Gilmore Aaron: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13963] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 I will touch on what the previous speaker Brendon Burns said. The Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill has the potential to be wide ranging because the disaster that hit Canterbury 10 days ago was unprecedented. It is the largest natural disaster to hit New Zealand not only in my lifetime but also in any of our lifetimes in this House and indeed probably in the history of our nation. Something in the order of $4 billion is required to fix Christchurch and Canterbury in the wider sense and this bill has been put forward to allow that to happen in a more efficient and better way. 
A lot of concerns have been raised about some aspects of this bill in particular in the Committee stage. I do not want to disagree with the previous speaker about which electorate or area has been worst affected by the earthquake but in relation to the 1000 homes on my side of town in Christchurch I say people from those homes believe they are the worst affected. People from any part of Canterbury will believe that they are the worst affected. 
Dr Nick Smith talked about some of the reasons why not all the legislation could be pointed out. I will point out one Act before I finish which is the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act. As we speak 10 streets in Dallington are without water or sewerage. The pipes that exist there are old asbestos pipes that were laid in the 1930s. As members may know dealing with asbestos poses a particular problem. Those pipes need to be replaced in a very careful and more difficult way than would apply to normal PVC pipes or copper piping. That is an example of a particular issue that may arise that might need a special Order in Council to deal with it in terms of the rebuild over the months and years to come. I think the powers that exist in this bill will allow those things to occur because we cannot in any shape or form know exactly what we may have ahead of us. 
We know that we need to rebuild our city. We need to make our city bigger better and stronger than it was. We need to have the ability to think about maybe building in different places or in different ways and this bill will allow some of those things to occur over the next 18 months. I think that is a good thing. 
Finally I will touch on the issue of the commissioners. I think it is always very easy to outline a list that might come into play in terms of who should or should not be a commissioner but it is difficult to do that today in the short period of time that we have had: 10 days since the quake hit and 400 aftershocks have hit since then. We need to think very carefully over the next few days and weeks about the other skills that we may need to have represented on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Commission in order to rebuild our city. It is very difficult to come up with an exclusive list in the period of time that we have had so I believe the approach that we are taking is the right and correct one towards making my home city return to the state that I think we all want it to be in. Thank you.