Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 I move  
That the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill be now read a third time 
. The events of the last couple of days and the last few hours have been I think quite interesting. Personally it has been a bit like being at an encounter group finding out all the worst foibles of one’s personality etc. But those matters are pretty unimportant when we consider the lives that have been so disrupted in Christchurch now for such a very long time. The passing of this bill does not change that immediately; it provides a framework for a transition from a state of emergency to a state of urgency leading towards what we hope will be a very full recovery in a speedier period of time. 
Before I make any further comments I want to thank the officials who have worked with me on this bill particularly Benesia Smith Rosalind Plimmer John Ombler Matthew Palmer and many others. They have worked tirelessly over the last couple of weeks to make sure we had a bill that covered as many bases as we could anticipate in the lead-up to what I hope will be the development of a series of recovery plans for the Greater Christchurch area and the Canterbury province under a single strategy that will be developed over the next 9 months. 
While there was a big team working on things here there was an even bigger team working down in Christchurch. Thousands of people are going the extra mile doing that extra bit to try to make life a little easier for their fellow Cantabrians their fellow residents of Christchurch City. I pay particular tribute to those who are doing the difficult part of the job—in the trenches up to their elbows in the muck trying to connect the pipes trying to put the electricity back on trying to make sure that the waste water runs away and trying to make sure that water is connected to houses. 
Those people have done very long hours. They continue to work hard and go that extra mile and they will keep doing that we hope for some time to come. I want to acknowledge that huge contribution in the very practical sense and the very practical way in which it is delivered. 
I do not think we need to spend a lot of time rehearsing aspects of the bill. I make a commitment to work with Bob Parker David Ayers and Kelvin Coe and their executive teams under Tony Marriott Paul Davey and Jim Palmer. 
I also acknowledge the work done over the last couple of weeks through their giving of advice on the bill by Mark Solomon and Sasha McMeeking from Ngai Tahu and the many others in the community who have expressed their views particularly those who took time to make submissions albeit at short notice to the Local Government and Environment Committee. The bill reflects many of the comments that were made during that hearing of evidence. 
I have great confidence that this bill provides the sort of framework we need to effect a solid recovery in the Greater Christchurch area. There are two aspects on which I want to make very brief comments. The first is the cross-party forum. Although we can have a little bit of acrimony about process and everything else as we move forward we will need a lot more unity and I make it clear that it is my intention to engage properly with that cross-party forum. 
I acknowledge that there was a discussion after the hearing of evidence last night when a number of things were shared in confidence and those confidences have been kept and I think that shows the underlying effort that people are making to understand and to be part of a bigger solution for people in Canterbury. 
I also want to give a commitment that the community forum will be a body that is representative of the many organisations and persons out there who have become leaders in our community but do not have a particular elected role. It goes without saying that in working in collaboration with the Christchurch City Council in particular there will need to be engagement with community boards as well as at council level. 
I express my great empathy for the great difficulties that everyone in Christchurch is facing at the present time but also my great confidence that we will emerge from this event as a very very strong city. We will have a central business district the development of which will be led by the city council that will be one of the safest places in the southern hemisphere to live and I think it will meet many of the tests that one would expect to apply to a city that looks forward to hundreds of years of success in the future. I look forward to the passing of the bill.