Brownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19061. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery):This afternoon the Committee has been regaled with a number of terribly inaccurate statements from members of the Opposition and I am going to deal with them back to front. The first point is that the Government has been deeply involved in the recovery in Christchurch since the outset. There was a comment made by the Hon Ruth Dyson in which she claimed that I had instructed the Christchurch City Council not to have an audit of its books because it might affect the Government. Well any analysis of the documentation that Ms Dyson has will show that it was in fact the council itself that was facing significant uncertainty about the interest rates that it might have to pay on lending that existed pre-earthquake and it knew that it had some expenses that were coming. It has been long established that there is a cooperative arrangement between the Government and local bodies. It is roughly a 60:40 split on horizontal infrastructure but no one knew exactly what the problem was.So I am pleased that the Opposition has said that the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team is doing a good job. I believe that it is.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Always has.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I believe that it is—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: It’s nothing to do with you.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —and I am very pleased that I was the Minister who negotiated that particular body’s coming together. Actually under the structure Mr Cosgrove for your information—which you should have known because it has been provided to you—there is an alliance board there is a governance group and over and above that there is the Minister quite simply. So what we have is an Opposition—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That’s why they’re getting things done and you’re not.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —and particularly Opposition MPs who know that they are not going to win their seats back and are now trying to create an environment that essentially is based on mistruths. It was unreasonable for the city council to have to go through an audit process in the uncertain environment that it was in and the council unanimously voted to take that particular course of action. There was no direction from the Crown for it to do so.The next point was the suggestion that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority itself is an organisation that is taking up too much of the Government resource and that it should in fact start to pare itself back. So there you have a totally contradictory argument right from the start: “It is not doing enough. Let’s not make it do any more.” But can I point out that its current budget is about three-quarters of 1 percent of the Government’s total spend in Christchurch and it is about one-quarter of 1 percent of the expected cost of Christchurch across all sectors. So I think it is doing a very good job through the management of recovery programmes of community engagement of working through the council where it has got difficulties etc. etc.Then there was this issue about housing raised by our friend Mr O’Rourke. I note that if you do not want to know the truth in any circumstance do not hang around to listen to it and that would be a doctrine that is clearly taken up by the last two speakers in this debate. It is unfortunate that when we get to factual information it gets in the road of the story so they take off. Well right now in this instant in this Chamber I am able to show that there are 1182 houses in Christchurch City for rent and that half of those—half of those—are being rented out for less than half the rent that Mr O’Rourke was talking about a few minutes ago. So there you have another construct a mistruth being thrown into the Committee etc. etc.The Government has engaged in quite a significant amount of activity in trying to alleviate some housing issues in Christchurch. In the end it will be the build that gets there. Part of that is the Land Use Recovery Plan but a huge part of it is the work that the Earthquake Commission is doing to get people back in their houses and then there is the work that the Hon Dr Nick Smith has undertaken with the housing accord; the temporary villages at New Brighton and Linwood and in Kaiapoi; the temporary accommodation at Rangers Park which will eventually come on to the market for sale; and the opportunities that he is currently pursuing out at Awatea where there will also be several hundred affordable houses built. But in addition to that 700 new State houses will be built in Christchurch over the next 2 years and 5000 State houses will be reoccupied as Housing New Zealand brings them back up to a much higher standard than they were before for the occupants.In addition of course there is the problem of the Christchurch City Council always railing against housing issues with the Labour members on that council particularly getting on their high horse but in fact the Labour chairman of the housing committee is doing absolutely nothing. A mere five houses have been repaired I understand over the last 4 years out of the 250 that the council has got. It is unbelievable.Hon Ruth Dyson: Where’s the EQC money?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Of course the Earthquake Commission has paid out. The commission has paid the council nearly $30 million so far—$30 million for five repairs. That is a really really good result! It is one that Labour would of course be impressed by but I think it is utterly pathetic.Mr O’Rourke talked about the thousands of people living in Christchurch in broken homes in cold circumstances. Over the last few winters we have partnered with NGOs and we have had our own programmes running where we look for people who might be in difficult circumstances where that has not been reported. This year there has been with the Wider Earthquake Communities Action Network what I think is a very good programme. It calls them the lost 900. It went out to see who they were. It thought that there might be 900 houses out there in trouble. It found a much much lesser number where there were some instances of trouble and so all of those are being dealt with. Across the whole time around 20000 heat appliances have been put into Christchurch homes no questions asked—“If you are cold you get warm with this new heating appliance.”Then the issue of flooding was raised by Mr O’Rourke—“Mr Doom and Gloom”—over here. Unbelievable comments were made about that. Well I can say to this Committee that on 5 March this year the Government was in town—the Prime Minister other Ministers like Nicky Wagner etc. and I were saying to the council: “We want to help. What do we do?”. And I have to say we are still waiting for the full details. Last week we got the papers asking us to extend the temporary accommodation assistance available to these people. We have done it. And that really also gives the lie to a lot of what Mr O’Rourke was saying because we do have temporary accommodation assistance at very very good levels available to everybody regardless of income.Then there is the Canterbury Earthquake Temporary Accommodation Service—CETAS. There is the residential service etc. etc. It goes on and on—good things happening as Canterbury works itself to get itself out of a difficult circumstance.Then we come to the beauty of them all. Clayton Cosgrove having railed for the last 4 years about all sorts of things—David Shearer: “The beauty”? I wouldn’t call Clayton a beauty.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes I am the only one who sees it—I am the only one who sees it. But it is let me say exceptionally ironic in my expression. He has railed for the last 4 years on all sorts of issues. He has never once come to my office with a constituent issue that bore any resemblance to the public position that he was taking—not one in 4 years. Then we come to the issues. He is saying that there are 10000 people out—[Interruption] See? Those members do not like it. I tell you what when you are losing you struggle—when you are losing you struggle. He is saying that 10000 people want to go to court because I think his term was they had outstanding claims. Well a claim is outstanding until the keys are handed over to the occupant—a claim is outstanding until the keys are handed to an occupant.I have got some figures in my pocket here that come from some of the houses that are being built in Christchurch at the moment and there are hundreds that are in that category—almost ready to hand over—there are thousands in the process of being built and there are thousands where people are making choices about what they have in their plans. It is not unusual where someone is getting a new house built that they might say: “Well hold on. You’re up for this much. If we put this extra in can we have an extra bedroom? Can we have an en suite? Can we have a flasher kitchen?” or whatever. Why would they not? I think it is a good thing. To say that there are 10000 people out there who have outstanding claims and who are waiting to go to court is a gross exaggeration. The numbers of people who are going to the courts are exceptionally low and it is not because they do not get a hearing; the courts have bent over backwards to create a bench. There have in fact been only 270 cases out of all those thousands—170000 damaged homes—that have gone to court with some application. Many of those have been settled.Vote agreed to.