Q+A’s Paul Holmes Earthquake Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee.

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

GERRY BROWNLEE interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL Gerry Brownlee good morning. Are you happy things are underway?

GERRY BROWNLEE – Earthquake Recovery Minister Oh I think there's been an enormous amount of progress made in this week, getting things set up so that we can recover, and it's a huge tribute to all the hundreds of people who have worked very long hours reconnecting water, sewerage, and power connections to people, others clearing roads etc. Many of those people doing 90 to 100 hours in the last week, and quite a magnificent effort to get so far so quickly. On the regulatory side I think we're making good progress there too and we'll have a clear path by the middle of the week.

PAUL Right let's talk about that shortly but in the meantime what you’ve really got there Mr Brownlee now is two Christchurch’s isn’t it? You’ve got people in areas badly hit, other places not really hit at all. Are people going to be as well off as they were before the earthquake, those people who have been badly struck by the earthquake?

GERRY Well firstly the damage appears to be in just about all parts of the city to some extent, to the extent of damage that’s the issue, and some parts of the city as you say in odd pockets are more severely hit. We've got about two and a half thousand people who have homes that can't be occupied. A further maybe 200 that can be occupied but they're not all that weather proof. So we've got a big job to be sorted out there. We've got 100 geotech engineers on the ground this week. They’ll be looking at what the substructure is, and then I think we can start talking about where to from there. I know it's hard, I know it's very hard on those people, but we just have to take a little bit of time to get a good result in the end.

PAUL Gerry what I'm asking is are people going to be worse off? Some of the people have been really badly hit. Some of these people for example in the 2500 uninhabitable homes, when you have finished your work, are they going to be worse off, or just the same as they were before the earthquake? That’s what people want to know.

GERRY That’s right, and that’s why I said we have to take a couple of weeks to find out exactly where all the moving parts are here. It's probably the wrong analogy to use, but we do need to know about ground stability, and then we can start doing the work to rebuild. We've had good talks during the week with insurers and EQC and the banks. There's one or two ropey things that I'm going to sort out tomorrow. One or two things that have come out during the weekend, but I'm confident we're going to have a pretty clear path ahead.

PAUL People who were not insured, are you going to cover them?

GERRY We're not even considering that at this stage. Most of those people would have made a decision not to insure on the basis of a range of things. Could be that the property’s due to come down. Could be that they have a number of properties that had decided to self insure. We'll look at it case by case at some future point, but no immediate plans. Our concerns are for 2500 people who …

PAUL So you’ve got no certainty for people who are not insured.

GERRY Well let me just make this point, eight days into it, the uninsured at this point are not the first priority, because there will have been a choice factor in that lack of insurance.

PAUL Alright, in some areas is it not going to be possible to rebuild, are people going to have to get real about that?

GERRY I think there's been a whole lot of hype out there around that, and that needs to stop, because the issue that has caused the damage is something that many other parts of the city could be prone to. So we need to know more, and that’s why we've got 100 geotech engineers on the ground this week, making those investigations.

PAUL I'm sure it's a very difficult one, but what we've seen of the liquefaction and so forth I mean already there's talk even from the Mayor of Christchurch that some of those areas should not have been built on. Is it possible that some people are not going to be able to build where they were?

GERRY Well you're not an engineer either and you're not a geotech guy, I've just said I'm not, and that’s why I'm relying on 100 geotech engineers to give us good advice. One thing that’s starting to be slightly irksome is the very negative side that media want to put on this thing. It is a disaster and people are affected, and we're very worried about those people and we're working very hard to get them relocated.

PAUL I take it that you're not saying to me that I'm trying to be irksome or negative, I'm simply trying to find out what you're going to be doing for people. You're now the Earthquake Recovery Manager and I'm asking you what you're going to be doing about people.

GERRY Yes you are.

PAUL So I'm simply asking is it possible that you have to start preparing for the possibility they might not be able to build on that land again, but you’ve got no answer for that clearly.

GERRY I think the point is we're doing everything we can to give assurance and certainty to the people who are in houses that cannot currently be entered. It could well be that we end up with a very small number where the geotech situation is such, the ground stability is such, that it might be unwise to rebuild.

PAUL Thank you Mr Brownlee which is all I was asking you. The 2500 families with uninhabitable homes, what are you doing for them in the meantime?

GERRY Firstly there are the shelters that have been set up, but we also have had Housing New Zealand out looking at what they can procure very quickly to start relocating people if that’s necessary. But I think you’ve got to understand that in that 2500 there could be literally large large numbers going back into their homes as soon as they're checked, because while they may be damaged, they may be perfectly habitable, and that’s part of the reason why we've just got to make sure we take every safety precaution along the way.

PAUL That’s what I was asking really, those 2500 homes which are uninhabitable, they're not necessarily condemned are they?

GERRY Absolutely not. Some of them for example are for various reasons still without services. There's about 300 that don’t have sewer, and there are a number of other houses where people have voluntarily exited because they didn’t feel safe. So we need to go back and make sure that all the checks are done to give that confidence back to that group of people.

PAUL Is this going to take years?

GERRY Yes it is. Can I just make this point. The city got reconnected very quickly to water sewerage and power and we're substantially reconnected now and business can continue, daily lives can continue for the overwhelming majority of the city. But there will be a need over a period of time to go back and reinstate areas where there's been temporary fixes with long term solutions, and that’s where it will take years. People won’t see the disruption I believe for years, and given that we've got so much done in the districts themselves, right across the districts - we shouldn’t just focus on Christchurch City – have done such a great job at that reconnection…

PAUL That’s right, right across Canterbury as well. The message being I guess pop are still going to have to be patient, you're doing your best but people are still going to have to be patient.

GERRY That is something that we're definitely asking for, and I think people are so far being very generous about that. I know how hard it is for people standing outside their house wondering if they are ever going to go back inside.

PAUL Are you going back inside your place by the way?

GERRY Oh I've been in for a look. Look I'm not as bad as many others.

PAUL Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee from the centre of Christchurch.

ENDS

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