Lianne
Dalziel
Christchurch East MP

30 November 2011 MEDIA STATEMENT
Resilience has new meaning after earthquake

Resilience has new meaning after the earthquakes Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel said in her speech to the Australian & NZ Institute of Insurance & Finance Conference in Auckland today.

“I want the earthquake legacy to be a powerful message of recovery leading to new opportunities that makes us more resilient and more committed to sustainability than we were before, so that the cost of rebuilding our city becomes an investment in our future as a nation,” Lianne Dalziel said.

“As a nation we need to be learning lessons from our experience so that we can ensure that our earthquake legacy can be a country more able to respond to the need for recovery.

“I have learned only too well that this country is well prepared for disaster and moves quickly to respond to the call for help in the immediate aftermath. But our plans for recovery simply weren’t there. We need to do better on this.

“There are huge opportunities to learn and change not just the physical shape of our city, but also the social, community and sustainable nature of our city following the earthquake. We need to make the most of the opportunity for change.

“I am hugely optimistic that we can rebuild Christchurch, the city that I love and that I am dedicated to.

“But our communities also need to be inspired and we need to believe that life is going to get better. We need milestones that enable us to celebrate along the way because it is going to be a long, slow, arduous journey – and we know there will be setbacks along the way.

“We also need to know that our ‘new kind of normal’ is going to be better than getting back to normal would ever be – because that is now lost to us forever.

“But most importantly we need to know that we can each contribute something of value and that we will be heard so that we can truly own our own recovery and own our own future,” Lianne Dalziel said.

ENDS

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