Moving Govt Functions From Wellington a “Knee-Jerk” Reaction
Moving Government Functions From Wellington a “Knee-Jerk” Reaction: Lester
Wellington mayor Justin Lester says Wellington is “well-placed” to manage further earthquakes, and he doesn’t back the idea of moving government functions to other parts of New Zealand.
Speaking to Q+A’s Jessica Mutch, Mr Lester said he thought that was a “knee-jerk reaction.”
“Look, let’s be realistic, I mean, Auckland sits on volcanoes; Christchurch, no one expected to have an earthquake down there, and that was an absolute tragedy; various different parts of the country face natural disaster events. So this is an occurrence in New Zealand, as it is in any other city in any other country in the world.
We need to live up to the risk. We need to manage the risk, and I think Wellington’s well placed.”
Mr Lester defended sending out a message saying Wellington was “open for business” just 24 hours after in the quake, in which several inner-city buildings sustained serious damage.
But he said he was surprised at how the more modern buildings performed during the quake, and said questions would need to be asked about the ground conditions beneath them.
END
Q
+ A
Episode
37
JUSTIN
LESTER
Interviewed by Jessica
Mutch
JESSICA What’s
the latest on the situation in Wellington at the
moment?
JUSTIN Good
morning, Jessica. The latest is no news is good news. So we
haven’t had any further updates. We’re about to commence
a deconstruction of 61 Molesworth Street, so that’s one
where there is a cordon in place. And likewise we’ve
reduced the cordon around Courtney Place and around Tory
Street, which is the Reading car park. And just to stress to
people, look, these buildings aren’t likely to collapse,
but we want to take precautions in the event of a further
really strong earthquake, that safety is
paramount.
JESSICA Because
that’s what you’re preparing for now, isn’t it? You
have to be realistic that, without scaring people, that more
quakes are
likely.
JUSTIN Yeah,
absolutely. So we’ve actually stood up really well here in
Wellington. We haven’t had any interruption to water or to
power, our sewerage system is still in place, our transport
corridors have largely remained in place. But it’s about
what happens next from here. We want to make sure that
we’re prepared in the event that we have another
earthquake in the
future.
JESSICA You
talked about being focused on people. Do you feel like that
was at the forefront of your mind when, on the Tuesday, just
24 hours after the quake, you said, ‘We’re open for
business,’ and sent out that message? Did you get poor
advice?
JUSTIN No,
I think we’ve had really good advice all the way through
that’s proven to be correct in the events that we’ve had
in the course of the last week as well. So we sat down with
New Zealand Police, with the Fire Service, with our
emergency response officials, and they’ve worked through
other earthquakes and, for example, down in Christchurch.
And that was absolutely correct. We’ve got a situation and
a complex decision. 17,000 people live in our CBD. Hundreds
of businesses would be affected. So we want to make sure we
make good decisions based on accurate
information.
JESSICA Was
it a risky decision, though? Was it a risky decision to
make, given you hadn’t checked all of those buildings?
JUSTIN It was a
difficult decision. What we had checked was all of the
public spaces, but we made it very clear when we said to
people, ‘Look, the CBD is safe, however, employees and
tenants within buildings, you must check with your building
owner, with your employers, before you re-enter those
buildings.’ And we’ve seen that people have taken good
steps too. People haven’t gone back into buildings until
they’re
safe.
JESSICA Minister
Gerry Brownlee said he was a little bit surprised and
somewhat unhappy that that message was given out too
quickly. Do you think you put too much emphasis on getting
businesses back in there and sending that message and trying
to be reassuring to people? Do you think you were a bit
complacent?
JUSTIN No,
as I said, we had the best expert advice on the ground. And
as you’ll talk to the minister, look, we met with the
minister a couple of days ago, and he was very
comforted—
JESSICA But
I’m talking about on the Tuesday, when you sent out that
message.
JUSTIN Look,
as I mentioned, 17,000 people live in our CBD. We had people
in the CBD, in these buildings. They need to know that
it’s safe to leave those buildings and to go out and walk
on CBD streets. We put cordons in place where was necessary.
We decided that we would take a localised approach, and that
has proven to be the correct one, because the vast majority
of buildings in Wellington have fared very well. The vast
majority of people have said, ‘You made the right
decisions. We support you.’ And we’re thankful that
we’ve taken a calm, a rational approach, based on expert
advice.
JESSICA
Although some of those buildings, though, that
have gotten into trouble, they’re new buildings. Were you
surprised by
that?
JUSTIN I was
a little bit surprised at how some of the more modern
buildings performed. And in the fullness of time, we’ll
need to ask questions around that.
JESSICA What questions need to be asked,
do you
think?
JUSTIN Look,
we have to sit down and ask, ‘What are the ground
conditions beneath those? What were the engineering
designs?’ And we’ll to ask in the fullness of time,
‘Do we need to make changes to the Building Code? Or do we
need to look at the process that’s
informed—‘
JESSICA Or
building on reclaimed land. Will that be looked at as
well?
JUSTIN Look,
you can build anywhere, essentially. I mean, they’ve built
an airport in the middle of the ocean in Japan. It’s a
question of how you build. And so we need to understand how
that looks in to the future, and again, this event will
inform those future decisions, which is great, because
we’re constantly improving our building practises in New
Zealand.
JESSICA Have
you talked about a subsidy for Wellington businesses,
similar to what we saw in Kaikoura? Around $500 per person
if you’ve got fewer than 20
employees.
JUSTIN Yes,
we have. We’ve considered that from a city council’s
perspective and we’ll also talk to the government about
that.
JESSICA How
likely is
that?
JUSTIN Look,
that’s a question that we need to discuss. From a city
council’s perspective, relatively likely, but we’d like
to sit down with government and see if we can get some
support where it’s
required.
JESSICA Some
people are saying that some of these government buildings
that were damaged, it’s an opportunity to move some of
those functions out of Wellington CBD into other areas.
Northland, for example, have put up their saying, ‘We
don’t have many earthquakes up here. Come and start up
here with us.’ What do you say to that as Wellington
mayor?
JUSTIN I
think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. These questions tend to
come up from time to time and I think it was raised in 2013
when we had an earthquake. Look, let’s be realistic, I
mean, Auckland sits on volcanoes; Christchurch, no one
expected to have an earthquake down there, and that was an
absolute tragedy; various different parts of the country
face natural disaster events. So this is an occurrence in
New Zealand, as it is in any other city in any other country
in the world. We need to live up to the risk. We need to
manage the risk, and I think Wellington’s well
placed.
JESSICA But
is that really realistic, because Wellington’s sitting in
the middle of a zone that has earthquakes all the time. Is
it realistic to say, ‘We’re just ready, and we’re
going to wait for the next
one.’
JUSTIN Look,
I don’t think it’s realistic to say we know when the
next event is going to occur anywhere. So we have to
understand that. We need to live with that. We need to
manage every risk. Look, I’m realistic. I think we know in
Wellington there will be future earthquakes. It's making
sure we’re well
prepared.
JESSICA Thank
you very much. It’s been a busy first few six weeks in the
job for you. Thank you very much for your time this
morning.
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