Wagner NickyCHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL REINSTATEMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed.Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. I am enormously pleased that we've got to this stage with this bill before Christmas. It is really something to celebrate that we now have this enabling legislation almost in place and that with the Christchurch City Council's commitment to their grant it means that all the last bits of the plan are in place for this cathedral to be reinstated. That's something that we can celebrate pre-Christmas. I am particularly pleased because when I went to the synod and talked to them about this I promised that we would have action by Christmas. So I'm delighted that I can stand here and take some credit for getting some of that done but also give credit to the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration as well.This is such an important building to Christchurch. It is an important part of our history. It's an important part of our culture. As we've already talked about every Christchurch person Canterbury person and most visitors that come to Christchurch have some kind of relation to this building. But it's also bigger than that. This is much more than just a building much more than a church much more than a cathedral—it is a significant heritage building that has been the symbol of our city for over 100 years. The thing that strikes me about this building is that yes the reinstatement is going to be a huge project but when they decided to build this cathedral there were only 5000 people living in Christchurch and yet they built a cathedral that seated 1500. So it was an enormous undertaking for a very small population to create a neo-Gothic building of this kind of stature. So a reinstatement is a big challenge and I know it's going to take up to 10 years but in terms of the challenge of building it in the first place I'm sure we'll be able to do it very successfully.Of course the fact that the earthquakes damaged it so badly that it sat in the centre of our city neglected and decaying for the last seven years has meant that even though there's been so much debate over the future of this building even though lots of people had different ideas and not everybody supported a reinstatement everybody has got to the stage that we need a decision we need to go forward and we now have a decision in place. I'm very hopeful that the community will come behind this decision and take pleasure in the rebuild the reinstatement and take pride as this building evolves once again.I just want to make a short statement of thanks to everybody who's been involved in this project. As we know it's been seven years. It started off by purely getting people out of it and looking after people who were injured and looking for the dead bodies which luckily weren't there. So it started seven years ago and from that time the passion and the commitment of the people who cared about the cathedral and cared about the centre of the city has meant that there's been lots of debate. I would just like to pay my respects to the Church Property Trustees who are responsible for this building who are the owners of the building and Bishop Victoria Matthews who is obviously the bishop of the diocese. They have worked long and hard to try and get a good solution.I would also like to pay respects to the heritage people particularly the Great Christchurch Building Trust and the leaders of that group of course are the Hon Jim Anderton and the Hon Philip Burdon. They both lead a very large team of people who were absolutely committed to getting the best possible outcome for Christchurch. And then of course I'd like to pay credit to the Hon Gerry Brownlee who when we were absolutely at a situation that we weren't sure about the objective facts about this building managed to have two reports. The first was the Miriam Dean report which was an engineering report that confirmed that the cathedral could be reinstated for about $100 million and then of course the Cathedral Working Group which has detailed the plan to go forward. We appreciate that work because that's led to the Government package it's led to the funding options and it's led to this legislation. So I think it's a very satisfactory way through this process. It has been blood sweat and tears but we are here and now we can get together get behind it and make sure that this reinstatement goes as smoothly as efficiently and as effectively as possible.So just in conclusion I would like to celebrate with everyone here that we have got to this point in the project that this legislation will empower and fast track the reinstatement of the building that the Christchurch City Council's grant is the last bit of monetary funding that we need for it to happen and now I think we can just get on with it. This is a significant heritage building. It is the symbol of our city and I hope every Christchurch person Cantabrian and visitor to our city will be proud of the reinstatement. Thank you.