Dyson Ruth: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7519. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): First of all I just want to advise the Hon Gerry Brownlee to stay in his seat because he otherwise might fall over. I want to congratulate him on the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill. I cannot recall doing that before. I did not want him to be standing and collapse in shock. This is a really good next step in the recovery moving from post-quake disaster response to recovery and now to regeneration. I am looking forward to the opportunity to hear the submissions on this legislation from people of Canterbury who I think will be generally supportive but will raise some concerns in the same way as my colleague Megan Woods just has in her contribution.The bill from my point of view has the real opportunity to now speed up activity in the city. I think everyone would agree particularly in relation to the anchor projects and in relation to decisions that have not yet been made about some of the key projects that they have actually slowed down other activity. I hope that this new body that is formed under this legislation can give some grunt some commercial rigour and some drive to the investment that we so badly need.The second point I want to make about the legislation is that it finally allows local voices and local leadership. It has been a long time—since the September 2010 quake and then the February 2011 quake—for us to feel as if somebody else is running our city. In some circumstances it was absolutely needed but in others I think it was not necessary. We have had those debates in this House and other places in the past. There is no need to dwell on them now but I think this is a good restoration of local voices local leadership and local decision-making.The third point I want to make is I suppose about the area for which I have the most concern and that is about the special powers that are retained in this legislation. I know that the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery will need to retain some special powers post - Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. It is a delightful expression: “life in Canterbury after the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority”. I am so looking forward to it. But I am not convinced that all the powers that are being proposed to be retained by the Minister under this legislation are necessary nor am I convinced that the checks and balances that you would assume would be part of giving Ministers special powers are contained in this legislation. The words are too high-level and not specific enough for my satisfaction.It is the same as it was in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation actually. The Minister had special powers which we understood would be needed but they were to be granted if they were in the interests of earthquake recovery. Well that is too broad a description in the same way as “regeneration” is too broad a term. We need the Minister—whoever is holding the portfolio—to be able to be held to account by this Parliament and by the people of Canterbury when exercising special powers. I think that is a gap that would need to be filled. Actually it would not take much to give more specificity to the “regeneration” term as one way of doing it—but to make sure that we will have confidence in knowing that when the Minister does use any special powers this Parliament grants him they will be for the purposes for which they were granted. That has not been the case in recent times. We have seen the use of section 38 of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act to demolish buildings which was not in the best interests of earthquake recovery actually. I think the destruction of the Majestic Theatre is an obvious example but there have been more.I want to commend the Advisory Board on Transition to Long Term Recovery Arrangements which was from the outside looking in—because we never got an opportunity to meet them formally unfortunately—but the transition advisory board was from all accounts very competently and ably chaired by Dame Jenny Shipley a former Prime Minister in this House and member of a National Cabinet. In my view Dame Jenny conducted the activities of the advisory board in an inclusive way where she listened respectfully but showed no fear at all when driving ahead with what the board agreed was in the best interests of Canterbury. I think that was a very good thing. I also want to commend the other members of the transition advisory board. I think they have done a very good job in presenting us with a path and a way forward. I am not sure that the legislation will be 100 percent to their satisfaction and I do not suppose they would feel they were in a position to make a submission but I certainly think from reading their commentary to the Minister that the Minister has taken on board in large parts their suggestions and their contributions.I also want to acknowledge our undemocratically appointed regional council but with no offence to the appointed commissioners because I think they have been playing an active role in preparing this transition plan. Dame Margaret Bazley was a member of the transition board so I want to acknowledge them and I want to acknowledge our three councils Waimakariri Selwyn and Christchurch. The three mayors the Hon Lianne Dalziel David Ayers and Kelvin Coe were all also represented on that transition advisory board. Again from the outside looking in it appears that they made very strong contributions and comments on the future of the governance of our city.I want to move on to two opportunities that I think have been missed in this legislation. That is not a criticism of the Minister. I think he has looked at what needed to be done what the transition advisory board recommended and he has got on with that task. But I would hope that there may be an opportunity during the select committee process—and I really urge the Minister now that he has recovered from the shock of my congratulating him on the legislation—to consider two opportunities that I would grasp at rather than miss which is the current situation. The first one is in relation to transport as part of the regeneration of our city. We have a model that in a post-quake environment does not work to the best that I think it could do so I would encourage the Minister to look at this legislation as an opportunity to have integrated transport planning for 50 years out not for 5 years out. You know what do we need in Canterbury where has our population gone and what opportunities are there? I know that the Minister is quite good at transport stuff. He has done a lot of work in a ministerial capacity on that so he is certainly the right person to be thinking about that—possibly better than the current Minister of Transport but who am I to compare? So I do think we have an opportunity to look at the integration to look at the planning and to look at what if we had a blank sheet of paper which we just about have in parts of Christchurch we would do in terms of a transport system. So that is the first area that I would really encourage the Minister to look at.The second area is one that I think we have missed the boat on almost entirely during the last 5 years despite the best efforts of many people who are involved in the health system and that is looking at the long-term psychosocial impacts of the quakes. What happened to families what happened to residential living and what happened to employment? The grief process the trauma the disruption that everyone went through—what does that mean for now and what will it mean for 10 or 20 years’ time? I know that we have got a psychosocial recovery plan but it is so high-level that I do not think it will have any impact on what we need on the ground. I think we need a more specific plan. That is not a criticism of the actual plan. It just does not drill down enough.I think we need a more specific plan that looks particularly at integration of all the different agencies that are involved in touching our citizens who have been impacted on negatively. That includes the health system of course but it also includes our housing providers it includes our education system and it includes all our social service providers. Everyone who touches our citizens should be part of the planning of a detailed psychosocial recovery plan. I think that the pressures in our city are going to remain. We know that as Canterbury members of Parliament and I do not think they are being recognised in the system. The current exercise that the Canterbury District Health Board is being asked to go through is an example of the lack of recognition from the capital towards what impact the quakes have had on our delivery of services and our ability not just to do business as usual but to meet greatly excessive demands on what we would have formerly planned.I just want to conclude with that commendation again. This is a good step forward. I have got some questions to ask about it. I have got some concerns that I have put on the record. I think there are two areas where we have currently missed an opportunity but we could remedy that during the select committee process. I have looked at the bill and I am sure that including transport planning and integration and including psychosocial planning would be within the scope—they are certainly within the regeneration space. There is also of course looking at making sure that those three concerns that I had—the special powers the speeding up of activity and the local leadership—are acknowledged during the coming stages. So I am looking forward to the submissions. I hope that we are able to have a decent length of time to hear them by extending that time out. I commend the progress of this bill.