Norman Russel William: General Debate 
Norman Russel William: General Debate 
[Volume:666;Page:13788] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to send our love and our thoughts to the people of Canterbury and the people of Otautahi. The Green Party has just recently managed to reopen our office down there which was originally inside the zone. We were down there yesterday and the building is still in one piece so we were able to start work again which was great. The Green Party of course will be playing our role. My colleague Kennedy Graham who is down there currently has been playing his role along with our staff in trying to help the people of Canterbury during this time. I totally agree with Amy Adams; I think she hit the nail on the head when she told us that it was not just about the earthquake—the one earthquake—it was about the ongoing tremors that have continued since that time. Certainly the people I talked to last night found those ongoing tremors extremely unnerving. The experience overseas is that those tremors will continue for some months. 
None the less it became very clear in talking to people in Canterbury that people are also looking ahead. People’s minds are very much on the rebuilding phase. Their minds are on both getting through the current crisis and looking forward to getting on with the building. A number of issues have come up that we as a Parliament need to start thinking about and the Government needs to start thinking about. One of those issues is how we are going to deal with the suburbs hard hit by the earthquake because they were built on wet sand. Some of the eastern suburbs have been particularly hard hit. The mayor Bob Parker quite rightly has raised some difficult questions that we need to address about whether we rebuild in those areas that performed particularly poorly during the earthquake or we make the decision that because those areas are clearly earthquake-prone we need to look at them differently—for example paying out the people who currently have land there. It is a bit unclear at this stage whether we should have a green zone in those areas but we do need to put on the table the question of what we do about them. The people of Christchurch are already having that discussion. 
The other discussion that is going on in Christchurch at the moment that I think is quite interesting is the discussion in relation to sustainability and rebuilding. There was a letter in this morning’s  
Press 
 for example from Ray Genet who said that rebuilding Christchurch must not involve cutting corners and that new buildings should be warm light and energy-efficient. I think that as we enter the discussion about the rebuilding those questions are going to come to the fore. The modernisation of buildings when we are rebuilding needs to be something that we put in the centre of the discussion. I also think the protection of heritage is a real concern for many people in Christchurch. Christchurch has previously lost quite a lot of its heritage buildings. Many people are concerned about the potential loss of further heritage buildings. There is a desperate need to protect whatever heritage can be protected in order to protect the unique character of Christchurch so that we do not get tilt-slab buildings going up all over the show but protect as much of the heritage as we possibly can. 
The next step is about pulling together a plan for how Christchurch will be rebuilt—the missing pieces of Christchurch. The community needs to be involved in the discussion. I think many people in Christchurch although they are concerned about the current situation are looking forward and want to participate in the planning and decision-making process about how Christchurch will be rebuilt particularly the major buildings. There is clearly a key role there for the community and the councils but also for those who have expertise—whether in architecture planning heritage or sustainable building. They will play a key role in that process. 
The other issue that repeatedly came up in my discussions with people in Christchurch was the role of regulation. People were very grateful when comparing their experiences with those of Haiti and other countries that have had similar earthquakes for the role of regulations—particularly those established after the Napier earthquake but also those established since then—in making sure our buildings perform well under earthquake conditions. That is one of the issues I think we can learn from this experience. 
Although it is important that we address the issues of the day it is also critical that we look forward to how we are going to rebuild Christchurch.