Q+A's Paul Holmes interviews Christchurch Mayor, Bob Parker about the Canterbury Earthquake.

BOB PARKER interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL The Mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, very nice to see you. Bob I was going to ask you first what is that building that we've been looking at for all afternoon yesterday, last evening with the news and now this morning, what is that wreck behind you?

BOB PARKER - Christchurch Mayor

Well it was a jewellery shop down below Paul and upstairs you can still see some offices up there, and with the wind that's coming up I imagine the contents of those are gonna be well distributed around the town, so we hope there are not confidential papers in there. But down below a jewellery shop. On the opposite corner behind the camera in effect, there's an historic all church building, it's now a restaurant. I'm just really worried about that, I've just been getting people to get away from it. With the after shocks we're having the guys on the crew are telling me they're seeing part of that just tilting. There's a lot of damage across the road, just another old restaurant. We had a fire yesterday. This is a pretty devastated part of the central city, and it's the old masonry buildings that have really suffered. But you know the blessing mate is that despite all of this we haven't lost anybody to the earthquake, and you've got a 7.4 hitting 30ks from the centre of a population base of greater Christchurch of around half a million people, and you know it's just a miracle. I just cannot believe that we've got through this. So you can fix roads, you can patch buildings, you can replace pipes, you can't replace people, and that is the blessing. So although we've got some tough days ahead of us Paul, and I'm not optimistic - I heard Peter, and I'd like the central area to be open for business tomorrow, but I have to say looking at some of the buildings around here, that would be less likely I think.

PAUL As well; with the weather you've got coming. You actually Bob have been flying over the city this morning, we have pictures ourselves I think of some of the sites, that you or we may have seen over the city. What did you see as you flew above Christchurch?

BOB Well the Air Force put a machine on for us, and you know the first glance is that everything looks okay from a distance. Then you start focusing in and you see the areas where walls have broken. Here we're looking at areas around the side of a river where there's been liquefaction. In other words the ground has simply and frighteningly turned to a kind of a liquid mush. It squirts up through cracks in the paving and then it leaves a gap underneath. The roads collapse into that, houses collapse into that. So you know that kinda stuff is scary, and we've all been to Civil Defence meetings and lectures where people say now liquefaction's a bad thing and your city's gonna have problems with that. You know I can really see that, you know I think stuff tipping over is what the problem's gonna be, but I really have seen this now and from the air the devastation in the eastern part of the city is amazing you know. One house will be up, one house will be down in a slight pit. Houses off foundations. We've got a lot of work to do in the infrastructure. There are over 200 leaks identified yesterday and early this morning. We've got water back to 80% of the city. Power back to more than 90% of it, but the damage on the roads. I tell you what was great, and that was getting three ministers and the Prime Minister down here on the ground, and they could see for themselves the scale of what's happened, and I think that will help us get the kind of central government support that we've been offered, we're getting, and it going to be so important in the weeks ahead.

PAUL It was of course, and we could all see this Bob, one hell of a day for people in Canterbury, people in Christchurch yesterday. Must have been for yourself and for your people, a very long day, probably a very long night as well. I was watching things unfold yesterday and thinking about the things you were saying at your state of emergency meeting, at 10.15. I was listening to you, I'm thinking gosh there are so many small details that one suddenly has never thought about before that one has to get right. For example, I was thinking, when the announcement was made that only inner city residents, some 8000 people may come back into the CBD, and then I'm thinking who makes the rule on what is the test, by which a person tells the Police they exist in the inner city. Is a driver's license gonna be it? How do you tell all the officers a driver's license is enough? That kinda stuff?

BOB Yeah, oh you're absolutely right. You're completely dependent on your fellow citizens and look the people here have been absolutely bloody fantastic, and you had neighbours looking after neighbours, checking on old people, and you know there are always a few idiots in these things, you know there's always someone who wants to just push it a bit further, who just treats this as a joke, when in fact for most people this is as real as it ever gets, and that's just their way of coping, and we have to recognise that as well. This is about compassion and helping and trust, and working together, and it's all the stuff that we like to talk about, but here it is really happening Paul, and the response from people around the country has been truly magnificent. I've gotta say the media have done an outstanding job, and I have to compliment everybody from the print media through to the radio and the television, that helped us get the messages out to our people. We couldn't have reassured our community that we're out there that we're working, without the sort of intelligent reporting we've had. And look I'm a guy who's complained about a few things that I've had to read...

PAUL I was going to say you've chosen a very good time in the electoral cycle to be praising the work of the news media. Bob speaking of people around the country, the Mayor of Waitakere City would like to have a word with you.

BOB H Bob I really feel for you actually in what you're doing. The fact is all mayors when they hit that moment of truth they have that ownership and they have to take that leadership. I felt for Bob Parker who I regard as hugely very good mayor of New Zealand, but you know we've tried in Auckland anyway to make sure that tsunami warnings were up in place, and George Wood and I following the big Indonesian tsunami worked like hell and every device is now on every beach, so we've got the warning. But earthquakes there is no warning, and you've just got to be there, and Bob is there, he's the man.

PAUL Bob can I just ask you. The Prime Minister has said, so everybody else is saying it this morning that things pretty well okay, there might have been some discussion about the length of time it took to call a state of emergency, but people seemed to be thinking and saying that in Christchurch yesterday morning things worked pretty well towards a resolution of where you had to go as a city. Looking back to yesterday morning however, as the Mayor, if you were to look honestly at your performance or the performance of the services, what would need to change, what would you want to have a look at say if you continued to be the Mayor, in terms of civil defence.

BOB I think we're too early, we're actually living this moment by moment Paul and I think that you know okay we're getting a bit of space to do more assessment now, and we'll start looking back. You know we declared the state of emergency when we had the knowledge to declare it, you could jump in and go straight for it, but you don't want to send the wrong message. The cooperation has been extraordinary. So I don't have a single complaint, or a change that I can think of at this second, and that's because like everybody here, and thank you for your kind words Bob, I really do appreciate that. But everybody here from the Mayor down across the structures of this city is working really really hard. This is in a sense like a military campaign I imagine, because the best laid plans will never work out, you're continually adapting that which you take for granted one minute has completely changed the next. I can't tell you what will happen in the next 30 seconds. And that's really the reality of the situation that we are in.

PAUL I understand. Very good, Mayor of Christchurch, Bob Harvey...

BOB No Bob Harvey's the Mayor of bloody Waitakere.

PAUL I beg your pardon Bob Parker. I was just going to say there are no trees in our shots, we can't anywhere around the country see what the wind is doing, but we can see it from your hair that the wind is starting to come up, and so I hope that's not too unpleasant a problem for the people of Christchurch.

ends

© Scoop Media