Speech: Peters - Earthquakes - not an excuse
Speech to public
meeting
Katikati,
Katikati
War Memorial Hall
2.30pm, November 20,
2016
“Earthquakes - not an excuse for
doing nothing”
The
week’s earthquakes have shaken all New
Zealand.
Feelings have been numb and raw and as the week
unfolded we realised the magnitude of this latest
quake.
The districts of Kaikoura, Hurunui, Marlborough
and elsewhere have been impacted substantially.
It will
be a long time before normality returns for many people in
these areas.
Wellington has not escaped.
Buildings
have had to be evacuated as more and more damage is
revealed.
A Resilient New
Zealand
Human muscles and bones get stronger
from being put under stress and tension. A society can gain
strength from the experience of volatility, disorder and
upheaval – if it is prepared to learn.
The American
writer Nassim Taleb has coined the term “antifragile” to
describe the capacity of systems to benefit from shock and
disruption.
Being “antifragile” is a property that
not only contributes to system’s survival but also its
ability to grow and flourish. To the extent that we
realistically can we should aim for an “antifragile” New
Zealand.
Earthquakes cannot be predicted. Science may
one day enable prediction but that breakthrough has not
occurred yet.
As an earthquake prone country New Zealand
must therefore take all sensible and practical steps to
mitigate the damage and loss of life from earthquakes.
The severe earthquake early on Monday, 14 November
points to the need to take a deeper look at New Zealand’s
resilience to earthquakes and other natural
disasters.
While the emergency services and other
government agencies will review their performance in
response to the earthquake a wider ranging and systematic
inquiry is required.
A public inquiry into the overall
state of New Zealand’s resilience to major natural
disaster, with broad cross-party support, would be
appropriate.
Such an inquiry should be conducted in a
timely manner taking a maximum of one year. The cost would
not be excessive if led by a suitably qualified person
heading a small expert team.
The inquiry would cover the
following issues:
• How resilient is New Zealand in terms of earthquakes and other natural disasters?
• What practical steps, with feasible investment, can be taken that would strengthen New Zealand’s resilience?
• Are the relevant regulatory regimes robust enough? Or are “corners being cut” in any areas of construction and infrastructure building that are creating future significant risks. It is deeply concerning that some of our most modern and “compliant” buildings appear more prone to damage than older structures. This can only undermine public confidence in the regulatory regime.
• Are NZ’s emergency response services adequate in terms of reliability and capacity? As NZ First has pointed out, the recent earthquake revealed weaknesses in the 111 phone line system as well as the Civil Defence site that should have been resolved after the Christchurch earthquakes
•
The recent earthquake showed there is a need for a stronger
New Zealand transport strategy. NZ First is calling for a
viable long-term transport strategy, including coastal
shipping to be developed that would ensure a resilient
transport infrastructure.
There are no grounds for
complacency. The most recent serious earthquake directly
impacted small towns and a relatively sparsely populated
area of the country.
The next major earthquake could hit
a major population centre as happened with the Christchurch
earthquakes.
NZ First calls on all other parties to
support its call for a wide- ranging public inquiry into the
state of New Zealand’s resilience to major earthquakes and
other natural disasters and where improvements can be made
at reasonable cost.
• The recent earthquake showed
there is a need for a much stronger New Zealand
road-rail-shipping transport strategy.
This earthquake
has reminded us yet again of the short-sightedness of past
decisions by neo-liberal National and Labour
governments.
A strong coastal shipping service would have
been a Godsend in a disaster such as the one we have gone
through.
We don’t have one.
National’s road
transport obsession has been exposed.
Because we don’t
have a strong coastal shipping service our flow of freight
came to a virtual standstill and is now struggling.
We
are now scratching round to redeploy interisland ferries to
fill a massive transport void.
NZ First says we have had
enough.
We have for years called for a viable long-term
transport strategy including road, rail and coastal
shipping.
Our national economy cannot be left to the
Mickey Mouse system that exists at the present moment.
The true state of the economy
In the
immediate hours after the November 14 earthquake the Prime
Minister was assuring New Zealanders that the “country is
in great shape”.
He was no doubt pointing to a $1.8
billion claimed surplus.
The problem with the Prime
Minister’s claimed surplus is that it is fiction, not
fact. Every major item of expenditure – police, health,
education, housing, social welfare, department of
conservation – has seen under National, in real terms,
years of cuts.
All of the above items suffer from huge
deficit the result of which has seen controversy after
controversy. Press story after press story.
