Dyson Ruth: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading 
Dyson Ruth: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading 
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Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to contribute to the second reading of the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill. 
I will begin by acknowledging the two Ministers who have led this process Gerry Brownlee and John Carter. When I spoke in the earlier part of this debate I raised some concerns and questions alongside my genuine commendation of both those Ministers. I think both Gerry Brownlee and John Carter not only worked hard and diligently to get agreement for the progress of this legislation but also have been very genuine in the way they have worked with other people. Some people can be bipartisan when it suits them but in this specific instance the attempt to gain not bipartisan but multipartisan support was absolutely genuine from both of those Ministers. I want that to continue through the remaining stages of the bill. That is why I urge the Minister whose name is on the bill to take the opportunity to take a call in this second reading and answer perhaps not all but at least some of the concerns and questions raised in the first reading. The Hon Gerry Brownlee has not yet taken a call and time is running out for him to do so in this second reading. 
All members of this House know that it is a lot easier for members of Parliament to make mistakes when they are working under serious time constraints and under the pressure a Committee stage of the House generates. In my view we should use this second reading debate to raise the concerns we have and to ask the questions that we have that are unanswered. Hopefully the Minister will use this time before we start the Committee stage to give serious consideration to those concerns and hopefully express support for resolving them through amendments to the legislation or at least answer the questions even if there is not agreement. But at the moment we are left in some frustration that the Minister has not done that and I urge him to do so before the second reading debate is completed. 
There is no doubt at all that everyone in this country supports the rebuilding of Canterbury in the most efficient way possible. It is also clear Canterbury is in a state of shock at the moment. We have spent the last 10 days trying to get the essentials of life quite literally reconnected to our constituents. Many people are still without power without sewerage and are using Portaloos on the footpath outside their homes. That is better than some of the alternatives that had to be employed earlier in the week but it is not a great way to live. We want those infrastructure issues as well as people’s businesses and their lives to get back as much as possible to post-quake normality—and it will be different from pre-quake normality—but we are nowhere near that. We have been really focused on getting the essentials of life reconnected to our constituents. We have not had the opportunity to say what the bigger picture is now. Where do we want to go in the future? What will our city look like in 10 30 50 or 100 years’ time? What will fill the spaces in our streets where buildings will be demolished or where buildings have already been demolished? What do we want Canterbury to look like? It is my view that we need a genuine commitment from our city leaders and our parliamentarians to ensure this legislation does not block our voice being heard in the debate about what our city and our province will look like in the future. We have not yet heard such a commitment from Minister Brownlee and I am keen to hear it. 
This is an extreme bill. It has been introduced out of a genuine interest to speed things up for our recovery; I have no doubt about that. But the bill is extreme. It removes the legislative framework of 22 Acts of Parliament. Legislation is suspended and replaced by Orders in Council. I assume it will be used on rare occasions but there is nothing in the bill requiring that. Complete power is given to the Ministers and that is a big step for this Parliament to take. 
The appointment of commissioners is seen as a way to have more collaboration and more fast-tracking of the process of rebuilding within the different territorial local authorities. Nobody could argue against collaboration and efficiency and I certainly would not attempt to do that. But in this process there is no public accountability and there is no transparency. The commissioners are not subject to the ordinary provisions of the local government legislation nor the Official Information Act. There is no input from the public into their process of consideration or even as spectators at their meetings. Those are quite small requirements. If the Minister thought them worthy of consideration he could respond by saying that yes perhaps we would include that as an amendment during the Committee stage. As I mentioned in my first reading speech not even a skill set is described. What sorts of people would the commissioners be what type of representation would they provide and what sorts of skills would we expect the commissioners to have? Again it may seem quite a small point but if the wrong people are appointed we will be in a lot of bother. We might not even agree with the process; we certainly did not with the abolition of the Environment Canterbury council. But even in that legislation we had a description of the skills that would be required of the commissioners who were replacing our democratically elected regional councillors. That was a step further than this. 
Obviously another glaring omission in this bill is there is no regulatory impact statement. I presume it is because of the haste in which the bill was put together but that is often a consideration that is taken very seriously by this Parliament. That is the purpose of a regulatory impact statement but in this bill there is none at all. 
Today in the  
Press 
 our former mayor Garry Moore contributed a very thought-provoking article. He is a person who has always had and always demonstrated a genuine passion for our city and its people. His views often provoke debate and he enjoys that because he is a good debater and loves to provoke thinking about the future of our city. He said in today’s  
Press 
: “Central and local government should remember at this stage that they are public servants. They need to make haste slowly. Rushing legislation or bylaws could mean they have to be reversed when flaws in what they have passed start emerging.” There is no doubt there is a need to support the efficient processing of the various bits of the law that currently need to be enacted in order to progress Canterbury’s recovery. This measure is an extreme way of doing it. It is not like an amendment that allows more flexibility. It is actually revoking legislation and replacing it by Orders in Council. So it is a big step to ask. 
I ask the Minister to take the opportunity in this second reading debate to come to the House and take a call so that we can have some of those concerns debated and considered and some of our questions answered.