Cosgrove Clayton: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9933. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I welcome the passage of this legislation. As Megan Woods has outlined Labour will be supporting the legislation. I think it is worth noting—and it is worth commending the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery for it—that it is difficult in politics from time to time to take a position other than the one that you set out to. I said at the first reading that the Minister had listened to the submissions in the select committee. He obviously had listened to the Opposition parties. It is worth recounting as we look at Part 1 and go through the purposes of the bill that the overwhelming statements that were made coming out of the select committee and by Opposition parties were as Megan Woods has said in essence that smart people in our province wanted to shoulder greater leadership roles wanted to shoulder greater capacity and take a greater part in leading the recovery of our province and our city.I think what we started with was a piece of legislation where in the words of many of the submitters the centre of power and the centre of gravity lay with the Crown and with the Minister and that was something that the vast majority of submitters found difficult to swallow. There was a view—and I do not believe that anybody on this side certainly in the Labour Party had ever articulated the view—that the Crown should not be involved. Of course it should. I know there were one or two people—I think I might have been on talkback with one on Newstalk ZB—who tried to purport that the Labour Party thought that we should have the Crown exit completely and hand it over to the locals 100 percent. That was never our position. Our position was that the Crown had to be there—it had to maintain more than a presence obviously.The Crown through the Minister is an integral part of the recovery. But our view was that it was about time that the centre of gravity if you will the emphasis by which this legislation facilitated the ongoing recovery of Christchurch and Greater Canterbury shifted to a far more robust and local and representational role. As I said in the first reading we do have smart people in Canterbury. We do have eminent people in business in the social sectors and in the community who were willing and showed not simply by their words but by their actions from day one that they were willing to get stuck in put their shoulders to the grindstone take responsibility take leadership positions if they were offered to them or take responsibilities if they were conferred on them to assist as we went out of an emergency phase and went through to a long-term recovery phase.I acknowledge the Minister in all seriousness. I think he has done a job of listening and moving his position to what I think now is a far more acceptable bill a far more robust bill and a bill that I think will satisfy—these things never satisfy everybody in the community—those people who want an interest in the recovery of our province as it moves forward. I think a number of submitters were concerned that the original legislation essentially gave the Crown similar powers to what we have seen before—that is essentially a power of veto—and this legislation now enables people to be at the centre of it. Mr Lovatt and others who will be at the pinnacle if you like of the leadership of this recovery and facilitating this legislation going through are people who are smart operators. Clause 3 talks about enabling the Crown to efficiently and effectively manage the recovery as it moves through and as we talk to clause 3 we see that they are people who are joined with all the community and want to see this recovery move more swiftly move more effectively and move more efficiently.There are still major issues out there that are holding back the recovery of our provincein an economic sense. We know for instance that the convention centre which I acknowledge is an extremely complex issue to negotiate through is a major project but at the end of the day it is not Stonehenge. It is not one of the eight great wonders of the world. It should not take longer to actually put together than some of the great structures around the world took but we have been waiting and we are missing opportunities because the deal has not been concluded.The Minister might be interested to know that in the last 3 weeks a bank told a group of us that $80 million in capital aimed at the hotel and tourism sector had left town—80 million bucks in the last 2½ months. Some may say “Well on the scale of the billions of dollars being spent who cares?”. But $80 million is a reasonable chunk of dough and I am told it moved primarily because we cannot get agreement we cannot get a signal and we cannot get certainty around that convention centre. Whether it is a lack of creativity on the part of the designers I do not know.An eminent business person in Christchurch said to me recently that the convention centre that we did have which I think was pretty world-class was essentially a concrete box with a nice facade around it and extremely high-class technology through it. Another business person said “If we’re talking anchor projects the convention centre and the stadium maybe we should ask whether we combine the two. Has anybody thought of that? Economies of scale like many of the great convention centres and the stadiums around the world—combined together economies of scale one footprint one platform.” I do not know whether that has been considered in the mix but essentially that is a key component that I hope will through the purpose of this bill through the mechanisms within this bill be efficiently and effectively actioned.The people of Canterbury are crying out particularly for that anchor project because it will generate and release massive amounts of private sector capital as I am sure the Minister knows through hotels through recreational facilities and others. That will give in an economic sense the biggest shot in the arm and I would argue the swiftest shot in the arm for money going into that province and economic growth than most other things. But I would be interested to know whether any consideration has been given as an eminent business person said to me a couple of weeks ago—at the footy actually—to combining the two projects saving some money having some world-class facility and doing what other jurisdictions have done around the world. I do not know. It may have well have been considered.There are other anchor projects of course—the Metro Sports Facility and others. One would hope that now that we are going to have some pretty eminent people involved in this and making decisions around this—perhaps people who have had more standing with the Government than other groups in the community; political parties for instance—those people will be listened to in a far more effective and efficient way. I think that what we as representatives of the community want to see from this piece of legislation is the button hit the foot on the accelerator and actually some intense speed and development go through our city and our province so that we can move ahead.As Megan Woods has said it is also of course not just about dollars and cents and bricks and mortar and jobs though those things are extremely important. It is as noted in clause 3(2)(b) about the social well-being of our community. As we did last week or the week before I take the opportunity to note for the Minister that people like Pete Townsend chair of the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and others have said to us on this side of the House that they are deeply concerned about the mental health of communities as we sit today. They are deeply concerned about the lack of resources.I know and I acknowledge that the Government has put money in but there is a lack of resources and the district health board is under a strain in dealing with those ongoing mental difficulties—and they are there. It is not just politicians making it up. It is not just politicians who from time to time are labelled as political if they dare to raise their head and dare to raise an issue—no. Go to the schools talk to the medical practitioners talk with the teachers and principals and the parents and you will see evolving mental health issues flowing through even though we are 5 years from the tragic day.I would make a plea to the Minister that he may wish to talk to some of his other colleagues—the Minister of Health and others—and ask them to look very very carefully at the level of resources that are going into Canterbury on that front. Teachers parents and others will tell you that there are people in dire straits with those mental health issues. It is not a case of just saying: “Well it’s 5 years on. The sun’s out. The birds are singing. A few people are smiling. The odd building’s gone up. Don’t people feel good about themselves?”. No—if a child was 5 years old when the earthquake struck that child is now 10 and actually as a teacher said to me that is all that child has known in its life. When we had the Valentine’s Day quakes and others that triggered it for many many people. Some are robust; others are not. Many deal with it by themselves in their own way but I do count the opinions of medical professionals and educators and others when they say that these people need more resource and help.