Sage Eugenie: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2825. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Green Party in support of the bill and I join the chorus of approval for the bill promoted by the Hon Nicky Wagner. It certainly is not a controversial bill. As others have noted there were only four submissions and they were generally supportive of the bill’s intent to provide a legislative basis for the trust’s work to update and modernise its governance to consolidate its administration and to enable the trust to do the work on recovering the Arts Centre from the Canterbury earthquakes.I am enormously grateful for the vision of those who successfully advocated in the 1970s to protect the Arts Centre buildings against demolition. That would have been a travesty. I am also very grateful for the trust board because we have seen as Ruth Dyson noted wholesale destruction of heritage buildings in Christchurch post the quakes because of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s casualness about heritage and its keenness to use the section 38 notices under the emergency legislation to sign off on the demolition of Cranmer Court the Majestic Theatre and over 200 other significant heritage buildings in the central city. The work being done by the trust board on strengthening and repairing and restoring the Arts Centre is really significant because of how much we have lost.It is also significant because of the importance of these buildings. There are 23 buildings on the Arts Centre site. All but one of them are listed as category 1 historic places by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. They are buildings with special or outstanding historical or cultural heritage significance and value.Like others I pay tribute to the current Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board to the leadership it is providing to its chair Jen Crawford and the chief executive officer André Lovatt and to the skill and dedication of all of those who are working on the site from the international team of stonemasons to the design engineers the craftsman carpenters the plasterers and the builders. All but one of these 23 buildings have sustained significant damage so we have a restoration project that is costing about $290 million and is going to take 7 years and it is expected to be completed in 2019. When you go behind the safety fences and have a look at the work that is being done it is easy to see that the challenges are immense. Buildings are being completely gutted. Floors are being lifted. Timber ceilings are being peeled back to enable concrete cap beams to be put in place. There is proper earthquake strengthening. A lot more attention to modern technology will ensure that these buildings stay warm. Having been a tenant of the Old Chemistry Building which was freezing in winter that is a very welcome addition.This legislation is good legislation. The objects of the trust in clause 5 are for the Arts Centre to be held in trust as an outstanding cultural centre for use by Christchurch residents and visitors. The vision of the trust board and its staff is for the Arts Centre to be a cultural hub of the city and region a vibrant place of culture art and education. If this bill can help achieve that aim it will be very worthwhile. The Arts Centre buildings like the Canterbury Museum and like Christchurch Cathedral are neo-Gothic buildings which were popular in the Victorian era. They revive the details and forms of the original Gothic style of the Middle Ages.The Arts Centre was designed by using six different architectural practices. It was built over about 50 years but it has cohesion and unity. The architects have respected the work of those who have gone before them. Two of the major architects for the Arts Centre were Benjamin Mountfort and Samuel Hurst-Seager. They were responsible for the grand design of the precinct and features like the quadrangles. Benjamin Mountfort also had a major role in the design of the Canterbury Museum and the Christchurch Cathedral. And of course these buildings are all linked by Worcester Street now Worcester Boulevard.But there has been a very different approach between what has happened at the Arts Centre and what is happening at the cathedral. The former Arts Centre trust board had the wisdom to ensure that the Arts Centre was very well insured. That meant that the restoration and strengthening work was able to start quickly and it was assisted by some generous local and international donations. At the Arts Centre we are seeing the extraordinary challenges being responded to with inspiration and passion to develop creative solutions to those engineering challenges. We have a lot of energy a can-do attitude a pride in what is being done and an obvious sign of progress with the rebuild. It is an inspiring project.Christchurch Cathedral is the very opposite. Because of the obduracy of the Church Property Trustees and their failure to even protect the interior of the cathedral from the weather by closing the gaping wound of what was once the rose window and the spires the whole cathedral has now become a symbol of failure. It is a symbol of having been defeated by the earthquakes and yet it could be so very different.I strongly encourage the Bishop of Christchurch Rt Rev. Victoria Matthews and the Church Property Trustees to do what the Local Government and Environment Committee did and take a visit to the Arts Centre and see what can be achieved if you have got passion leadership engineering skill and commitment to restoring a place that is important to the people of Christchurch. Eighty percent of the cathedral structure still stands the roof structure is entirely intact and over 100 structural and seismic engineers have said that there is no need to demolish it. They have said that the cathedral could be restored and with modern seismic strengthening could comply with the highest code standards for public buildings.The Great Christchurch Buildings Trust has estimated that the cost of restoring the cathedral would be around $67 million substantially less than what it is costing to restore the Arts Centre and that trust has offered to help the Church Property Trustees meet the $27 million shortfall between the church’s insurance payments and the cost of restoration.The building of the Christchurch Cathedral was a huge undertaking for a small community; it took 40 years to complete. The Arts Centre restoration is taking 7 years and the cathedral restoration may take a similar time. But given that these buildings have been around for over a century and given that they will outlast us all that is a very short time. So I would encourage Bishop Matthews and the Church Property Trustees to look at what real leadership creative energy and a respect for the craftsmanship and skill of the past is doing at the Arts Centre and to look at what strong vision to return and retain a cultural treasure is achieving and then apply that to the cathedral. What has been achieved at the Arts Centre has many practical lessons for restoring the cathedral.The cathedral was designed by the same architect Benjamin Mountfort. It has got some of the same materials—those big basalt and limestone blocks the big timber supports and roof trusses and the slate roof. The Christchurch Cathedral like the Arts Centre is one of Christchurch’s landmarks it is a legacy of our history and it can be a symbol of the city again but there needs to be a major change in attitude by the Church Property Trustees and by the bishop. It needs them to be inspired by the same vision and sense of purpose that we are seeing in the Arts Centre of Christchurch Trust Board which this bill is designed to encourage. Thank you. The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill.