Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. Well 'tis the week before Christmas and the present is wrapped. We have as a Parliament come together. We have seen Christchurch as a city come together. We have seen the generosity of spirit that has led to the solution that is the basis of this enabling legislation. I would like to personally acknowledge—and again I think it probably points to the divide that has been bridged by this project—Philip Burdon and Jim Anderton. They are not men that were alongside each other politically but are ardent Christchurch and Canterbury people who understood what needed to be done to get to the stage where we are at today. To the Hon Nicky Wagner who did extraordinary work—I don't know if people realise it but most Sundays she went to Mass to be able to meet with the Bishop Victoria Matthews afterwards to enable the right level of relationship and communication and trust to be there. I would have to say that Nicky is one of the most thorough and hard-working members of Parliament and Ministers sticking up for a cause that I have ever worked with so I would like to give a special shout-out to her. To the current Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration Dr Megan Woods thank you for taking the patience to explain and articulate some of the issues that lay behind the questions that we were asking. The select committee process was serene and again I commend our chair of the Environment Committee Dr Deborah Russell for that. In fact one of the things that Dr Russell said a few moments ago got me thinking. We've all visited cathedrals around the world. Christ Church Cathedral I remember going to as a youngster and in a previous life we filmed there. I know that the flower carpet that was done through the cathedral—up the main part of the aisle of the cathedral—was truly wondrous. I've hardly ever seen a cameraman cry but our one did that day. He was absolutely moved by the beauty of it and by the context of having the flowers from the Garden City home-grown in people's gardens laid out in the elaborate French tradition of trompe l'œil with the trickery of the eye but also the parterre—the embroidery on the ground. So this main big carpet was designed to be seen from above and to me that's what a great cathedral does. It inspires you to go beyond the prosaic and to look up to contemplate and to think about things other than everyday life. Other cathedrals around the world have stories to tell. Something that I think will one day be part of the rich tapestry of the Christ Church Cathedral story is that it did have this terrible episode. Along with Chartres Cathedral in England which was razed to the ground it was rebuilt. For those of you who will have been to Monte Cassino you will know of the big cathedral on top of the mountain there where so many lost their lives in terrible conditions. The Allied forces bombed it but it was fully and totally restored with a level of integrity to heritage values that I think we can all learn from. Again as I said in my speech yesterday I think that the world is in many ways a smaller place. We can learn from what is happening in real time in Japan and from what is happening at la Sagrada Familia in Spain where in fact a New Zealander—a New Zealand engineer—is leading the charge to build this cathedral and finish it for the first time. It was Gaudi's masterpiece but he got run over by a tram and they thought he was a vagrant. He died penniless in the paupers' hospital and his plans were not found so for a long time it stood there—in perhaps a similar way to the way that the Christ Church Cathedral has—as a testimony to potential and to what might happen one day. With the help of an international team with a New Zealander at the heart it is now nearing completion. It is a remarkable design. It has lost nothing of its power and its strength through the years that it has sat mouldering quietly before the right people the right ideas the right vision and the right determination came along and that is similar I think to what has happened with Christ Church Cathedral. I think it is marvellous that it's going to be reinstated. I'm really looking forward to seeing what will happen with the spire. The cathedral itself probably deserves one and it needs one given the style of the building. The heritage people have been paying a lot of attention to those aspects and I hope as my colleague Matt Doocey has indicated that in the spirit of generosity in the festive season people will see this as an opportunity to contribute something to the building of that spire and to complete the work that has been started by the Crown with the $10 million and the $15 million as a non-repayable loan—a suspensory loan—and then of course the $10 million from the council. It's not quite enough but it's certainly a starter for 10 and I think that the public of Christchurch and New Zealanders generally can have confidence that the project will go ahead in a way that reflects the wairua of the original cathedral but with more. So this is with add-ons and they will accentuate its charm and its capacity to enthral people for generations to come. So from my perspective the reinstatement is very much a part of this bill that we've been working on. The spirit of collaboration and cooperation is as many have remarked an endangered and threatened species in this House. It seldom happens that people cooperate to quite this extent but it is possible for everybody to pull together. And I hope that the people of Christchurch who have been detractors and who have as other speakers have noted been reluctant to see public money go into a church—so we're a secular society is one of the arguments. We shouldn't be putting money into these sorts of things it should be the responsibility of a church and so forth—I disagree with that. I think there are probably about 50 buildings in New Zealand that transcend mere local or ownership issues and the cathedral of Christchurch is one of them. From the time I saw it topple on that awful day of the earthquake in 2011 I hoped it would be reinstated. I kept my counsel on that to myself because as the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage at the time I felt it would be unhelpful if I waded in. But I think the right decision has been made. I would hope that in the spirit of harmony that has seen this bill arrive in this House in this state it will enable all of the good work that's been put together by the cathedral working party and others to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I would especially like to note and acknowledge Jim Anderton who I know is not well and who I know has given an enormous amount of his time and prodigious energy to ensuring that this project has not been forgotten—that the demolition did not occur. Philip Burdon is another who has given a lot of his time. I think that when you look at that spirit of willingness it is to put aside all differences—as the parliamentary prayer used to say—and to be able to join together for a common cause and make it happen because no one would have done it if we all hadn't done it. That is why this piece of legislation is so special and the fact that it happens just before Christmas is I think serendipitous. It is perhaps coincidental but it certainly deserves to be happening at a time when celebration harmony and goodwill to all people and all buildings should prevail. So that is why I fully support and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.