Dalziel Lianne: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 12 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2825. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 On 5 June the Prime Minister sent out a letter to residents in the Christchurch East electorate. It was done electorate by electorate whether or not the Government had a constituency MP representing that electorate. John Key sent it out in his name and he said that the rebuild of Greater Christchurch was central to the plan that was set out in Budget 2012. The Government’s narrative around the earthquake recovery in Christchurch or greater Christchurch as it refers to it—because of course Waimakariri District Council and Selwyn District Council are included within the greater Christchurch area—was very clear. The Government is putting a lot of money into the rebuild of Christchurch and that means that it does not have money available for other things that have suddenly become the “nice-to-haves”. The people of Christchurch are actually sick and tired of this Government using them as an excuse to sell our country’s assets and to do things like put extra taxes on our newspaper delivery kids. The newspaper deliver kids in Christchurch have had a pretty hard job of it getting through the streets after all the earthquake damage and finding their pockets being picked by the Government to make up the nickels and dimes in this sort of Budget is absolutely unreasonable.  
But for the Government to talk about what is happening in Christchurch as an excuse for what it is doing to the rest of the country is intolerable given what we have already experienced in Christchurch. It is about time that we were allowed to speak the truth in this House about what has really been going on as the Government has entirely politicised the situation in Christchurch to its own advantage—even from the moment that it chose the corporate colours for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. What colours do you think most people in New Zealand would associate with Canterbury? It would be red and black would it not? You would expect the corporate colours of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority to be red and black. Actually they were going to be red and black. The Minister had a special jacket made—red and black with the label CERA on the front of it—very shortly after the February earthquake. After the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority had been set up he had that red and black jacket on. But guess which corporate colour it settled on? It settled on blue. What association does blue have with Christchurch? None—absolutely none. So it was a subliminal message. There are those who say colours do not matter but actually in Christchurch colours do matter because if your property is red zoned or green zoned—now with a blue tinge over the top of it—then it certainly does matter. It matters to your equity. It matters to your future. It matters to any decisions that you can make. It matters to your relationship with your insurance company. There is nothing that matters more in Christchurch at the moment than colours. National started the colour regime with its own decision to put the National Party brand on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. The subliminal message is that the National Government is rebuilding Christchurch. Canterbury cannot even own its own recovery with its own colours leading the way red and black.  
That is something that Labour would restate straight away and that is that red and black would be leading the recovery. We would let the people of Canterbury own their own recovery. We would not have a top-down Government department and a Government Minister actually controlling the recovery of our city and making all of these decisions without any engagement with the people. We would put a layer of governance between the Minister and Roger Sutton who is the head of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority which would become a State-owned enterprise or an independent Crown entity in order for it to be able to do its job properly which is to facilitate the recovery. It is something that has got to be owned by the people with a proper sense of engagement with the people so that they can be involved in it.  
Let us have a look at what the Government is saying in its narrative. It has set aside $5.5 billion for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund and then goes on to say that more than $3.4 billion of the recovery fund will have been spent by next year. Well that is not true. We know that that is not true because in fact we have done the sums. The Government has thrown everything into the $5.5 billion that it can possibly find. It has got $4 million to establish the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority $3 million for the royal commission of inquiry $23 million for work that was already done before the 22 February earthquake even happened a $5 million donation to the Red Cross Society Inc. $20 million on the national controller and civil defence costs and $100 million for the AMI contingency which originally was $300 million - odd.  
Then it has added in what it would have to pay for its own asset repairs—schools and State highways. That is in there. It is over $80 million so far and increasing. Of course there is the total amount allocated to repairing local infrastructure—$1.6 billion over 5 years—which represents the 60 percent of the cost the Crown is already liable for under the pre-existing arrangements between central government and local government in the case of a natural disaster.  
When we analyse the Budget numbers we discover that the Government had shifted just over $1 billion from the forecasts allocated in the pre-election fiscal update to the yet-to-be-allocated category and then claimed that as part of the $2.17 billion projected spend this year. I am afraid that is just smoke and mirrors and that is what the Government has been doing with this. The reality is that the Government has really played tricks with people’s confidence over a serious disaster and I think it should be held to account for doing that.  
Of course in this letter it goes on to repeat all of these other things over and over again. The Government has “repaired over 15500 homes”. Well it has not paid for that. That is being paid for by either the Earthquake Commission or the insurance industry so that is not something that the Government has had to pay for. Twelve thousand square metres of road have been repaired. Well actually that is included in the sum it has already mentioned and also the additional amount on installing drinking-water pipe waste-water pipe and demolishing 80 percent of unsafe buildings. Those things are all paid for out of other budgets and so it is just restating it. The Government has purchase offers to more than 6000 residential red zone homeowners and two-thirds have been accepted but it does not say that the underlying assumption was that 100 percent would accept option one. Actually 25 percent of those who have accepted one of the options have accepted option one. So its assumptions are completely wrong and it has not done the numbers again. It is not telling people the truth. It is not being up front with people and this should be the most open and transparent process. There should be open engagement with the people. 
 It is fast tracking planning permission to make thousands of new residential sections available in new subdivisions on safe land. Well when do they come? Too late for the people who have to move out of the red zone. Not one single one of those sections will be available to rebuild on by April next year—not one of those that they have fast tracked the planning permission for. Then it is completing the infrastructure repairs and undertaking a further amount each month on average. Again that is restating the figure it has already included in the original figures. But then what does it do? It says that you can have your say now. It is time for you to have your say and let us just restate our position on this. The letter says: “Pease tick the three aspects of the Government’s commitment to rebuilding greater Christchurch that are most important to you:”. So of course it is reinforcing to the public that the Government has got this commitment to rebuilding greater Christchurch and that is because the National Government is doing it. It is not facilitating people to do it for themselves.  
But then it goes on to say this: “Please tick one of the following options: I ALWAYS support the following political party: United Future Green Maori Labour National Act NZ First. OR I USUALLY support the following political party:” and it has set out the political parties again. Then it says “OR I don’t support any political party in particular.” Then it says: “Privacy notice. Supplying this information is voluntary. The information is being collected by National MPs in their capacity as Members of Parliament to be used for electorate and related activity.” Well this letter is for Wigram. The other one that I have got here is for Christchurch East. I am afraid that Megan Woods is the MP for Wigram and I am the MP for Christchurch East but it suggests that people go to “Our Christchurch Central MP Nicky Wagner” who is “available to assist you with constituency issues”. Nicky Wagner will not help her own constituents with these issues and in fact we have had to take up the work that she has left behind. So what— 
Chris Hipkins 
: The taxpayer paid for that. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: And the taxpayer has paid for this to go out there to find out how people are voting and to actually finally come clean and show that National has been entirely political about this from start to finish. It has not worked with the people about the issues that really matter. What I am concerned about is that we have got people who now live in different parts of electorates who have to put up with this over and over again. This photograph is of red zone land; this photograph is of green-blue land. It is not fair that the Government will not work with the people in order to ensure that they understand what is going on.  
I would like to seek leave of the House to table an example of the correspondence that the Rt Hon John Key has put into my electorate of Christchurch East.