Cosgrove Clayton: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:18203] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I reiterate for the record—because I took from Mr Brownlee’s words that he was talking about our taking an adversarial position after this— that now that Labour members have had a look at Supplementary Order Paper 237 we will with reluctance support it and we will allow the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill to go through unimpeded. 
But I will make a couple of points to Mr Brownlee. Firstly he has had the full cooperation of the Canterbury Labour members of Parliament and our caucus colleagues right through since 4 September when the first earthquake occurred. Secondly we have cooperated with him by providing if members like the game plan well before the game has been played. By that I mean we have written to Mr Brownlee to give him in advance our amendments our thoughts and the reflections of our communities that we are representing. Normally we would not do that. We would stage an ambush because that is the nature of the game in this place but there is a higher requirement because of this issue. We have committed at all stages to engage with Mr Brownlee and we have taken Mr Brownlee at his word. 
We took him at his word when in the week of the memorial service he looked me in the eye across a table in a private room and said he wanted us on board he wanted our input into the structure and nature of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and he wanted to meet with Mr Goff and me further. Then he went back on that word on three occasions. We believed him when he said the legislation had not gone through the Cabinet committee. We rang Mr Eagleson and he assured us of that fact. We believed Mr Brownlee and took him at his word then we found out 2 days later that the game had changed and Mr Brownlee when asked whether it was a fait accompli said the answer was yes. So at all stages Labour has cooperated. 
Then it came to the process for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill which Labour had very little input into. We asked for a select committee process and we got one. Like Ruth Dyson I acknowledge the Minister for doing that. I differ in one respect though. I say it did not preclude Mr Brownlee from altering the timing of the bill’s process through the House. He could have allowed 1 extra day. We could have worked tomorrow and we could have had a decent select committee process—a day. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: We could have worked tonight. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: We could have worked tonight. We could have taken a decent look at the Supplementary Order Paper. The Minister’s officials would not have had writer’s cramp from scribing all night. The Supplementary Order Paper would have arrived on time I assume—I hope in good faith—and we could have had a decent debate that was not sullied by some angst. 
Our angst is around the issue that Parliament has not had the ability to quality-control in the normal way the amendments that have come from the Minister. In 4 hours and 40 minutes eminent experts came to the Local Government and Environment Committee with their best endeavours and I think they caught Mr Brownlee on the hop. I think Mr Brownlee thought that if he had a select committee process and gave people zero notice of it and that if the night before he told people to turn up in Christchurch people would turn up make a few comments and go away. What happened was that people turned up worked all night and came up with robust amendments. 
The proof and the testament that the Opposition was right to request a select committee process is that Supplementary Order Paper 237 which was 4½ hours late contains I believe only one amendment generated by the Minister. The rest of the amendments were generated by and found their origins in the submissions made to the Local Government and Environment Committee by eminent New Zealanders and Cantabrians. So had we not had the select committee process we would have had a Supplementary Order Paper containing maybe one amendment or no amendments. I make that point to Mr Brownlee. 
Labour will support this legislation. We will allow it to go through. And I say this to Mr Brownlee even though he probably is expressing some angst and emotion because he does not like people standing up and giving a view that is different from his: I renew the pledge of Canterbury Labour members and others on this side of the Chamber that after the legislation has passed we will try to work with him to make the legislation work even though we hold grave fears that it is flawed and even though we now know that it has not had the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny or the appropriate input from the public bearing in mind that we could have had 1 more day 24 hours—not a week not a month—and that would not have altered or delayed anything in terms of the recovery for the people of Canterbury. We will try to make this work with Mr Brownlee because there is a higher interest involved. 
But I say again to Mr Brownlee who is obviously preoccupied with other more important matters because he is not attending to my speech that he needs to take on board this tenet in politics: he needs to listen. Part of the test of Mr Brownlee who will hold the pen with wartime powers over the chief executive of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority will be whether he is true to his word engages with the community and listens to the words thoughts concerns and input that come out of Canterbury or whether he acts as the earthquake tsar as he has exhibited time and time again over the last couple of months and as he has exhibited in the last 48 hours and simply rejects all ideas that do not come from him and mows over the top of everybody else. This is not about my colleagues and me and other MPs in Canterbury. It is actually about the people whom we represent. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Really? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Really I say to Mr Williamson—the people whom we represent. He might want to take heed of that. We get our ideas from our community we bring our input to the table from our community and that community has an absolute right to be heard. 
I have never come across a process like this in my time in Parliament. As I said to Mr Brownlee it is either incompetence or mismanagement or the tactic which has been tried by him many times and that is to drop these things on us and the public from a great height with very little chance for input. 
I conclude on this point. The testament to the fact that we needed a select committee process is that all bar one of the amendments in Mr Brownlee’s own Supplementary Order Paper found their origin in the people of Canterbury and those experts who came before our committee. That seems to suggest to us that one the people were right when they called on us to call on Mr Brownlee to have a select committee process; and two that had there not been that process there probably would not have been a Government Supplementary Order Paper. Mr Brownlee has trashed all other amendments and failed to listen to any of them so it would have been his way or the highway. 
Labour will support Mr Brownlee in terms of trying to make this work but I do note this—and he will call it politics but to be honest I do not really call what he calls it. He will be judged in respect of whether this legislation and the authority that flows from it— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You’re a hero Clayton. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am a hero am I? That is a really good comment from a guy who should be a bouncer in a Porirua public bar. I say to Mr Brownlee that he will be judged by the people of Canterbury on whether the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill assists them as swiftly as possible to recover their lives their livelihoods and their houses. 
Hon Member 
: We’ll all be judged by it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: No we will not all be judged. I say to Mr Brownlee that if this legislation fails and the authority fails the responsibility will sit squarely on his shoulders and his shoulders alone because he has rejected all the ideas put forward to him and he has done everything in his power to cramp any input from those outside his small group and his Government. Labour members look forward to trying to work together to make this work. We will participate in the political cross-party forum as we have participated in the informal cross-party forums that he initiated for months up until at least Christmas. We have cooperated. But all we can do at the end of the day is to put up ideas that our community asks us to in the vain hope that Mr Brownlee may listen to them that he may take them on board and that he may act on them. That may be a vain hope but we still believe in that concept called hope we still treat this issue with good faith and we will continue to do so. But I say the track record that has occurred and the modus operandi exhibited in Parliament in the last 48 hours are shameful. I hope Mr Brownlee has got this right.