That is why
when you listen to Ministers they never talk of increased
expenditure in real terms, or increased expenditure per
person, but rather throw out hundreds of millions, or
billions usually over the next four or five years, or in the
case of Defence, the next fourteen years. The Navy is having
a 75-year celebration. The government is talking about its
$20 billion capital expenditure by 2030: fourteen years from
now.
Now what is fascinating about this, we all heard
about this $20 billion figure before. It’s so old it’s
got flies on it. But ask them to itemise purchases by date,
and not one Minister or the Prime Minister has a remote
clue. The Minister of Health is famous for tossing out how
he is going to spend $500 million in the next four years on
increased health expenditure.
Ladies and gentlemen, that
is, in real terms and per capita, a serious decrease in
expenditure. But unless the media asks what it means in real
terms or per capita, neither they nor we are any the wiser.
So, given that the latest earthquake will cost about a
billion to fix up, alongside the billions of under
expenditure in the areas already set out, this country is
certainly not in great shape.
Given that our nominal
growth rate of 2.8 per cent owes about 2 per cent to massive
immigration, which has brought with it huge demand problems
particularly in Auckland, the Prime Minister’s assurances
are based on political propaganda and not reality.
The
sad thing is how many in the commentariat have preferred his
line to the glaring reality staring them in the
face.
Watch out for the excuse machine.
All over the
country regions are already suffering from infrastructural
neglect and it’s clear that this week’s earthquake is
going to be used to fob off longstanding worthy cause after
longstanding worthy cause.
There are no grounds for
complacency.
Katikati bypass
So,
where does this place the Katikati bypass?
State Highway
1 between Picton and Kaikoura and further south, and other
roads, will cost with railway about billions of dollars to
repair.
This will become an “urgent priority” of the
government.
But remember when something similar, less
catastrophic, happened to close the Napier –Gisborne line,
KiwiRail and this government just walked off.
The
Kaikoura State Highway 1 repairs are expected to take
months.
Then there are the massive roading, housing,
health, education and other infrastructural problems for
Auckland.
During a Stuff.co.nz live chat, Auckland mayor
Phil Goff said his city shouldn’t take a back seat on
Government spending despite this week’s
earthquakes.
Katikati has been calling for a bypass for
donkey’s years.
The question is, how much longer will
you have to wait to get one and how many more excuses will
you put up with for these delays.
Katikati is a great
town but the quality of life has been seriously affected by
the increasing numbers of trucks and vehicles passing
through.
Trying to access the centre of town with all the
congestion can be almost impossible. We know the volumes of
heavy trucks is set to increase.
This is due to the
government favouring road ahead of other forms of
transportation.
That has been one of the lessons of the
Kaikoura earthquake.
The rupturing of SH1 has caused huge
disruption to transportation of freight and goods.
The
disruption would have been less had the government secured
and put in place a better transportation strategy which
included coastal shipping.
As far as your Katikati bypass
is concerned, the National government has been aware of your
concerns for years and have done nothing.
They fobbed you
off and the job has been on hold.
Transport Minister
Simon Bridges has asked the NZTA to take another look at the
Katikati section because the NZTA does not support a
bypass.
Why didn’t he tell the NZTA to get on with the
job instead?
Three months ago Brendan Gibbs said at a
public meeting you held with Mr Bridges that there had been
15 deaths on the Apata bends and he had seen no improvements
in 15 years.
Why not?
The tragic deaths of five Tongan
workers in a crash when their car was hit by a logging truck
as it crossed SH2 in August will be remembered for a long
time.
This tragedy highlighted the problems you
face.
If the government had seized the initiative years
ago – this bypass would have been put in place.
It
hasn’t been.
You deserve better.
So still the
question is how long are you prepared to wait for the
bypass?
Conclusion:
NZ First
Policy is to ensure that provincial New Zealand gets its
fair, proportionate share of infrastructural investment
money. That’s why I can guarantee you today that we would
ensure that a bypass around Katikati is built.
For those
of you who doubt my word, I suggest you take a trip to
Tauranga. There you will see that the Kaimai Ranges road is
tar sealed, as is the Athenree Gorge to the North, that
there are more tar sealed motorways to fill half the
alphabet.
And two double-laned harbour bridges without
tolls.
Not to mention 63 million dollar debt having been
taken off Route K.
None of those things had happened
before I came to Tauranga in ’84. They all happened as a
result of my being in Tauranga and being an MP here.
The
National Party has had Tauranga for the last 11 years. Can
anybody show me what Simon Bridges and National have
done?
My advice to the good people of Katikati: don’t
make the same mistake.
ENDS