Sage Eugenie: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7523. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green):Tēnā koe. I am pleased to take a call on behalf of the Green Party on the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. The Green Party will be supporting the bill at its first reading and referral to the select committee because we are very interested in hearing public submissions on it. That said we do have a number of concerns with the bill.I guess the options open to the Government were to allow the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act to expire and then to go back to the normal processes under the Public Works Act in terms of land acquisition and the Resource Management Act; or to amend the existing Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act and extend its time frame; or to go ahead with new legislation which is obviously what this bill is doing.We are certainly pleased that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act is not being extended because it is a very Draconian piece of legislation. It has centralised a lot of power in the Beehive and it had the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery making major decisions about the future of the city. Also it has shut out the public from having significant input into the demolition of heritage buildings across the city for example. It has significantly truncated the normal processes under the Resource Management Act for public participation in planning documents—the Lyttelton Port recovery plan is one. The Christchurch district plan review is going through under a different process from the Resource Management Act. So we are glad that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act is not being extended and that we have got new legislation.The concern is that the quite significant powers that are given to the Minister in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act are carried over into this bill. The Hon Nicky Wagner said they were remnants of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority powers. They are fairly significant remnants. They are significant because the powers available to both the Minister and the chief executive officer of the new agency—which as others have explained will be a joint agency between the council and the Government—include the ability to suspend amend or revoke Resource Management Act documents council plans regional land transport plans and plans or policies under the Local Government Act. They allow the Minister to amalgamate any land acquired under this bill or the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act and the chief executive of Regenerate Christchurch can carry out or commission works such as demolishing buildings restricting access and closing or stopping roads. So these are quite significant powers particularly the powers to override existing Resource Management Act documents and policies and plans under the Local Government Act.I acknowledge that the Government has put in the bill some constraints on those powers. They have got to be exercised in accordance with the purpose of the legislation and they have got to be deemed to be necessary by the chief executive or the Minister. There are other safeguards too in relation to regeneration plans that require the Minister to consult with the strategic partners—namely the Christchurch City Council Waimakariri District Council Selwyn District Council the Canterbury Regional Council and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—and to have particular regard to their views.That is a good test because it does indicate that the Minister will have to take those views into real account. The agency is to be subject to the Official Information Act. We applaud that but the scope of the powers is still very wide. It is a giant experiment really in urban planning that this bill is embarking on. The Government has not yet introduced its Resource Management Act changes. We suspect that those will significantly reduce opportunities for public input. And here with this bill the way in which it overrides the normal planning processes under the Resource Management Act in order to theoretically advance the purposes of regeneration and to have an attractive liveable city is an experiment.What the experiment has been with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority of course is that the public is not always able to be involved and its views are not heeded as much as they should be and we have seen that with the disastrous proposals by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority for Victoria Square and the major changes there. We have seen it also with the extravagant expenditure on the Avon/Otākaro River project—$98 million-odd being spent there. Again nobody actually said they wanted that. We have seen it too in the squandering of the really strong support for a much more sustainable city that came through in that massive and innovative consultation exercise that the Christchurch City Council undertook with Share an Idea. Yes we will be supporting the bill but we will be very interested in the submissions that come through and in what Christchurch people think of having the Minister retain the power to sign off on all of these regeneration plans.I will just make a point about the Crown company that is being set up under the bill to deliver the anchor projects. We had the chief executive officer of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in front of the Finance and Expenditure Committee earlier this week and the opaqueness that has surrounded the anchor projects continues. It was originally proposed that $280 million would be spent on a new convention centre. That bill is skyrocketing yet there is nothing available to the public in terms of the details about the business case. The chief executive officer was unable to tell the select committee even who would own the convention centre despite the hundreds of millions of dollars of public money that is going into this project. So we have this Crown company that is going to be delivering the anchor projects and we do not know whether it is accessible under the Official Information Act or whether there will be any increase in the transparency with which those anchor projects are being planned.There are massive amounts of money being put into the anchor projects there is the huge financial burden that they are on the Christchurch City Council and there is the fact that the council has had to significantly change its long-term plan with the proposals for asset sales to generate revenue in order to fund its commitment to these anchor projects for which we have yet to see any detailed business cases that show that they are justified that they will generate revenue and that they actually meet the needs of Christchurch citizens. They are potentially white elephants and this bill with the Crown company being proposed to deliver them may not be any improvement on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and the opaqueness with which the authority has proceeded in terms of all of the anchor projects.The prospect of the regeneration plans is certainly being welcomed by residents in places like New Brighton because of the major changes that the earthquake has caused there and the major loss of population but these plans must be about sustainability. We have not seen that as a major thrust in the other plans that have been developed. With the port company plan for example we are seeing a major increase in the reclamation that the port company is proposing in order to deal with an increase in container traffic yet we have not seen adequate attention being paid to the impacts that that will have on the loss of amenity values in the harbour such as the major changes to the crater rim bluffs to provide rock for that reclamation.We are seeing lost opportunities with a lot of the building that is happening in the central city. There are great sheets of steel probably imported from China when we have in the city of Christchurch world-leading expertise in the use of laminated wood for buildings but we are not seeing the Government encouraging the use of that technology. We are seeing road widening and some cycleways being initiated by the city council. We have not seen a major increase in the frequency of bus services—Environment Canterbury has really dropped the ball—and the Green Party has proposed having an integrated transport agency to significantly improve public transport in the city but we are not seeing that investment by the Government. Instead it is going into major new motorways.This bill has the potential to set a course for a much more liveable sustainable city but it needs—in terms of the way in which Regenerate Christchurch operates and the people who are appointed—to have a much more reflective look back at the ideas that came through Share an Idea. We also have concerns that the board of Regenerate Christchurch is going to be appointed by both the council and the Minister. Members of the board need to be in communication with citizens because they do not have the accountability that an elected mandate would provide. So we will be supporting the bill’s referral to the select committee but we will also be supporting Megan Woods’ amendment so that the public gets a good chance to comment on the bill. Thank you.