Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:18200] 
I feel let down—and that is a very generous description of how I feel—when I compare the Minister’s reaction to our amendments with his commitment to me less than 24 hours previously. I do not think those positions are compatible and I urge the Minister to reconsider one or the other between now and the time we have agreed to finish this debate. I do not mind if the Minister takes a call and says no he did not mean that he would take our amendments seriously and he was wrong to give me that commitment because he did not take them seriously. That is one option. Or the Minister could say he has reflected on this and will now take my amendments seriously. One or the other would be a really welcome response. 
This side of the House gave a commitment 7 months ago to work with the Government on the recovery of Canterbury. Over the last 7 weeks it has become a lot more important because the damage is far greater the damage to the infrastructure is more significant and the loss of life has been quite overwhelming to the morale and spirit of our city and region. That is why I think it is even more important now than ever even more important today than ever that we grow up a little more than we currently are. I say that for the good of our region—and I say to the Minister that it is our region; he and I both share it—because we can do better than we have done today. I want to pay particular attention—[ 
Interruption 
] Pardon? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I was talking to the Chair. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: You do not usually interject into an open mike. I want to pay particular attention to a couple of amendments one because I do not think the Minister has read it carefully enough to give a response to it—because his response was not accurate—and the other because the Minister was plain wrong in what he said about it. 
I refer to my amendment that asks that the Canterbury District Health Board be considered as a responsible entity in terms of the legislation. There is nothing more important to the recovery of Canterbury than the health and well-being of its citizens. That should be the outcome of the recovery plan. We should have health and well-being at the core and the prime organisation that is responsible literally responsible for the health and well-being of our region is the Canterbury District Health Board. In my view it should be considered as a responsible entity. This is not a big ask actually. It makes sense. It would give a really good message about the board’s role and the expectation that the Minister would have of the role it should play. At the moment it is considered in the words of Nicky Wagner as yet another interest group. The board is not an interest group. It is a key stakeholder in the recovery of Canterbury and in my view it should be included. I also think it should be included—as a requirement not as a little afterthought—in the key stakeholders who under this bill have the right to be consulted on the development of the recovery strategy. I would appreciate the Minister’s considered response to those two parts of the series of amendments I put forward. 
In the Minister’s earlier comments in relation to the Canterbury District Health Board he explained that the area it covers is too great that we need to focus on Canterbury and that expansion of the bill to include the area covered by the board would dilute the focus on the earthquake recovery area. I accept that. That is why I am asking the Minister to focus on the other two amendments which are that the Canterbury District Health Board be considered a key stakeholder and added to the rest of the bodies in the responsible entities list and that there be a requirement that it is consulted in the development of the strategy. I think that is important. I think it will send a great message to the district health board about what the Minister wants it to do and that it had better step up to the mark and take that leadership role. I think it will anyway but I do think it should be an expectation that the Minister gives. 
The second point I want to make in relation to the same series of amendments on the same page is in relation to the New Zealand Disability Strategy. The Minister does not know about the New Zealand Disability Strategy. That is OK; there are lots of things he knows about other matters that I have no understanding of. So it is not a criticism; it is just a fact. But I say to the Minister that the New Zealand Disability Strategy is not about territorial local authorities and access to buildings; it is about a lot more than that. If there were a small requirement for all recovery plans to give effect to the New Zealand Disability Strategy it would mean a huge amount to the one in five New Zealanders who are disabled and who live in our region. It would be a great message for them to hear that for the first time after a major trauma such as this they were being considered. I hope the Minister for Disability Issues is able to advocate to that end and to support this amendment. It would mean that disabled people in Canterbury would have a voice in the rebuilding of their region. It does not have any legal implications. It is a framework for thinking and for ensuring that people who are often excluded from decision making are included. 
We have only 2½ hours left of this debate. When we reflect back to September and how serious the multiparty agreement was to the recovery of Canterbury I think that should give us the opportunity to reflect on whether the behaviour over the last 24 hours has been in that spirit and in my view it has not. I think we all should try a little harder to put our region ahead of our own self-interest or desire to get this legislation through and out of here. A number of members of Parliament have made comments during the debate that we on this side of the House want to slow it down. Well I say to the Minister that nothing could be further from the truth. We do not have an interest in slowing down the legislation or slowing down the recovery. What we have a passion for and an overwhelming interest in is getting this right. Rushed legislation with very little time for public consideration let alone the rigour of parliamentary scrutiny is very rarely right in the first instance. That was the message that came from our side of the House during this debate to the Minister. A little less haste is more likely to have a robust outcome that we can all be proud of and agree with. 
We were given after representation the opportunity for committee consideration and I thank the Minister for that. In a spirit of generosity I will acknowledge that it was probably a big call because it meant that this rush that we are going through now was unavoidable. So the Minister put himself at greater risk by agreeing to a committee process of consideration. I think it was worth it because we gave at least some people in our region the chance to have their voices heard and that is really important if we want them to take up the leadership roles that they have in our community. Louise Upston who is not from Canterbury but who has contributed quite a lot in this debate made an error when she said Labour was trying to have two positions on things. She said we could not have it both ways.