Gilmore Aaron: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — First Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17918] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 If there was ever a time in the history of New Zealand to say “cometh the hour cometh the man” this is the time with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill before us. We have heard a lot across this House about some of the issues and about the powers that have been given to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Gerry Brownlee in this bill. I think that is one of the interesting things we need to touch on and I will get to some of those dilemmas and slight errors and put them to the House. Gerry Brownlee post - 4 September was pointed out by some of our colleagues on the other side of the House as doing a great job. Mr Anderton sat there and told some of Mr Brownlee’s officials that they were doing a wonderful job post - 4 September—and they were. That shows us that Minister Brownlee has the ability to inspire individuals. We heard from one of the members across the House earlier that one of the key things about this bill and about the recovery is the need to inspire leadership and that is what Mr Brownlee does: he inspires leadership in his team. This bill puts in place some powers to make that happen. 
Just recently we heard Mr Burns talk about some of the dilemmas that exist around community consultation. I just want to correct a couple of little errors that were put forward. The bill provides for a community forum—that was correctly pointed out. But the forum is to meet at least six times a year—at least six times. We heard from Ruth Dyson who pointed out that there were concerns about there being no consultation procedures with the public in any way. Well that is actually not correct either and I want to point that out. Clauses 13 16 and 17 all provide for various mechanisms for consultation with the public in respect of the recovery strategies and recovery plans and they are good steps forward. They may not be the right steps forward and the Opposition may disagree with them but those mechanisms do exist. There are also reporting mechanisms to be put in place by the Minister on a quarterly basis so the public can see in a transparent way what is being undertaken. 
We heard from Mr Cosgrove about some of the issues and the problems that have occurred across Christchurch and about the issues that arise when politicians become political. I have been in a number of meetings and I have sat with politicians from our side and from the other side of the House. On a number of occasions things have gone very well and that is a good thing given what we are grappling with at a time of rebuilding Christchurch after what was New Zealand’s largest natural disaster. We have an opportunity as has been pointed out to rebuild my home city in a way that we never have had the opportunity to do before. 
A number of people were killed. While I have the chance to I just want to make quick mention of three of those who were friends of mine. Betty Dickson was an 82-year-old from South Brighton. Betty Dickson had been involved in my local party organisation and she was a wonderful lady and a supporter of mine. Samuel Gibb was a young man in the CTV building who was a cameraman. I enjoyed having a cup of coffee once a month with Sam—he was a wonderful guy. I also want to talk about Lisa Willems. Lisa worked for Pyne Gould Guinness. She was an accountant in that building and her husband Ben Willems is a very good friend of mine. 
Again these are the people whom we have seen photographed in our newspapers. They may be just names to some people; to me they are people I knew personally. We have also seen people who have lost their homes. This bill puts in place powers and opportunities so that New Zealand can collectively have control and have the ability to rebuild our city in the way we want. 
We allow a significant number of powers in this bill and there are some concerns about that. We will go to Christchurch tomorrow to hear submissions and we will hear submissions tonight from a number of people which may point out some things that we can do a bit better in respect of this bill. I look forward to that happening and I look forward to the comments that people may put forward to us. 
But time is of the essence. We cannot put in place another overlay of long-winded community consultation because we have to rebuild our city as fast as possible. I live in what is called the “no-flush zone” which means we cannot flush our toilets. Many people might find that amusing but I can tell members that it is not amusing. We have to rebuild our infrastructure so that the 70000 people who are also in the no-flush zone can live their lives and get back to normality. We have to get in a situation where the roads we are driving along are no longer ski field roads or farm track roads but ones that we can drive along in the normal way. That will all take time effort and money and this bill puts in place the apparatus to allow a back-up situation where that can be put in place—a recovery strategy that overlays what we want to do; a recovery plan that might be at a community level a social level or a thematic level in terms of issues around a particular group or organisation. 
These are good things. This is a good bill and in the time to come we will look back and say that this was the right thing to do. I think we will find that in 10 years’ time—and hopefully I will be sitting in this House in 10 years’ time—we will look back and say that we passed the bill for the right reasons. We look forward to the rest of the bill’s passage through the House. Thank you.