Wagner Nicky: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 25 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6213. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
10. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
 to the  
Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery 
: What progress has the Government made to support repairing damaged houses and infrastructure following the Canterbury earthquakes? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 To date 24884 houses have been repaired in the Fletcher Construction - led programme to repair Canterbury homes at a cost of $967 million. Over the past month the programme has been completing around 450 homes a week and the weekly spend of around $15.5 million has been reached. The Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team is also making good progress in the $2.2 billion project to repair road and water infrastructure. To date it has laid 19 kilometres of freshwater pipes 70 kilometres of waste-water pipes 108000 square metres of pavement and 4.6 kilometres of stormwater pipes. Over $40 million a month is being spent on horizontal infrastructure projects which will leave Christchurch with a highly resilient and high-quality infrastructure. 
Nicky Wagner 
: What impact has this had on employment in Canterbury? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Very significant. Across the Fletcher EQR and Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team programmes alone there are some 7000 people working every day to improve the lives of Cantabrians. Around 6200 of these are employed by the Fletcher Construction - led house repair programme. Up to 580 Fletcher staff work in 20 local hubs supported by 90 Earthquake Commission estimators. There are 125 accredited building firms with an average of five employees each working on the project. And another 865 contractors are working on the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team’s horizontal infrastructure repair with that number expected to rise by around 1300 in coming months. In addition to that there is considerable activity in the individual insurer project management offices. There is a lot of employment. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Why has the Government spent only $7 million of the $42 million of funding for training apprentices that was announced back in May last year as part of his reconstruction programme given that there are 84000 young people not in education or training who could be productively participating in the rebuilding today if they were being engaged in training? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The first point is that there are a lot of jobs available for young people in Canterbury. Of the money that was set aside the $43 million for training— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: They need training to get them just like you trained as a woodwork teacher. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is right—that is right. What the member will find is that a lot of people will enter training post going into work and that is a good thing. What we can say is that although there has been $7 million spent out of the $43 million there is a further $24 million that has been reprioritised inside existing programmes. What the member needs to do is actually read some of the very positive messages coming out of Canterbury about employment and training for young people so that he does not go around with such a gloomy outlook on life.