Red Zone becomes much redder

Libertarianz leader Richard McGrath condemns Phil Goff's ill-thought-out and hastily concocted bribe to sway Christchurch voters to vote for his party in November. In a move that Robert Mugabe would applaud, Labour seems intent on confiscating land for a price it would fix, so it can then ration and allocate this land to people hand-picked by the Labour Party. Presumably being a friend of Labour will put you at the top of the list.

Ian IConIC

After six months of trying we finally achieved a meeting with Minister Brownlee this afternoon. The meeting ran from about 2.35 until nearly 4.00pm, although it was originally anticipated that it would end at 3.15pm. In terms of time we received a good hearing, although the Minister remains committed to a minimal intervention approach and is totally unwilling to encroach on individual property rights. There seems to be almost no interest in the public good dimension around heritage that justifies, on the one hand, public assistance for those who seek to retain heritage, and a measure of control on the demolition of heritage on the other, even in a post disaster situation.

He did state, at one point, that it was his personal view that the Provincial Buildings should be restored, but he is clearly unwilling to make a public statement to that effect, even though he is prepared to make strong statements about building owners and insurers whose wrangles are delaying progress on demolitions.

Although we were undable to cover the full range of issues we would have liked to discuss, we have left a list of those issues with the Minister and we hope that his officials will address at least some of these items in the coming days and weeks. I think it is fair to say that the meeting was as productive as we could have reasonable hoped for, and more useful than some of us anticipated.

The fact that we had the meeting at all was due to the persistence of our co-chair, Brendon Burns, and we certainly appreciate his efforts to achieve this milestone for IConIC. Brendon, however, took the occassion of this afternoon's meeting to indicate that the time has arrived for him to step down from his chairing role. I think everyone involved with IConIC will want me to thank Brendon for his efforts both on behalf of heritage in Chirstchurch but also to recognise his efforts to save as much of our built environment as possible over the last seven months. Irrespective of our individual political alliegences, I'm sure we all wish Brendon well as he seeks a further term as Christchurch Central MP. We hope he will continue to attend IConIC meetings as time allows.

There will be an opportunity to discuss today's meeeting next Monday, when we should also be thinking about our response to the CERA recovery strategy. Please consider this message as being your reminder for that meeting. I'm off to Oamaru for a couple of days to look at heritage buildings with my Honours students. I think this is what is known as a bus-man's holiday.

Cheers

Ian
--
IConIC
Interests in Conserving the Identity of Christchurch

Thank you also to all those who attended the meeting today for their contributions towards putting our case to the minister.

General Debate - The Future of Christchurch

In May I addressed the crisis we are facing in Christchurch following the February earthquake. I said then that knowing the challenges ahead of us in what was the new normal, we needed to engender a sense of hope in the community. Since then I have convened a series of public forums in Christchurch, marrying local expertise and civic engagement to develop a vision of a future 21st century eco-city.

In August I released my report, The Future of Christchurch, with copies going to Minister Brownlee and the parliamentary forum, Environment Canterbury, the city council, and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. I thanked the Government for its commendation of the report when I tabled it in Parliament recently.

My report contains 26 recommendations identifying four overarching goals. They are resilience, sustainability, harmony, and beauty. This parallels the council's own plan, which conveys a green message from the people of Christchurch about the kind of city they want. But my report goes further and wider, because a necessary condition of a sustainable, harmonious, and beautiful city is its resilience, and resilience requires us to think ahead.

Riverside Community Group as part of its rally

My thoughts are as follows: “We will not accept the offers from CERA or insurance companies until: 1.      “Insurance companies honour Full Replacement policies for homes that are due for demolition in the Red Zone”. Comment: That is a contractual issue between homeowners and insurers.  The political issue, to the extent there is one, is to ensure that insurance companies are not fraudulently interpreting their contractual obligations (e.g. ‘full replacement’ v. ‘building to code’; replacement but only on existing (red-zoned) site….).  Those are probably better for the legal profession than the politicians, though if there appeared to be a pattern of behaviour emerging, them the Green Party ought to intervene. 2.       “RVs are reviewed where there is significant and demonstrable undervaluation”.

Summary of Christchurch rebuild report

The future of Christchurch

Report for a 21st century City

Christchurch city rebuild

City Life Tuesday 12 July 2011

Earthquake 9.3.11 - Question 5: Dr Kennedy Graham to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery

Earthquake funding Question 8: Dr Kennedy Graham to the Minister of Finance

General Debate - Canterbury Earthquake Recovery - Dr Kennedy Graham

I rise to address the situation in Christchurch and the plight of the people of my city as we head into winter.

