'The Nation'
Bob Parker
Interviewed by DUNCAN GARNER

Duncan Canterbury earthquake recovery boss Roger Sutton has given a speech on the challenges facing Christchurch as it begins to rebuild after its devastating earthquakes. He talked about the need to make the right decisions and to make them quickly. But neither he nor Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee would appear on the programme to discuss the issues raised in that speech. The Christchurch City Council is central of course to this decision making. This week the Council raised rates nearly 7½% but refused further rates relief to red zoners who cannot live in their homes. Many of these homeless ratepayers are also grappling with a sharp rise in rents.

To discuss all this now I'm joined by Bob Parker Christchurch's Mayor. Mr Parker thanks for coming on the programme.

Good morning Duncan.

Duncan Rates are going up by the looks of it with your draft plan there by about 7½% but haven’t the residents suffered enough already?

Bob Parker – Christchurch Mayor
Oh look I think everybody's suffered enough and you know it doesn’t bring any joy knowing that you're bringing another increase of costs into people's lives, but I think we have to look at the situation we find ourselves in. I was just doing some calculations before around the scale of the infrastructure that as a community – because we're all shareholders together in this process – as a community we're gonna have to rebuild to get our city functioning again, to preserve the value and the opportunities and the schools and jobs and the lives.

Duncan Is it a given that this will go up by 7½%?

Bob It's not a given, no it's a draft, it's out there for public discussion, but I think the figure we've worked at is we've worked to getting something that’s pretty clear, pretty straightforward, it involves both the normal rates of around about 3½%, and then on top of that there are two extra quantities which are directly related to the earthquake. But what I was gonna say was, you know we've go to build a roadway equivalent to building a new road between Wellington and Auckland. Over 325 kilometres of waste water systems to be replaced, and well over a 100 kilometres of prime water mains and reservoirs and that’s just basically the almost invisible stuff.

Duncan One of the big issues you’ve got down there of course is rates relief or remission. You’ve given 100% remission or relief to those people living under that rock fall, but only a 40% remission to those other red zoners. Is it fair if you like that these people are paying rates, they're homeless, they're not living in their homes yet they're paying rates. Why can't they get 100% rates relief Mr Parker?

Bob I think that’s an absolutely fair question. The difference that Council sees….

Duncan But what's the answer then because you voted 10 to 4 against it this week. How did you vote?

Bob Well I voted to support the 100% remission and the 40% remission, and I agree that it's not perfect, but what I'd like to do is just give you a little bit of the rationale for the difference that Council saw, and that’s an arguable difference and there’ll be further debate in the community, and maybe we can find a better way to do it. But if you’ve got 100% remission, that’s because you can't even go down your street, you can't get on to your property, you can't store anything there, you can't go into your house to get stuff or into the garage, you can't even start to carry out some temporary repairs if you were thinking of living in a damaged property for a bit longer to save on rent. If you're getting the 40% rebate it's because your house can't be occupied, but you can't still….

Duncan But it can't be, it still can be cos they're in the red zone and even your Chief Executive Tony Marriot has written to Lianne Dalziel earlier in the year, saying the Council did not take into account the issue of fairness and equity. I mean you’ve got to look at it as a fairness issue don’t you?

Bob I think you do…

Duncan So why don’t you allow, it's a 3.5 million dollars if you gave that remission to those other people. You could get that out of the mayoral fund which has currently got 30 million dollars in it. There's a solution right there staring at you in the face, why don’t you go with it?

Bob Well it's a possibility. But I think that what we have to understand is that if you’ve the 40% remission it's because you’ve got access to your property, there are things that you can there. So there is that fundamental difference, but I agree, it doesn’t appear to be fair on the surface of it. I think it does need more work and we're certainly going to be looking at that at the moment.

Duncan So you're saying that the vote against it this week 10-4 not to give that further rates relief. You're saying that you'll go back – you're giving a commitment to the people of Christchurch this morning that you will go back and relook at this for them, or not?

Bob Well that’s the way it is, I mean this is a proposed budget right?

Duncan Sorry Mr Parker. Are you going to give them a commitment this morning that you will go back and put this on the table, because the Council voted against it this week?

Bob Yeah, because they're voting to put out a draft plan. So what they're doing is as a collective group, they're saying these are we think in the end the best services, the best projects the best costs that we have got. But what we want you to do is look at it and say you’ve got it completely wrong, there are alternatives, this is what we prefer, and then Council goes back. And to answer your question – yes, all of the key issues that are raised through that consultation process then go back for further decision making, we look at the ideas. In the meantime we're not doing nothing, we're also looking at ….

