Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm absolutely delighted to be able to support this Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. I'm particularly pleased because it's the last piece of the jigsaw—it's the last piece of the jigsaw as part of the Government's offer to reinstate this building and this will mean that the heart of the city will once again have Christ Church Cathedral.It's particularly important for reasons beyond just a building. Yes it's a cathedral; yes it's a church. It's a significant heritage building—a category 1 heritage building—and I suspect one of the best-known heritage buildings in the country. The reason for that is that since it was completed in the early 1900s it has been the symbol of Christchurch. It was also the reason that we became the first city of New Zealand. You have to have a cathedral to be a city so Christ Church Cathedral made Christchurch the first city of New Zealand.I think the important thing about this building is that everybody who lives in Christchurch in Canterbury and even beyond it has some kind of connection—so it's not only a church but also a community facility and also a very important part of our tourism industry. But if you talk to any local people they will tell you about how they relate to that cathedral and we've heard some of those stories from people in this House. Whether it's that they put a present under the Christmas tree; whether it was that they climbed the steeple; whether it was that they watched the wizard and waved to him Rino Tirikatene—it was those things that the people of Christchurch related to that building.It's not surprising because it is geographically in the centre of our city. Cathedral Square for very many years was the transport hub of our city. All the cinemas were around the outside of it. If you were going anywhere in Christchurch city you came through Cathedral Square and you walked past Christ Church Cathedral.Of course this all came to a great abrupt halt with the earthquakes. Now we did have an earthquake in 2010 and we congratulated ourselves on how the earthquake strengthening looked after the cathedral. They couldn't actually use it for a few weeks but they had the engineers look at it and it survived very well in 2010. Not the same on 22 February 2011 and I think we were particularly fortunate that there were no deaths in that cathedral. There were some serious injuries for people who were working there and for some time we felt that there may have been people in the tower. They thought it could've been up to a number of 20 people in the tower who might have perished in the building but I think it was because there were a couple of shakes and people had the chance to run out that fortunately nobody was killed.But we actually killed the building and the building has been sitting there neglected decaying in the centre of our city. What it's done is it's really reflected not what's happening at all. It does not reflect the development that's happened in the city the recovery that's been going on the rebuilding of infrastructure the new buildings the new houses and the people getting on with their lives. It has been a very negative effect. It's been bad for the central city. It's been bad for businesses that are working in that area. It's been particularly difficult for tourism because we do know that up to 60 percent of our tourists come to Cathedral Square and come to the cathedral. What we're hoping as we reinstate it is that they'll come to see it being rebuilt. Of course during this time there has been quite a divisive debate about what should actually happen to that cathedral. As I said everybody has some connection to it everybody's had an opinion about what should happen and it's gone backwards and forwards. What's possible? Can we restore it to its greater glory? Should we knock it down? Should we build a modern cathedral that we'll bill to the congregation that worships there?The debate has been long and hard. There have actually been court cases about it. So it's been a very difficult time for the people of Christchurch. In an attempt to get some objective information the past Minister the Hon Gerry Brownlee commissioned Miriam Dean to come up with a report to see what we could actually do with the cathedral and she got a group of engineers together and they worked in a collaborative way and they confirmed that yes the cathedral could be reinstated at a cost of about $100 million. So suddenly we had some facts—for the first time we had some facts. But of course it was only the fact that it could be done and the cost.We continued from there. The debate went on and so the Minister again brought together a group of stakeholders to work on a bigger picture. They collaborated together and they created the Cathedral Working Group Recommendation Report. The people that were on that group they came from the Church Property Trustees—the owners—they came from heritage groups they came from the community and they really worked hard to try and come up with a collaborative solution. That report was incredibly detailed. It talked about how the governance would work in a reinstatement it talked about detailed costings it talked about how the actual construction could get under way and then it even looked to the future about how it could be managed. So it was a really important document and it was a document that brought everybody together. There was quite a lot of trading about what was possible and everybody signed up to that document. It was a very exciting time when we had some way forward—a blueprint to go forward.But we still needed to find $100 million. This is where the Government stepped in. I was instrumental in getting this money together. The vast majority of the money—$42 million—came from the insurance funding from the cathedral itself. The Government promised $25 million—a $10 million grant and a $15 million suspended loan. The city council promised $10 million and I'm very pleased to be able to say that they've actually confirmed that. They've consulted with the people of Christchurch and they have confirmed that they are supporting this reinstatement with $10 million. The final money was from philanthropy—the people of Christchurch and beyond who are prepared to put their own money into this project. So we've got the amount of money that's viable to actually rebuild the building and the auxiliary buildings around it. There will still need to be some fund-raising done for the steeple but that will come after the building is completed and can be in use.The report was particularly important in terms of going forward and so I'm really pleased to see that the report underpins this bill. It is mentioned throughout in the beginning of the bill and they talk about how we can reinstate using the principles that have been collected.So what will the bill actually do? Well really what it will do is it will streamline the process it will give certainty and it will give confidence that the reinstatement can be done. As I've said it covers governance and it covers the construction project and the way forward.What it will really mean is that the people of Christchurch and Canterbury and the people beyond—we'll welcome everybody with open arms and their money to support this rebuild. They can really get behind it and we'll be able to see that our symbol of Christchurch is actually reinstated and that will have a positive image of our city going forward.I'd really like to thank everybody who was involved in this process. It has been a long and difficult process. The select committee process in the Environment Committee has actually been very pleasant. I think we work collegially together. The submitters were very efficient. They had thrashed this stuff out so they were able to come forward and make good suggestions. We came back to the select committee. We worked our way through those suggestions and I think we've ended up with a pretty good bill. And I'm certain that it will give confidence to the people of Christchurch and the people who are going to be involved in this process to allow us to go forward.In summary I think this bill is a good solution. It's a good solution to a challenging issue. It's good for the people of Christchurch—and we did note this: that it's good for them culturally socially and economically. It will bring the heart of the city back and it will focus on the regeneration of our city. It will be particularly good in terms of revitalising our city centre and that's the next step in the regeneration process: bringing tourists back and having a symbol that is in one piece. I will be very excited to see the work that's going to happen over the next few years.So kia ora and thank you to the Minister for all her work.