Canterbury Earthquake 5th Anniversary Protest Rally

Five years of despair and frustration. We've had enough!

• "One week before the February 2011 earthquake, EQC estimated my repair cost to be $119,000. In November 2011, my insurer estimated the cost at $245,000. In February 2012, EQC reassessed the repair cost at $30,000!" (David)

• "I could write a book, about what I have seen.......It is time that we stopped being nice, and patient.... it is time we stood up and said "THIS IS WRONG" (Jilly)

• "New Zealand has zero external regulation for the settlement of a claim within a contract of insurance." (Cameron Preston)

Thousands of fully insured homeowners are still waiting for their policy entitlements from EQC, SR and private insurers. Many more, whose homes have had shoddy or botched repairs, are also in despair.

A protest meeting will be held in
Cathedral Square on Sunday, 21 February at 12 noon
to draw attention to their continued plight and to the shameful manner in which they have been and continue to be treated. Many are still living in broken, leaking and damp houses, while some have lost their homes altogether.

After waiting patiently for 5 years, the message to EQC and insurers is this:
HONOUR OUR POLICIES NOW!

Many of our elderly and most vulnerable citizens who have been treated in this shameful manner will be unable to make it to the square. This protest is for ALL citizens who believe that the way in which EQC and private insurers have failed to meet their insurance obligations needs to change NOW.

People are encouraged to bring banners and signs and tell their stories to the national and international media, who will be in attendance.

The event will be compered by the Rev. Mike Coleman. Settled claimant and author, Sarah Miles, community representative Hugo Kristinsson, and a number of other leading campaigners and invited guests, are expected to speak at the protest meeting.

Sometimes people must stand together in the face of blatant injustice when they see it, and the organisers hope that all concerned citizens in Canterbury will do so on Sunday 21 February. In the words of the popular quotation: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

We must show the rest of NZ and the world that all is NOT rosy in the Garden City.

ENDS

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