Cosgrove Clayton: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): As others have said I too pay due respect to those who passed away during the earthquakes both those who were directly earthquake victims and also those who subsequently through stress and other things are not with us. And also those folk who still—and I take Mr Doocey’s point and I agree with it—grapple with the stresses and strains physically emotionally economically and mentally 5 years on from the quakes. I think his point about mental health was extremely well made. It is however slightly disappointing that the Government—even though Mr Doocey is right—cut the funding for that mental health support as it is needed even though it is 5 years down the track.As my colleague Megan Woods and others have said we will support this piece of legislation to a select committee. Like others we would want to see full and open scrutiny and the opportunity for as many Cantabrians and others—because there are smart people all over New Zealand—to participate in the process. We are disappointed that it is a truncated process. I know the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery will say it is 5 weeks. I think that is the time. However that does not take into account of course that the House rises on 9 December we come back on 9 February and the report-back date is 25 February. For those people generally it is a protocol in this House especially over pretty essential bills like this that the Christmas period is a bit of a no-go zone because people obviously are focusing on families and getting away and actually having a bit of time off especially those in Canterbury.Generally we normally give extensions to cater for that so people can either beforehand or after make a contribution. My colleague Megan Woods has proposed an extended period to 24 March. That should be no impediment to the Government because it still allows an enactment prior to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation expiring. So I would just ask the Minister to consider that as we go through. If he is genuine and I take him at his word—there is reference to public engagement and of course we would like to see how that is going to be practically manifest through this legislation—but if he is genuine in wanting Cantabrians to have as big a contribution as they can then it would not be out of the ordinary and we would cooperate to extend that report-back period. If it is the case that we just want to do the usual which we have had for a few years in Christchurch—ram it through and pretend that the Government has listened to the people and that sort of thing—well that will stand as it is.I would also like to make a couple of comments on the Minister’s powers. He retains very wide powers as Denis O’Rourke has alluded to particularly in respect of compulsory acquisition and compensation for land. I share Denis O’Rourke’s concern about that. Yes there may well be a need for the compulsory acquisition of land of course and under the Public Works Act and the various transport Acts when that happens there is proper appropriate mark-for-mark compensation. I dealt with some transport cases when we were in Government and they are very diligent I have say generally the transport folk in ensuring that if a piece of land or an area or a dwelling is compulsorily acquired there is mark-for-mark like-for-like market compensation. It does worry me particularly with this Minister. He can make reference to the Public Works Act but he can determine how many dollars there are going to be. I think that is inappropriate. I share Mr O’Rourke’s concerns.I would also say that in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation we of course did support—and I still support—voting for the so-called “wartime” or extraordinary powers that we gave the Minister. We took a bit of flak—he shakes his head of course. He is good at that. We took a bit of flak from our constituencies for doing it butI was the shadow at the time and I think we did the right thing. The constituencies were a bit concerned that the Minister would overreach but I have to say we were astounded that our concerns were that he underused those powers in certain cases as problems arose when he could have intervened and we would have supported him. We wrote to him—I do not know how many letters I wrote to him—and supported his intervention to sort out—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Two.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: No. I know that the Minister can count only with five fingers of his hand; it was far more than two. We would have supported him using those powers but he underused them so it will be interesting as we go forward to see how the Minister will indeed use those powers.I think that the people of Canterbury want to see this work. They have moved through extraordinary circumstances they are people of good will and they have been knocked around by both the earthquakes and the Government. The Government from time to time has done very good work—more often than not I have to say—but I think the Minister struggled to strike a balance between the bull at the gate approach and the leadership approach and the consultation approach. I hope that he does not continue to confuse consultation with consensus. If you consult with folks you will never get consensus but people will feel they have had a fair shake and they will buy into the process. I hope as we go through this that the Minister will take note of that.