O'Rourke Denis: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9938. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I like other speakers am also very pleased actually with the outcome of the discussions on this bill. I do not think there has been a piece of legislation that has had so much cross-party involvement and discussion and I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed hearing what all the parties had to say about the various issues that were brought up but I am particularly pleased that what was discussed was actually done. We can see that in the amendments made to the bill. Since the first reading a lot of progress has been made and it has given me and New Zealand First a lot of confidence in this legislation.Fundamentally what the bill seeks to do is to put in place a regime for the regeneration—as distinct from the recovery—of Christchurch. In doing so it will have to do something that in my quite long experience in local government I had to do on many occasions which is to balance the natural tension that exists between the need for public participation public consultation and public information with actually getting things done because you can go on consulting and involving people forever—some of that is of great value; some of it is of not so much value. So in the end there has to be a decision and that means getting things done.Consequently what we need to see as a result of this legislation is actually very good leadership that does bring the people of Christchurch together with the organisation and that in the end does produce plans that can be—and are in fact—acted on. So far in the Christchurch recovery process the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has I think had rather patchy success in all of this. It did get some buy-in; there have been however a lot of delays in projects. I understand what can cause those sorts of delays but people are now 5 years on feeling a little bit dissatisfied about the lack of progress—especially on some of the major projects—and the lack of information also about all of that.The Christchurch City Council I thought did a very good job in its consultation process over the central city plan and people gained a lot of confidence from that. However I would have to say that you do not get the same feeling in some of the suburbs of Christchurch especially those in the east where there has been not much demonstrable progress in rebuilding both the streets and the public areas and also the communities themselves—there is a long way to go there. So that is something that Regenerate Christchurch is really going to have to concentrate on.But I have a lot of faith in this concept of Regenerate Christchurch because it does include local people as well as those who will be representing the Crown and that is necessary too. There are now in the bill as Eugenie Sage said much better provisions for public information for transparency and for the participation of the public in making plans but more particularly the collaboration of the councils who will be involved as well as the Crown itself.For those reasons as I said especially in my second reading speech I now have a lot of confidence in the bill with its ability for Regenerate Christchurch to provide the leadership that is necessary to consult to respond to be transparent and in the end it must actually get things done. We can then put all that demolition behind us all that bare land into work and I hope take what are some very significant opportunities for improving the transport system within Christchurch in particular for creating better recreation opportunities for better areas for vibrant business to operate and to build houses—again where that is possible and desirable.In doing so there is obviously going to also have to be a balance between the magnitude of the sale of what was residential land so that the Crown can recoup some of its investment but also on putting significant areas aside for recreation and creating—where possible—new suburbs where there were old ones. I’m particularly looking forward for example to the Avon Loop and whether that can be restored as a suburb—because it was a very very good suburb. It was an excellent community as were some of those around it.It is my hope that it might be restored as a community with houses and as there were in past parks and recreational opportunities and there will be some other areas as well. I don’t know whether that is possible for technical reasons but I hope it is.There will be other areas where some very significant recreational opportunities will be possible and if we do not take this opportunity as a Government and as a city to actually build those opportunities the opportunity may never come again.So those are my preliminary comments on this. They are founded on high expectations which reflect the expectations of the people of Christchurch themselves and a high degree of confidence in the structure that is being set up in this bill to achieve those objectives. I will have more to say in other parts of the bill about some of the problems that I think may still be there but overall and especially with regard to the institution that will be Regenerate Christchurch with the collaboration of all the strategic partners that will be involved I think it is going to be a success and I am very optimistic about it.