Duncan But you're against it personally as the Mayor because you’ve voted for only a partial relief?

Bob No no no, I'm not necessarily against anything. What we're doing is ….

Duncan No no no no, sorry Mr Parker, with all due respect, you voted against this week 100% rates remission for those people in the red zone. That is the truth isn't it?

Bob Yes that is the truth, and I believe for the process which we're in at the moment which is to provide a draft plan, that I personally am happy with that decision. So were the majority of Council based on a full range of reasons that were put in front of us. well what I'm saying to you is like anything in a draft plan, we're going to go back and look at it. So you make a decision to get the draft out, you recognise that’s the basis for discussion, and there may be areas that will be changed – there usually are – once you get to the end of that process you get submissions and you take hearings. By the way people who are renting a property are paying rates, but they're not paying their rent and then a separate rates bill.

Duncan Well let's look at that. You bring up rent and you bring up rentals. In terms of your rental market Gerry Brownlee this morning says there is no crisis in the rental market, but the stats are alarming, a 42% increase in inquiries for rental, 40% decrease in rentals, a 15% price hike across the city in terms of rents. I'm sorry but it looks like a crisis from where I sit. Is it a crisis or not?

Bob I think it's a very difficult situation and I think there are a number of people in what would be for them, an absolute crisis…

Duncan So Gerry Brownlee's wrong is he to say there's not a crisis.

Bob In my view there are some significant issues in the market. I think where Mr Brownlee is coming from is that he believes that the market can resolve that. I'm not so sure myself, you know I actually think that the message he gave to Housing New Zealand today for example, get your houses fixed, get them back on to the market, was a very good message for him to send. But I think there is a problem there, and a number of people ….

Duncan A crisis Mr Parker, is it a crisis?

Bob Well it depends how you define crisis on an individual level. You know I'm not here to justify someone else's words right, but I would say on an individual level yeah it'll be a crisis for some people. There are many things in people's lives that are crises. Over the whole of the city I would put it in the frame of being an issue. It's an issue that will get bigger and bigger and bigger unless we figure out how we're going to resolve it, and unless we get more properties on to the market.

Duncan That’s the point isn't it? Why haven’t you been able to persuade Gerry Brownlee to step in, to intervene and to come up with some kind of outcome here for people, because there simply aren’t the houses? Why haven’t you been able to convince him?

Bob Well you know Mr Brownlee has an overall responsibility in that area, and those are the decisions that he believes are the right ones to make from his perspective.

Duncan Have you lobbied him, have you talked to him, have you asked him to intervene?

Bob We went to government more than a year ago and said, you know there are some real issues that are going to – we can see arising in the future around accommodation, both temporary workers and people being relocated. And I think that we should have at that point, probably started a project to use the Council land which we had offered, to work with private developers and to get some temporary accommodation built.

Duncan But didn’t you just turn down a private developer's request in the last week to buy some land and to set up?

Bob Did we do that?

Duncan Yes.

Bob Yes we did because the land in our view…

Duncan Why? Well you we're just talking about solutions there was a solution on the horizon there Mr Parker, with all due respect, you turned it down.

Bob No, with all due respect to you, you must let me finish when you ask a question, not rush in and ask why when I'm about to explain it to you.

Duncan Please answer it then.

Bob I would love to. The land itself is not, in our view, suitable. It's got a whole lot of issues. So if you're gonna put permanent houses in areas which are effectively potentially subject to the same issues that you’ve seen impacting on the red zones in Christchurch, I don’t think that’s a good decision. And that was basically underlying this particular decision of Council's.

Duncan When was the last time then Mayor Parker that you talked to Gerry Brownlee about rental housing, about a solution? When was it?

Bob Yesterday actually?

Duncan And what did he say to you? Is there any commitment to help these people or not?

Bob I think that there are a number of initiatives that Mr Brownlee is making, it's not for me to pre-empt those publicly. One of the things that I offered again yesterday was the fact that we've got Council land in the central city area, significant amounts of it, and I think we should be looking at a way to encourage some private development on that land, looking at both temporary and long term housing….

Duncan And what was Gerry Brownlee's response to that?

Bob Gerry Brownlee is thinking about that, and he's got a number of other issues…

Duncan Is that good enough as the Mayor of Christchurch for you, and for your people, for your constituency, that he's thinking about it. Because it looks perhaps to your ratepayers like inaction?

