intervention in regulation-making powers went further than was necessary.I know that the Regulations Review Committee was at one stage hearing submissions as to what lessons we could learn for the future—whether there was some form of legislation that could apply in all future national disasters where there could be some sort of menu from which regulatory powers could be drawn. There were some including me who were a bit suspicious that that went too far and that it was effectively saying in advance that we will give carte blanche to Ministers in the future to override a lot of legislation that might not ordinarily need to be overruled and that we should not give those general discretions to override Acts of Parliament if you do not need them. Given that these events are pretty rare I think there is always a case when you have a national disaster of the scale that we did in Christchurch for Parliament to pay particular attention to it and to pass specific legislation in respect of that event if it is necessary.I hope that the benefit of the experience in respect of the Canterbury earthquakes is that next time something like this happens we know what powers are likely to be needed by a Minister to override normal statute law and to override normal city council powers. We can be more specific as to the powers that we give to the Minister in respect of that post-disaster phase and also that through this now modified Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill we have got to the right sharing of powers between the Minister and the city.