Wagner Nicky: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5164. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery):Supporting the rebuild of Canterbury and Christchurch remains one of the National-led Government’s main priorities. We want to make sure that Canterbury and Christchurch are even better places to live to work and to raise a family. Since the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 we have appropriated $12.4 billion towards the recovery the rebuild and the regeneration. In the appropriations this year 2015-16 there is $314 million for anchor projects; $60 million for red zone property acquisition and demolition costs clearance and management; and $80 million for managing the recovery and regeneration. We expect to spend $16.5 billion in the Canterbury community by 2019.The enormous amounts of money time energy and hard work that have been expended over the last 4 years in the rebuild make this one of the most expensive and ambitious undertakings in New Zealand history and 4 years on Canterbury and Christchurch are mostly in good shape. Despite the gloom and doom forecasts our population has increased and that is because we acted decisively to retain the population and employment immediately after the earthquakes. About 540000 people live in the Canterbury region now and that is up 18000 since the 2006 census. And the rebuild is going well. This March an estimated $13.4 billion worth of earthquake construction has been completed and that represents about 42 percent of the progress through the physical rebuild. Our gross domestic product has risen. It was over 10 percent in the last calendar year. The unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. We can compare that with the national rate of 5.6 percent. In the last year Canterbury has increased jobs by 15500.So our city is coming alive at the same time and I think there is real excitement about the activity in the centre city. We see the trend of Christchurch retail sales which are continuing to increase and our nightlife including the restaurants the bars and the clubs is back to about 95 percent of pre-earthquake levels. Recently the bus exchange opened office blocks and retail developments are being completed daily and by the end of 2016 1700 public sector workers will have returned to the central business district.As a central city resident myself I am delighted that the Government has signed agreements with Fletcher Living for the construction of 191 new homes on two new inner-city sites in the housing accord with the Christchurch City Council. Twenty percent of those new homes will be priced at or below $450000 so that they are eligible for the Government’s new KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme for first-home buyers. But we are also increasing the number of houses in the city at a huge pace. There is the $800 million East and North Frame Residential Precinct which will provide about 940 townhouses and apartments and that will provide living accommodation for up to 2200 people. I think this project is fantastic for Christchurch. It will bring residents into the city centre. It will provide a mix of housing to encourage people at all stages of their lives and they will literally be able to live to work and to play within the four avenues of the city. That will provide a great community spirit and a quality of life that will help families and businesses flourish.So our rebuild is well under way but how are the people of Canterbury feeling? We have been through some very tough times as you all know and we have certainly learnt that people deal with trauma differently. Every year we undertake the CERA Wellbeing Survey and in September 2014 77 percent of the people surveyed rated their quality of life as good or very good and 20 percent of them reported an improvement over the previous 12 months. This is the first time that these results have been comparable with the quality of the surveys about Christchurch pre-earthquake so that indicates that we are getting back to where we were prior to the earthquakes.