Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): I rise to support the motion moved in the House today by the Prime Minister. This 10th anniversary is a time for remembrance and a time for tribute. Those who lost their lives or sustained serious injury will have in their families a great deal of grief for a long period of time or they will be living with those injuries. I knew nine people who perished in the earthquakes on that and subsequent days and I have to say that no matter what anniversary it is when those names are read out the emotion of that significance is no less pertinent. So a tribute to the first responders the many who turned up in uniform from the fire service from the police from the military and the many who were civilian members of the urban search and rescue teams that came not only from New Zealand but all other parts of the world. And then of course the hospital staff from the doctors through to those who dealt with the laundry at the end. Not an easy task. It was a time where the shock and grief of the situation was only matched by the anxious desire to get some clarity and speed about how it would all come to an end. There were hundreds of people who stepped up—thousands of people who stepped up—people who stepped up at their home people who stepped up in their workplaces in their community groups and schools and local and central government and the bureaucracies that go with them and the many other organisations that our friend Eugenie Sage also mentioned who have been vital to community spirit in the years since.There was a huge will to do what needed to be done to fix things and there was an enormous amount to fix: over 700000 total Earthquake Commission (EQC) claims across all categories; 167000 severely damaged residential properties; 1800 CBD buildings completely destroyed needing demolition; and out in the suburban industrial areas even more. There were many many schools that could not continue to have occupation. The university was badly damaged along with Ara and other tertiary institutions. The experience from the 4 September earthquake through to that 22 February day along with a great deal of reading that I did about disaster response made me very clear in my thought that there needed to be a very sound structure that allowed decisions to be made as quickly as possible. The one thing that was lacking in everything that I looked at was clear decision-making. To get that understood by more people was a bit of a challenge. Naturally there was a desire to cling to local leadership if you like. So we took the opportunity of having New Zealand Defence Force helicopters in Hagley Park to get many who either are or have been in this House up in the sky to see the extent of the damage along with many State bureaucrats local body politicians local community leaders so that they could see that the damage was from the outer parts of Banks Peninsula north up into the Kaikōura district west as far as the Alps and south as far as Timaru. That brought a degree of reality about just exactly what was being dealt with. It also I think made people clear about just how big the job was and the sort of thing that we needed to do to get things moving. So legislation was put together and it was passed through this House unanimously and that legislation was considered to be an all-powerful document. I can remember being compared myself to Henry VIII with his extraordinary powers. I've got to say until I saw the photograph or mock-up of me in his gear I never believed in reincarnation. The truth is that was not the case. All decisions were Cabinet decisions and we had a cross-party forum we had a community forum and we had a group that were looking at the legalities of the various Orders in Council that were passed under that Act. All that meant was that there was a faster track to being able to do things and therein I think lies the opportunity that perhaps exists for other disasters that might befall this country. There was a lot for us to consider and I'm not sure which of the very many big decisions that had to be made would be listed as most important ahead of others. But there are two that I want to speak about because they stand out for me. One was the decision that 8500 families would be ill-advised to continue living in their homes and probably couldn't rebuild them because the ground conditions were not suitable for sustaining that type of occupation. That was a very hard thing to do even though there were people in those areas who were calling for Just tell us what's going to happen. Tell us where we're going to go." The harsh reality of hearing that cannot have been easy. And while there were some who would say they did all right out of it some who say they won out of it there were many who did not.Getting those decisions based on the science was important and I want to particularly thank GNS for the work that they did. They are an internationally recognised body that's perhaps not well enough appreciated here at home. They worked with Tonkin + Taylor the engineers they worked at pace and they got a very good picture of what the city looked like below its surface. But that was a hard decision to make not only for those who were advising Cabinet; for Cabinet itself.It was one of those things that you just have to do and it was important too that people receiving that news had some degree of choice about what happened from there. They knew they had to go but they could stay or they could sell their section to the Government—much of that would be covered by EQC—or they could decide to completely sell their property to the Government house and land as well. Not particularly palatable options but at least some degree of choice. So from a personal point of view understanding what it's like to own your own home to feel that connection to live through that devastation to know that your workplace has been a little bit stressed I think and then come home to that kind of reality and what you've got to do through all that—I think that took an enormous amount of effort for those 8500 families and the many other families who would have supported them through that. The second decision was the decision to remove from the Environment Court a thing called the urban development strategy which had been developed by the three councils "Waimak" Selwyn and Christchurch over a long period of years to a point where it had been in the Environment Court for about two years getting to a position where the future development of the greater Christchurch area could be well understood. It was clear the process from that point from 22 February on was going to be long and tortuous. So we used the legislation to remove it and to effectively consent land that could be further consented for over 40000 residential sections. Yes there were some court cases about whether that was the right thing to do but in the end all of those ended with those cases being defeated and the decision being upheld. That is also I think important because it shows that when you do have a tight situation you do have to do things that are pretty big and pretty bold. If I was to mention one other thing it would be the wage subsidy which I think totally defeated the idea that Christchurch would depopulate and that we would have economic carnage in the city—a prediction that there'd be 40 percent of the remaining city living on benefits with broken properties and the downscaling that comes from that. I think the recognition that the dignity that comes from work should always be supported by Government was very important and we're seeing that at the present time.This is not a day to single out individuals who did great work. There were so many of them at some point. I would like to personally offer my gratitude to them for all that they did. But it is important to note that when the balloon goes up you have an organisation like Civil Defence that does step up. Yes it has its faults. It will make decisions that aren't the best; it happens. But by and large we're lucky to have it and we're lucky to have the legislation that goes around it. And a small example of that: the electricity was out for the eastern part of Christchurch for a number of days and the then chief executive of Orion Roger Sutton came up with a plan to get it back on. He turned up at the art gallery which was the centre for activities for the civil defence emergency response. He had his plans rolled up under his arm and he came up and he said "Who do I talk to about getting a consent to put this overland power line in across about 8 kilometres to connect it to another substation and get the power on?" I said "Well I'm not sure Roger." And then I thought "Well I'll get hold of John Hamilton"—the great John Hamilton retired Air Marshal I think he was a great guy running Civil Defence at the time. I said "John Roger wants to put the power on over in the east. He needs the consent. How do we do that?" He said "Well I don't really know". And I said "Well I tell you what. Why don't you and Roger both sign that plan and I'll witness it and we'll take that as a consent." The great thing about the accusations that were around that I had "Henry VIII" powers was that no one really questioned that. And sure enough the lights went on. Sometimes you've got to do things as quickly as you can.It is as someone has already said the people of Christchurch who have defeated the worst aspects of what was a very big disaster for us. It's the people of Christchurch and some of them have been named by others who made those commitments to the city and have seen our population far from depopulate but grow. So today it remains a dynamic great place to live with a growing future."