Dalziel Lianne: Address in Reply 
Dalziel Lianne: Address in Reply 
[Volume:677;Page:424] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 May I begin by acknowledging the re-election of the Speaker to his role. I have new portfolio responsibilities: Canterbury earthquake recovery civil defence and emergency management and consumer rights and standards. I just want to say how grateful I am for David Shearer’s confidence because with his background in disaster recovery it speaks a lot to me about what he has to offer the city of Christchurch and indeed the country in terms of taking the lessons learnt from Christchurch and making them our own as a country.  
We all know about disaster recovery. It requires four particular things: quality communication community engagement building resilience but most of all leadership. When I talk about leadership there is a difference between the leadership that is required in a response effort which of course is command and control—people need to do what they are told they need to know that they can rely on the decision maker—but in recovery it is different. It is inclusive it is engaging it is a really important way of ensuring that the community is able to go with those decision makers. The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery has mocked the well-established principles of recovery by saying that all we are asking for is to sit around in groups and sing “Kumbaya”. He says that he is rewriting international best practice on a day-by-day basis and that is actually what deeply disturbs me. International best practice is based on the evidence—the evidence that is gained from both successes and disasters. So when there has been a failure of recovery those lessons have been learnt and they are available to us. This Government is placing a great risk on a Minister who wants to rewrite history and rewrite our future.  
When the Prime Minister spoke on 23 February the day after our dreadful earthquake of which we acknowledge the anniversary next week he said “On behalf of the Government let me be clear that no one will be left to walk this journey alone. New Zealand will walk this journey with you. We will be there every step of the way. Christchurch; this is not your test this is New Zealand’s test. I promise we will meet this test.” Today I am asking the Prime Minister and the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery to meet the challenge that he quite rightly set the Government the day after the disastrous earthquake. It is one week away from that first anniversary so I know that I am going to be criticised for making this statement but I think it is really important because there are people in Christchurch who are extremely worried not just about the fact that this is the anniversary of the 22 February earthquake and they are still out of their houses or face an uncertain future but because it is nearly 18 months since the first earthquake and some of them have been out of their houses since the first earthquake and some of them still do not have the basic services that we would expect in a First World country. A number of them are facing the uncertainty of the land upon which their houses are built or facing an unpalatable choice between the Government’s offer and the unknown. I want to talk about that I want to talk about the red zone offer and I want to talk about the reality that people face about their land.  
The first thing I want to mention though is how the Government has communicated the land decisions because I actually personally think there is nothing worse than the way the Government has chosen to do it—by briefing the media about the future of the land and not the people who are affected by the decisions. On 23 June 2011 the media had already been briefed sufficiently to be able to lead the front page of the 
 Press 
 with the decision that was going to be announced at lunchtime that day. As local MPs we were given a 15-minute heads-up of the detail of the announcement. On 18 August the Kaiapoi decisions were announced. Affected residents were denied admission to the press conference where the future of their land was disclosed. On 19 August the details of the red zone offer were launched immediately following the opening of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s recovery assistance centre. There were a number of things about that announcement where the Government did not point out that there was no right of appeal on the amount of the offer—it did not mention that at the press conference.  
On 28 October most of the remaining orange zones were turned green but it did not give any warning of these new foundation technical categories 1 2 and 3—1 being the grey 2 being the yellow and 3 being the blue. Of course that has caused major concerns for a number of people who do not have the detail to go with that requiring as it does individual geotechnical site investigations to determine foundation types. The interesting thing about that announcement that day is that Brooklands residents who had been on tenterhooks for months went online to find out what was the story with their community and the system crashed. Guess what? They had not changed colour at all and no one warned them that no decision had been made about Brooklands. This is playing with people’s minds.  
On 17 November a text message from the Minister’s office in the morning said there would be announcements that afternoon. We were briefed at 12 o’clock. At 2 o’clock the people of Brooklands found out that they were subject to the red zone decision but they did not find out that that was going to happen until the press went out to ask them for their response how they felt about being red-zoned. A lot of people in Brooklands are very very upset at that decision. Then on February 10 again we had to contact the Minister’s office to ask for details about the announcement. Again Southshore was not included the white zones in my colleague’s electorate in Port Hills were not mentioned and again there was a great deal of uncertainty.  
 When I tell people this they are appalled at the insensitivity and that is because I believe the Government’s communication strategy is not focused on the affected communities. It is political and it is very inappropriate on every level. Because the community does not understand the nature of the decisions that are being made they therefore have no confidence in the quality of the decision making. When you have to dig yourself out of silt on Christmas Eve Christmas Day and Boxing Day and you have done it for the third time in a row then you can understand why in fact there is no confidence in the decision. This is not just Parklands East. All of the boundary areas that we have been raising with the Government since July last year are all affected in the same way and are asking for more details. Significant numbers want to be red but there are also significant numbers in Brooklands that want to be green. And in Brooklands they did not dig out tonnes of silt on 22 February 13 June or 23 December because their damage was done on 4 September.  
If the Government had agreed to engage with them as I have repeatedly asked month after month after month then people would understand what was happening. So many people believe that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority makes the decision but it is not the authority; it is the Government. It comes down to “What is the cost of repair?” and “How much are the sections worth?”. It is about money and it is about insurance. The Government says the red zone offer has winners and losers. Well it sure does and there are different shades of losers. I lose out on what the Government has described as an extremely fair deal but I am not losing as much as many of the people I am privileged to represent. I sat next to someone on the plane a while ago and he asked how my property was. I said I was in the red zone and he said: “Oh well that’s lucky for you.” I said: “Actually I do not get enough out of the Government offer to buy what I have got now” and I also said that my insurance company had told me that it could repair my house. But the point is and the person sitting next to me said this: “But how can they repair your house? You’re in the red zone.”  
That is the problem. The Government has given in to the insurance industry and let it off the hook for what we are entitled to. We signed up for replacement policies with our insurers and we expect the Government to stand by our side as the Prime Minister promised us on 23 February and enable us to move on with our lives—not to do any better we do not want to be winners; we just want to break even. That is not an unreasonable thing for people to ask. That is what many people and the people of Christchurch are asking the Government to understand and to reflect on as we head into this time. Maybe we could think about what the word “kumbaya” means. In the song it says: “Someone’s crying Lord kumbaya.” It means “come by here” and maybe when the Prime Minister is in Christchurch next week he would like to come by some of the neighbourhoods and talk to them about the issues that are confronting them and think about whether the decision was the right one for Christchurch.