Cosgrove Clayton: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13905] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Before I deal with the substance of my speech on the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill I extend my thanks to Gerry Brownlee and John Carter the Ministers who are responsible for the bill. I do so for a number of reasons. Firstly as my party leader Phil Goff has done I thank them for accepting the two recommendations that we made yesterday on consultation in respect of Orders in Council and scrutiny of those Orders in Council. Additionally I thank them for the way we as opposite numbers have interacted in the last few days in a spirit of cooperation; there are no politics in this issue. People in my province and in New Zealand would hang their heads in shame if they thought there were. 
As we go through the debates on this bill my colleagues and my party will be supporting the bill. I thank Gerry Brownlee for a further commitment he made yesterday. I accept the logistics involved but given the short notice we have had to look at the legislation my colleagues have been working on it and may propose some additional ideas and thoughts. As a Parliament we want to ensure that the bill is as robust as possible so as to deliver as best as possible for the people of Canterbury. I thank Minister Brownlee for his commitment to look in the spirit of bipartisanship at any proposals we may put up in all seriousness in order to present to the people of Canterbury a bill that is as high-quality and effective as we can deliver. 
As the member of Parliament for Waimakariri which has incurred damage throughout an area from Belfast and Redwood through to Kaiapoi Kairaki Beach and Pines Beach and through to in a lesser extent parts of Woodend Rangiora and Waikuku I join with other members in saying that whether we are religious or not religious we would have to say that we believe in miracles. It is a miracle that people in Courtenay Drive in Kaiapoi were not killed as a result of this earthquake. I am told that a female police officer was sleeping in her bed when the “shake rattle and roll” occurred after which she got out of bed and walked out of the bedroom. Had she done so a second later I am advised that she would have been killed as the roof collapsed on top of her. 
This event is a tragedy of immense proportions. It has provided huge trauma for people. As I walked around Pines Beach Kairaki Beach and Featherston Avenue I found that it has also brought out as other speakers have said the best in the human and Kiwi spirit. I wandered down Hood Street which basically looks like Beirut in the 1980s on a good day. I do not think there is one house in Hood Street in Pines Beach that is habitable as we speak. There I found two young guys taking to their trailer what was left of their belongings. They were in their 20s I would have thought and they said they had a question for me. I asked them what it was. They asked where they could sign up to assist at the civil defence post. I told them that they were entitled to think of themselves at least for the next few hours and to get themselves and their families sorted out. They said that they would be finished in an hour and that people were worse off than them. They wanted to know where they could sign up for the civil defence post. 
As I went from house to house I heard amazing stories. There was an interesting theme. If there was a door I would knock on it and go into the property. I asked how it was going how the people were and whether they were OK. Almost to a house the response from people would be that they were OK and that I should go next door to look after “Mrs Smith” or “Mrs Jones”. I would look up at their house and it would look like somebody had taken to it with a giant can-opener. But they showed incredible generosity of spirit in saying that I should not worry about them—even families who had kids said that—and that I should check next door where people were worse off than they were. 
I also went to Kaiapoi North School to the civil defence welfare post located at the Kaiapoi Rugby Football Club on Smith Street and to the civil defence post at Pines Beach where a lady had lost her home. Her house had gone but she had gone in to man that civil defence post day in and day out as a civil defence worker. She had been brought to tears occasionally when very rarely she thought of herself instead of thinking of others even though she was more than entitled to do that. 
I met Michael the Salvation Army worker who had with his team looked after folks by providing hot meals day after day and I met Dave Pilkington a vegetable packer whom I called to say that I needed vegetables for the civil defence post. He said he did not own the vegetables—he only packed them—yet 5 minutes later he took it upon himself in liaison with his customers to provide a couple of truckloads of vegetables to folks. Those are wonderful examples of the human spirit. 
We are now moving to a second phase. We are moving to a phase in which as a counsellor said to me the “negative euphoria” and shock are dissipating and folks are becoming more brittle. We have to respect that situation. One person said to me that they might have to go to the toilet in a bucket for the next 6 months. They are worried that they may not have a house and about how they will get the kids to school. All of those mundane activities that we take for granted in a normal course of events have now become insurmountable problems for many people of our respective communities in Waimakariri Christchurch and Selwyn. Just the day-to-day activities of getting by now present an emotional marathon for folks and that is creating a higher expectation and a greater demand for resource activity and swift resolution of problems. I say to the Government in goodwill that the challenge it will ultimately face as we move through this emergency will be meeting that demand those higher expectations and that need for further resource. 
This bill is needed. No one wants to see a delay in returning people to a decent standard of living and giving them their lives back. No one wants to see it delayed but we make the point—and I am gratified that Ministers have touched on it—that those powers should be limited to the recovery limited to the emergency and not used by local authorities or others for surreptitious means shall we say. I am gratified that there will be parliamentary scrutiny through the normal parliamentary process of the Standing Orders. As I said the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Mr Brownlee has guaranteed that there will be consultation with us prior to Orders in Council coming into force. 
There are many competing forces in our respective local authorities: the issue of heritage the issue of environment the issue of course of getting people back to normality and into a liveable house or other accommodation and the issue of dealing with trauma. We should not forget those people who have responded to that trauma the people who have acted like human sponges in soaking up the trauma of others like the volunteer fire brigade in Kaiapoi in my patch. Trauma counsellors too have dealt with folks who have burst into tears—men women and kids alike who have been terrified. Those counsellors have sat there and put an arm around their shoulder and have let those people talk and try to deal with the here and now and the trauma that they feel. Kids especially have felt trauma with every aftershock and we are still having aftershocks. 
I say as a personal note that Mr Brownlee should be proud of some of his relations. I pay tribute to the Brownlee boys who own the Kaikanui Tavern in Kaiapoi. I do this in all sincerity. As a gesture they took in the contractors and the volunteers who have worked hours on end—12 13 15 hours a day. Many of them have had their own homes destroyed but have got out there and said “To hell with it we have to do something.” The Brownlee boys put a bit of a shout on; they did Kiwi thing. They said “For the next hour boys and girls the beers are on us.” Not only did they do that but they have done a number of other social things just to give people a breather. Mr Brownlee should be proud of his distant cousins. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Not distant first cousins. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Not so distant—first cousins my apologies. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That’s not what they say. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Ha ha! It is a culmination of Government and parliamentary work of work of local authority politicians and officials right down to private and public contractors to St John Ambulance workers to the fire brigade to the odd publican who provides a bit of light relief and to the victim who helps out his or her neighbour. It is culmination of all those things that will get us back on the road to recovery and will start to give people back their humanity. It has been an awful traumatic event but I say as I did at the start there is one saving grace: houses can be rebuilt roads can be packed but we cannot replace human life. Thank goodness we have had no losses thus far!