Two and a half months after the devastation that rocked and racked New Zealand's second-largest city, Christchurch remains in a strange psychological state, essentially one of suspended animation. We have survived, most of us, the immediate crisis of the death and destruction, the liquefaction, and the deprivation of power, water, and sewerage. We have mourned our dead, apologised to other nations, straightened our backs, shut down the inner city, restored basic services, shared education facilities, and established a new Government agency for the rebuild, with extraordinary powers given to the Minister. Now is the time to plan for the rebuild.

3rd Reading- Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill - Dr Kennedy Graham

Quake: CERA Bill - 3rd Reading - Ken Graham Speech


This is a rather historic moment. Apart from in wartime New Zealand I think we are passing into law arguably the most Draconian legislation ever passed by a New Zealand Parliament. I do not wish to be melodramatic, but we have experienced a dramatic event, and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill is a dramatic bill. It has generated much heat, yet only occasionally some light—but enough light—to shine a faint torch on what we are doing here today. This bill is a dusty mirror to who we are as a society. It raises issues of an underlying nature, I think, about our national identity, our national style, and our beliefs, and I shall say more about that later. In the meantime let me make three points.

Come and have your say about the rebuild of our city.

I am hosting a Public Forum on Wednesday 20th April at 7pm.

This meeting focuses principally on the rebuild of the inner city, and is the first of three meetings.

I have enlisted various recognized experts to assist including Di Lucas (ILFA), Suzanne Valance (LU), Jasper van der Lingen (NZIA), Prof Andy Buchanan (UC), Chris Kissling (LU) and Andrew Dakers (EcoEng).

Within the forum, we will address issues of land, urban design, architecture, water and transport.

Please join me and have your say on the future of our city.

When: Wednesday 20th April, 7pm
Where: Christchurch Netball Centre, South Hagley Park

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill - Dr Kennedy Graham - 1st Reading

Of course none of us wanted this. We did not want the event of 22 February. We did not want the devastation. We did not want and never expected to have legislation of this kind before our House.

I speak with some emotion, having lived in the city through the past 7 months. I have experienced the sheer drama of death and destruction around us. I have organised volunteer groups into the suburbs to shovel and doorknock, and initiated fundraising for food delivery to those in need. I have attended the heart-wrenching memorial services for the dead. I have entered my office to retrieve equipment still cordoned inside a drop zone. I have visited civil defence headquarters on an almost daily basis. Just last week I toured the devastated red zone—a visually searing experience that simply breaks one's heart. Yet the emotion all of us in Christchurch feel over this event must be separated from our perception of the legislation before us and our responsibility to be true to the basic principles of democratic society as we know it in this country. Not only is the Christchurch disaster unprecedented but so is this legislation.

VISION CHRISTCHURCH - Resilient and Sustainable Public Forums for Re-envisioning our City

The city of Christchurch has been devastated by the February ’11 earthquake. In the rebuild, it is vital that the people of the city have proper engagement. Decisions must not be left to central government to make without adequate public consultation and input. We have a unique opportunity here to develop a strategic vision for a new city based on 21st century values and technology.
This first of a series of three public forums invites the public to make that input into the future of Christchurch. We suggest that three principles be recognised:
- community resilience
- risk management
- ecological integrity

Peering into the Abyss: The Red Zone of Christchurch

In a very compelling sense, I never really wanted this.

Under the custodianship of the National Controller and a USAR colleague, I entered the Red Zone today. Frustrated at the political machinations of inter-party politics, I requested a one-on-one visit and, to my surprise, was given it. Adorned with hard hat and jacket, and having signed away my life, in we went.

Today I peered directly into the abyss that is the broken heart of Christchurch.

Along with all others I have seen the photographs that have circumnavigated the world. And I have, since week 1, been in the yellow zone that includes my office and the Art Gallery, almost on a daily basis. I know how crumpled buildings look. I know what it is to sense death among the rubble.

Yet nothing prepares you for the inner city.

Media Advisory: Green Party MP sets up mobile office in Christchurch

What:    Green Party MP Kennedy Graham has set up his parliamentary office in a mobile home which will be moving around Christchurch to meet people and see how he and his office can be off assistance.

When: Until Kennedy Graham’s office in Christchurch is repaired or a suitable alternative can be found.      
Where: Moving around Christchurch 
Who:     Green Party Spokesperson for the Christchurch Earthquake Kennedy Graham

The Green Party office in downtown Durham Street was damaged in the earthquake and is currently unusable. As an interim measure Christchurch based Green MP Kennedy Graham has set up his office in a mobile home.

Dr Graham and staff will be based in the office and will organise a series of rolling meetings throughout the city with Green Party members and the public to listen to their concerns.  