Bob Well I'll be talking to him again on Sunday, and take the conversation further.

Duncan Do you think he's doing enough?

Bob I think overall they're doing a remarkable job actually, and I think what we've got around the edges of this massive massive issue are a number of really difficult areas to either solve quickly overnight, and also some long term issues that will need to be addressed.

Duncan So is that a no or a yes on rental accommodation?

Bob On rental accommodation my personal view is that we're going to have intervene, we're going to have to do more. So I guess my honest answer there is I don’t think they're doing enough. I hope he's right, but I think we need to be more interventionist.

Duncan So you're asking the government to intervene or the Council. I mean is the government to intervene, you're asking the government to intervene aren’t you?

Bob I'm asking the government to work with us to help us find more solutions for our community.

Duncan Alright Mr Parker I just want to move on to Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, to Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. I understand that perhaps you may be getting some of your powers of planning in the CBD stripped from you with a new entity being taken into CERA – what have you been told about that?

Bob Well the first thing is, you know when CERA came into force back early last year, they took all of the powers essentially from Council, so they can't strip any powers, they’ve already got the powers.

Duncan They gave you powers in the CBD didn’t they though, they gave you some overseeing powers around planning. Do you understand that you're going to lose those?

Bob No I don’t understand that we're going to lose those. What I understand and I've had some conversations with Mr Brownlee about this, is that we're actually going to be working in a collaborative, cooperative manner, as we try to around all of the areas that we're currently engaged in, to get a better outcome for our city, and that’s the basis on which I'm looking forward to the announcement next week.

Duncan So what's the announcement next week?

Bob Well the announcement effectively I believe is going to be around the implementation of the central city plan.

Duncan So that’s going to go into CERA, a new entity within CERA if you like that will oversee alongside the Council the CBD plan correct?

Bob Council has already been overseen by CERA so it wouldn’t need to be a new entity. So what we've gotta do now is move from the planning phase. We delivered the report to the Minister in December of last year, and there are two key components to that. One is the overall design, look and feel, the vision for the city, and how that breaks down into various precincts and height levels and those issues, and the second part of it is the plan rules around which you implement.

Duncan But you’ve just pre-empted the Minister's decision haven’t you because there is going to be announcement next week about this new entity if you like within CERA. I just want to put to you Mark Ford, he's head of Watercare up here, Mark Ford, also oversaw the institution of the Auckland Super City. Have you understood that his name is involved in overseeing this?

Bob Oh that’s a name I've heard bandied around yes.

Duncan And what have you heard?

Bob Well I'm not prepared to go any further down that track…

Duncan Is he going to be overseeing the rebuild of the CBD?

Bob I don’t know that. I don’t know that.

Duncan But you’ve heard that have you?

Bob I've heard rumours about all sorts of things. What I'm interested in are the facts, and the facts that I can give you are these. One, this is the Minister's proposal, and he will announce it next week. Two, I haven’t heard about us losing any powers. Three, we're all interested in one thing, and that is, when we implement the city plan, which is the basis for the centre of Christchurch for hundreds of years to come. It's so important that we get the vision that our community gave us and make it work efficiently, effectively and get the quality of outcome. If we get it wrong we're getting our future wrong.

Duncan I just want to clear that up though if we can Mr Parker. Your understanding of the announcement next week is that there is going to be a new entity or some kind of new approach to the CBD rebuild – yes?

Bob My understanding of the announcement next week is it's going to show us how we move from the planning phase into the implementation phase.

Duncan Final question from me Mayor Parker. The cathedral. Do you want to see that rebuilt?

Bob I've got mixed feelings about it. First of all I agree that it has to come down in a safe way for us to remove from it, or the church to remove from it, the quality antiques and memorabilia and story of the history of the province, and it's falling over on a daily basis. So I don’t agree with those who say you can just batten it up now and we can fix it up. You can however when you bring it down to a safe level, rebuild it back to exactly what it was like, but stronger.

Duncan And is that your position just quietly?

Bob My personal view would be actually to use this as an opportunity to combine both parts of that original cathedral to tell the history of city, to show what happened and to combine it with a new inspirational front end on it, a new spire to inspire. But that’s a personal view, everybody in the city has a different view about it, and I think the key thing is that the options are kept open. That’s what is actually happening at the moment.

Duncan Thank you so much Bob Parker, Mayor of Christchurch for your time on the Nation this morning.

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