Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to talk at the second reading of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. It's the first time I've taken a call on this but I've had the privilege through the select committee process of reacquainting myself with a symbol of Christchurch that was very familiar to me when I was a young horticulture student many years ago at Lincoln University.As the Hon Nicky Wagner has said the cathedral has always been a proud symbol of that city. As with many who have expressed views in the House tonight and on other occasions it was a particularly poignant and sad time when we witnessed the destruction of that cathedral. I'd almost forgotten until the Hon Nicky Wagner spoke of it about how we thought in the first couple of days that there might be up to 20 other people underneath that ruined steeple. So there were layers of horror and some relief but ultimately this is a situation that has gone on far too long.This enabling legislation I think gets the balance right. The legislation that we were debating a little earlier tonight—fiercely debating—the truncated process around the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill we feel doesn't serve the public well. This is a piece of legislation by contrast that does need to be put through in a hurry because it does need to be moved on. It has been there too long in a state of ruin. The select committee process—the 28 submissions that we received and the seven oral submitters whom we heard in both Christchurch and Wellington all made very good points that were carefully discussed.I commend the officials and the other experts who have worked on putting this together over weekends and late at night. They have really pulled out the stops as we all have. I understand that and commend the current Minister the Hon Dr Megan Woods who has done a very good job in shepherding this through her caucus along with you Madam Assistant Speaker and other members of the committee—I'll try not to spill my water all over my notes but that didn't work too well—who have really brought to this process a great degree of knowledge and heart. The intellectual rigour has not been lost and also the emotion of what this means to the city.I commend in particular the Hon Nicky Wagner for her years of dedication to this. I know because I was sitting around the Cabinet table how hard she fought to get that $10 million from the Crown and the extra $15 million in the suspensory loan. I'm delighted that the city council voted it through today. It is indeed serendipitous and it's an auspicious occasion when on a day like today the House comes together across all parties to support an enabling piece of legislation that will do this city proud and that building will get what it deserves.There will always be detractors. There will always be people who claim it should have been demolished or it should be restored to the absolute perfection of 100 percent heritage values using the integrity of the old materials and so forth. But there's been a level of pragmatism which has shone through this process and I think we've arrived at a good place.Other speakers have acknowledged Heritage New Zealand. Having had more than a passing acquaintanceship with them over the past three years as their former Minister I would say that they are an organisation who very well combine pragmatism and practical solutions but they never lose the integrity of the spirit and the wairua of the buildings that they're talking about and making recommendations on. So when they came and spoke to us about some of the semantics—you know what should we call this? Reinstatement? Restoration? These words are loaded. Everyone has a different definition of them but it was very important to steer that middle course and to ensure that we acknowledged that there was a strength and a unity of purpose about this enabling legislation that would serve the city well. So although there were detractors and there were people who made submissions attempting to relitigate the entire nature of the project we were able to steer it through.I commend Dr Deborah Russell on her first outing as a chair in Parliament as a new MP and putting this one through. Well done. The spirit of cooperation across the parties as I say meant that we could have reasoned and sensible discussions. I think that there's a great deal of trust in this process because it has been going on for so long and so many different entities have been involved. We were able to peel away some of the layers and get to the points that really needed to be made. So some of the safeguards that on this side of the House we wanted reassurance on were there.We were a little worried initially at increasing the number of Acts that the Minister would be able to use in a truncated and abbreviated form but because of the narrow focus and scope of this enabling legislation it was very apparent to us after broad discussions that we could trust the process of the Order in Council of having a local committee. We have spoken of this and other speakers have alluded to the fact that it is an expert committee—that they will be people who will be able to test the waters who will be able to reflect what the people of the city want and what the visitors want—you know just to continue to tread that fine line so that the Minister has the right advice to be able to make the right decisions and we are satisfied that it's not open to abuses or precedents. The Order in Council process which is very focused on reinstating the cathedral I think will also enable a pace of restoration reinstatement to occur that will not be able to be held up by vexatious individuals who would seek to stop it for whatever reasons. So I have and we have on this side of the House real confidence that the arrangements that have been arrived at with the Orders in Council will serve the city very well.The judicial review process if it comes to that is very clearly set out as again wanting a judicial review to occur within a reasonable period of time. Twenty-eight days is enough time for people to consider it argue it through prepare the right material but they won't have a great deal of time or the ability to hold things up in a way that would not be helpful to the overall project. I think again it shows a level of pragmatism around these things. As the Hon Nicky Wagner said by streamlining the process and by giving it a very good firm structure of enabling legislation we will provide confidence and certainty in that process.I think the construction of this building will be watched very carefully by many people around New Zealand and particularly those in Christchurch. We were all interested to ensure that the tram which has given an opportunity to open up the world as it were of restoration—this has gone extraordinarily well in many of the buildings in Christchurch. The Christchurch Community Arts Council is world-class and the Christchurch Arts Centre. Because of the nature of the project the way it has been achieved the way the experts and others have collaborated and the use of new technology and new methods—all around the world people are grappling with earthquakes and how to preserve heritage. These are vitally important issues.The world is a small place and we need to be able to talk to people in Japan throughout Europe and throughout other countries that have experienced what Christchurch has experienced and come up with good modern solutions that will provide ongoing safety and yet stability to this very important building: being able to inject mortar with particular substances that will lend it strength to wrap an invisible wallpaper around some of the structures to hold them in place so that the safety of the public is reassured. For any of us who know and love that city and who have felt for the ongoing horrors really of the times that those people have lived through who have lived in that city we know how important public safety is. And while the heritage values and the look of the cathedral are vitally important it is also absolutely important that the safeguards are there in terms of the materials that are being used and that this cathedral after so much trouble after so much discussion and after so much effort by so many can be preserved in perpetuity with the integrity of its heritage values intact.So I would feel very confident—and if people are listening and concerned that this has been a short process let me reassure them that we have lacked no rigour behind the scenes in examining what might go wrong and how it must not be allowed to stand in the way of the solution that the majority of people have worked through. The people that have worked in the past from the Miriam Dean report onwards the trust the synod the church itself—there are so many people that have contributed to the right outcome. They've given their time and their efforts generously and without charge and they are remarkable individuals. To me the body of work that has gone into getting us to where we are here today in the House is a tribute to the love that the people of Christchurch have for their cathedral and the strong desire for us all to work together to achieve the right outcomes for this extraordinary building. In this legislation which I commend to the House we have achieved all that we set out to do.