Greeting the Christchurch Office, Nervously

Outside the Green office

It is one of life’s ironies to pillage your own office.  But that is what the gods of wrath have done to us. I trust we do not do time for our discretionary executive action yesterday.

The cordon around the Christchurch CBD has shrunk, and my office now sits just outside it, one building north of the Durham/Armagh intersection.  Thursday we were given approval to approach and enter.

Loaves and Fishes, in Christchurch

Well, OK, it was not fishes.  But it was 315 loaves of bread, freshly baked by Breads of Europe (thanks, Larry ) of the Christchurch Farmers Market.  We’d ordered 300. He threw in an extra 15.

And it was Westwood’s free-range chickens (thanks, Pete).  We’d ordered about 20 and he’d thrown in extras.  Then there were several cartons of sausages (99% meat), bacon and other meat, supplied by Cressy Farm (thanks, Spencer and Jacqui).  And peppers – green and red capsicum.  And potatoes and pumpkins grown by Steve.

And, with a touch of class, 30 fresh croissants baked by Jeremy, and 42 quiches baked by Essex Specialty Baker (thanks, Ingrid), discounted massively in each case.  Made your mouth water, even after breakfast.

We ordered all this for the Farmers’ Market.  The Market is a joy unto itself.  It convenes every Saturday morning, next to Dean’s Bush, beside Riccarton House, alongside the Avon – so redolent of a tranquil and beautiful Christchurch, as it was, and still is, in that tiny quarter of the city.  Except for the ugly scar that runs between the footpath in front of the House and the river – carved into Mother Earth by the god of wrath three weeks ago.  And the house itself that has taken the inevitable hit.

Jamie Bennet has almost single-handedly developed the Market over 5 years from nothing into a pulsating, beautiful Saturday morning village with music and coffee, fun and friendship, and healthy food to purchase. He deserves a medal.  In lieu, his business received an earthquake that could wipe him out.

So we had raised over $2,000 the previous Saturday at the Market from personal donations.  Further non-market contributions brought it to $4,000.  Last Saturday we spent three-quarters of it on healthy food – ordered for Wednesday.  It duly turned up on our driveway that morning.

Meanwhile, I have acquired, courtesy of Parliamentary Services, a mobile office, since mine faces a mysterious future on Durham Street, next to the rubble that was the Methodist Mission Church, diagonally from the twisted ruin of the Provincial Chambers, and adjacent to the corner gymnasium that has a distinct, terminal, lean.

My mobile office is, in its other incarnation, a camper van, but it has acquired a political purpose later in life, rather like me.  It is a huge beast of the road. We have quickly come to understand, if not exactly love, one another.

So, into the office went the food.  And off into the post-quake traffic and over, into and occasionally above, the post-quake roads of Christchurch, the Green team cheerfully swung.

The idea was Marilyn’s.  But Bruce has acted as planner, accounts manager and quarter-master, playing each role with consummate skill.  I am his assistant.  Claire is, temporarily, mine.  Anne and Angela are the guardian angels – of the food, not us.  First things first.

We dropped the food off at the Women’s Refuge Centre, the City Mission, the Waipuna Trust, the Salvation Army, the Agape Trust and the Parklands Baptist Welfare Centre.

There is something deeply bonding about supplying food to people in need.  Words are few; yet communication is intimate.  The experience penetrates the human psyche.

I certainly learnt much from the recipients of the food – givers of love and charity to the people.

If this is what politics is about, I welcome it.  If this is what the earthquake has wrought, let us show we are not daunted.

At Last, the Tears

First it was the shock. Then it was the shovelling, then the door-knocking, then the food delivery and ‘informal’ counselling.  We have tried, in our myriad ways, to help.  Adrenalin relentlessly drove us through the early climactic days.  The sheer intensity of physical effort successfully kept the emotions at bay.

That can never last, nor should it. Today the emotion came, sweeping over us all like a tsunami. 

A memorial service was held at Burnside High yesterday, for the victims from just one tragic address – the CTV building.  Even more specifically, the staff and students of King’s Education, the language school housed on the 3^rd floor. 

Out of the 180 presumed dead across the city, 80 (71 students, 9 staff) are from King’s Education alone.  Five staff, all 71 students, were foreign citizens.  28 were from Japan. New Zealand was, effectively, remembering the visitors among us – they who chose this land for the opportunity of a lifetime. 

A mournful flute caresses the faces of cheerful students, recently deceased, their trusting smiles beamed onto a giant screen before a packed, and hushed, auditorium. 

Ngāi Tahu’s Mark Solomon gives the whakatau.  Dean Peter Beck officiates (“This is so hard”.)  Mayor Bob Parker apologises to the world for the anger of Papatuanuku. 

We all pray. 

