Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
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NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 It will be no surprise to this House that I am a one-eyed Cantabrian. In fact all the local Christchurch MPs have been absolutely one-eyed in our focus on our city and how we can help it since 10 September. We have mourned the loss of our dead; we have mourned the loss of our beautiful city and many of our heritage buildings; and we have mourned the loss of our unique lifestyle and the normality that all of us had taken for granted pre-earthquake. But also we have come together to support each other. We have worked stoically shoulder to shoulder firstly to save people and places then to fix stuff and now to rebuild. I hasten to add that we have been supported all the way by the people of New Zealand supported all the way by the international emergency and disaster organisations and supported all the way by the New Zealand Government.  
Rebuilding Christchurch is a strong focus of this John Key - National-led Government. Despite really tough times and really difficult decisions that have had to be made since September 2010 I think we have done a pretty good job. Getting the economy up and running was a big challenge and the Government’s 4-week 8-week or even 12-week subsidy got many businesses through that time. I have been thanked continually for the last few months for saving people’s businesses. It has been fantastic to see how strong our economy has been and how it is rebounding. We are actually pumping out of our port the biggest exports at the highest level ever and our unemployment rate is down. We are getting through the repair and the rebuild of residential Christchurch although it has been agonisingly slow for some of our people as we have had continued aftershocks which have meant that we have had to go back reassess and redo much of the good work that has been happening. Sometimes it seems to be two steps forward and one step back.  
But now since last week virtually everyone in Christchurch knows the zoning of their land and they are somewhere along the road of repair or rebuild. Our institutions are up and running and although they are facing enormous challenges they are being really creative and innovative about how they manage them. And then looking to the future our schools our tertiary training institutions our hospitals our medical centres our churches and our community organisations are all finding new and interesting ways to do stuff to deliver new services and to make our city stronger and better in the future. Yes it has been tough but we really feel that finally we are getting somewhere.  
And last Saturday night the people of Canterbury and Christchurch did something new. The front page of the Christchurch  
Press 
 said it all. It showed a waving frenzy of Crusaders flags and the headline: “Back in Crusader country”. I love the quotes in the paper from the Fraser family who were among the 18000 fans who turned up to the Crusaders-Cheetahs game. Mum Fraser summed it up by saying: “It’s lovely to have something to pull the city together other than a memorial service. It’s just fun pure fun.” So thanks to 100 days of planning of construction of building and thanks to hundreds of dedicated workers—some who even worked through the night—we could all come together in our new stadium and enjoy a particularly exciting game of rugby against the Cheetahs and the Crusaders won. The Crusaders are back on their home turf and to quote from the Fraser family again and this time it was 8-year-old Damian: “I’m really really really really really glad.” Thank you.