Graham Kennedy: General Debate 
Graham Kennedy: General Debate 
[Volume:675;Page:21279] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. In May I addressed the crisis we are facing in Christchurch following the February earthquake. I said then that knowing the challenges ahead of us in what is now the new normal we need to engender a sense of hope in the community. Since then I have convened a series of public forums in Christchurch marrying local expertise and civic engagement in order to develop a vision of a future 21st century eco-city. In August I released my report  
The Future of Christchurch 
 with copies going to Minister Brownlee and the parliamentary forum Environment Canterbury the city council and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. I thanked the Government for its commendation of the report when I tabled it in Parliament recently. 
My report contains 26 recommendations identifying four overarching goals. They are resilience sustainability harmony and beauty. This parallels the council’s own plan which conveys a green message from the people of Christchurch about the kind of city they want. But my report goes further and wider because a necessary condition of a sustainable harmonious and beautiful city is its resilience and resilience requires us to think ahead. One of my recommendations is to extend the planning period for the recovery strategy and the city plan from 9 months to 18 months and to stipulate a time horizon of 100 years with identified milestones of 5 20 and 50 years within that period. It is only within the context of such a long-term horizon that the issue of a city’s resilience comes into focus. 
That addresses two main considerations: the seismic nature of the land and sea level rise. With regard to the seismicity of the land we all know that the aftershocks are expected to continue into the indefinite future with an 82 percent chance of a significant shock over magnitude 5 in the next year. That is a major complication for any rebuild—short term or long term. We remain uncertain over the true nature of the land under the city. A geotechnical report commissioned by the royal commission and released last week regards the land under Christchurch as problematic. The inner city is built largely on liquefaction-prone soil making it complex and challenging to construct earthquake-resistant buildings on it. The ground is only 1 to 1½ metres above the water table and is riddled with aquifers and streams. The report states that the foundation conditions of the city are complex and challenging for geotechnical engineers in regard to their performance in strong earthquakes. Buildings on liquefaction-prone soil need robust shallow foundations often accompanied by deep piles anchored to solid rock that is 25 metres below the ground. Tougher seismic foundation standards need to be considered. The report concludes: “One may argue that the current philosophy … does not address the issues of the overall impact of big earthquakes on a city or a country and the need for a reasonably quick recovery …”. So what might be the limits when an engineer would acknowledge that rebuilding on the site of the original city should be abandoned? Some engineers have said the limit is a 1:4 chance of a similar earthquake over the next 50 years. 
In my report I called on the Government to do two things prior to the rebuild. First Greater Christchurch should be declared by Parliament to be an issue of national significance. A conference should be convened after the election with political leaders scientific advisers and corporate and civic leaders present to consider the recovery plan. The conference should address the issue of rebuilding Christchurch on its present location having regard to the basic features of land contour and composition waterways and climate. Second following the conference Parliament should agree to a motion that Christchurch should be rebuilt on its present location in the event that such a political judgment rests on sound publicly transparent scientific advice. 
Concerning sea level rise my report recommends an alteration to the city plan acknowledging a possible sea level rise of 2 metres by 2100 and specifying minimum finished floor levels accordingly. This would include automatic review of the issue in light of evolving scientific work in each of the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as they come out. 
It appears that neither the council’s draft city plan nor the draft recovery strategy of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority focuses on these prior resilience issues that will none the less determine the fate of Christchurch. I call on the Government to act on these recommendations before it is too late.