Prue Taylor, widow of deceased head of the school, Brian, reads the lesson – dignity and beauty personified in the moment of grief. Two pākehā men, members of the Board, struggle through their tributes – Southern men, constricted of throat.  Pui Mungkorn, a recent graduate, bids farewell to four Thai compatriots in beautiful, halting English.  Margaret Aydon, staff survivor, bespeaks her love for nine colleagues.

Yet it is the music that brings on the tears.  Graeme Wardop’s Let It Be – my very own vintage.  Once the tears come, they just roll on of their own accord.  Emily Twemlow sings You Are My Sunshine – the school favourite. She staggers back, flops into her chair, wracked with sobbing.   

Gerardo Torres, of Peru, sings a song of farewell to his sister Elsa, head teacher, deceased.  Raw Latin emotion sweeps over New Zealand’s cosmopolitan crowd.

I speak later with Chan, Malaysian Kiwi who provided homestays for King’s students. On Monday 21^st, he had introduced four young Filipina women to King’s Education.  They had registered, taken tests, and got themselves ready for their first day of tuition in English on the Tuesday.  Tuesday, 22^nd, they had duly turned up.  Day 1 was their last.

Chan himself had been in the building that morning to see the Director, and had walked out at 11.30 a.m., into the fresh air.

And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
There will be an answer, let it be.

Coordination between central government agencies, local council, and NGOs, in the response to the Canterbury earthquake? Dr Kennedy Graham

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery: Is he satisfied that there is enough coordination between central government agencies, local council, and non-governmental organisations in the response to the earthquake?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) on behalf of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery: Yes. One example is the coordinated effort by Ministry of Social Development staff, non-governmental organisations like the Salvation Army, community groups, and 400 volunteers in canvassing more than 70,000 houses in the suburbs most affected by the quake, to check on the well-being and safety of residents. A second example is the head of the UK urban search and rescue team, Peter Crook, being quoted in the New Zealand Herald as saying about the emergency response: "The organisation has been outstanding, the best-organised emergency I've been to." However, as in any disaster of this magnitude, there will always be examples of situations where coordination could have been improved. But the Minister is assured that civil defence is doing its upmost to work with the city council and central government agencies to respond to the disaster. That is what the declaration of a state of national emergency is designed to do.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Is he concerned about the focus of effort between the central business district and the eastern suburbs? Has a fair balance been struck between the two?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Based on all the evidence I have seen, I can say a very fair balance has been struck.

Dr Kennedy Graham: What steps is he taking to ensure that vulnerable people in the east of Christchurch, some of whom already live below the poverty line, will not be pushed over the edge by this crisis?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I think that yesterday I indicated the number of civil defence grants that have been paid out to people, and the number of emergency subsidies towards housing that have been paid out. I am absolutely confident that if anybody is in dire straits and does need help, it is there. I made the offer yesterday that if any Canterbury member—because I think those members were all supplied with direct phone lines to the national coordinator—knows of a specific example that we have missed, the member should please not hesitate to let somebody know, and the issue will get dealt to.

Dr Kennedy Graham: I thank the Minister for that response. Having attended meetings this morning in the east, I will get back to him on that. Has he attended any local community meetings in the eastern suburbs; if not, will he accompany me to my next meeting?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery is spending nearly all his time in Christchurch, and hence I can say that yes, he will have. I am doing most of the Wellington-end work, so although I have visited the place and been into the central business district and seen some of the devastation of the buildings, I have not attended any of those meetings.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will the proposed central agency that is designed to handle the earthquake listen to the people of Christchurch by having their representatives involved in decision making?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I think as time unfolds, the member will realise that a number of issues have to be dealt with right there and then, immediately. When any human life is involved and a building is causing a risk, a decision that would normally be taken over several weeks may have to be made in that minute. But I give an assurance that where life is not at risk, or human safety is not at risk, a measured, careful process of making decisions will be followed.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will all the information that the central agency uses for decisions be made available to the public?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: It would be a bold call for me to answer that all of the information would be. Where it is possible, information will be made available to the public..

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will the Government consider a cross-party group with direct advisory powers into Cabinet for the Christchurch rebuild?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I am really reluctant to give answers about anything of a hypothetical nature into the future, because a lot of decisions are yet to be taken on this track. I assure the member there is a long, long way to go. We will be working on this issue for a very long time, so I cannot speculate on what may occur into the future.

Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, the question was specific. It was not asking for speculation in the future but asking whether the Government will consider doing that now.

Mr SPEAKER: I think the Minister indicated that the Government is not prepared to do that; otherwise he would have said yes. Although the Minister may not have used those precise words, he has not jumped to his feet to say the Speaker's interpretation was wrong.