Wagner Nicky: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10504. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Recovery): I would like to take a short call on this infrastructure theme and I would really like to have this focus on the infrastructure investments repairs and rebuilds in Christchurch. Listening to the member for Wigram Megan Woods I would think I live in a different city.I am enormously proud of the work that the people of Christchurch have done in Christchurch over the last 5 years. I am enormously excited about the future of our city and I am really impressed with how they have managed to rebuild so much of our infrastructure. When you think about it earthquakes are really tough on infrastructure and 15000 earthquakes are particularly tough. That number of earthquakes has made us think about how we manage our rebuild how we can be innovative and how we can really make the most of this opportunity—5 10 15 years of investment as we replace our infrastructure has made us the construction capital of New Zealand and we are making the very most of that opportunity.The challenge of rebuilding and repairing the majority of Christchurch has required us to innovate. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Really the problems we had replacing our horizontal infrastructure—who knew about horizontal infrastructure before our earthquake? It is the three waters: fresh water stormwater and the sewers—and on top of that the roads. That is horizontal infrastructure. To replace that we have had to create an organisation called “SCIRT”. “SCIRT” is the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team and it is a new way of working. The team has brought five of our major construction companies together and they have worked in a collaborative model to be able to deliver the huge amount of work that has to be done to bring together their expertise and capacity. And it is interesting that that model has been recognised internationally as something that is really good as an immediate response to a disaster and it is being used for our disaster risk reduction kaupapa around the world. In fact Fiji has used it after their recent cyclone.Of course as well as the repair of horizontal infrastructure—and at this stage we think we have repaired about 90 percent of the inner-city horizontal infrastructure and about 85 percent of the suburban area—we are also investing in all of the things that a city needs in order to go forward. We are investing in roads we are investing in transport mechanisms we are investing in hospitals and we are investing in education. We have got a significant roads of significance programme in Christchurch we have got a new transport interchange which connects not only our local buses but also our intercity buses and has places for biking and walking at the end of those bus routes and we have also got the biggest hospital redevelopment and replacement in New Zealand’s history. Two major hospitals are being built—one in Burwood and one in the centre city and the Burwood hospital is going to open some of its wards within a couple of months.Finally I would just like to mention the investment that we have in education: $1.1 billion going into new schools primary and secondary—magnificently well-designed creative new learning environments; places that our kids are really going to have the opportunity to take off. Of course there is also investment going into our universities and our polytechs. So I am really excited about the future of Christchurch. We are building a safer more innovative people-friendly city; a city that has opportunities for our young people that we can see going forward and that is a place I hope all generations will feel comfortable and will feel is their home. Kia ora.