'The Nation'

Clayton Cosgrove – Labour Quake Recovery Spokesman
Interviewed by SEAN PLUNKET

REBUILDING CHRISTCHURCH

Sean Labour has found fault with the Christchurch recovery effort on several fronts. Among other things it fears hundreds of Wellington bureaucrats with clipboards will be telling Cantabrians how to rebuild their city. They say the last thing residents need is more Wellington bureaucracy stifling the rebuild process. One of those MPs is Clayton Cosgrove, he is in fact Labour's Earthquake Recovery Spokesman, and he joins me now from Christchurch. Mr Cosgrove good morning to you/

Clayton Good morning Sean.

Sean We've just heard Gerry Brownlee say he is not going to get into criticism right now because he says the focus should be on doing stuff and rebuilding. Is that your philosophy or not?

Clayton There's no politics in this Sean, people would hang their heads in shame if they felt that people were point scoring and playing political games. However as a constituent Member of Parliament and as a community leader along with all Members of Parliament it is appropriate as we listen to our communities that when our communities are worried about things or when our communities have a view that we put those forward, and I must say I don’t think it's good enough as Mr Brownlee has said in the past when anybody has dared to raise their head and say look is there a better way, or our communities are perhaps about things, that we're playing politics or impeding progress. And I'll give you an example of that. When we raised with Mr Brownlee and Mr John Carter for weeks that businesses needed access or at least good quality information to get into the court, and I've never seen Christchurch businesses pick up placards, business people, and storm barricades, we were told we were impeding progress. Well hang on these guys are progress, they employ people, they have livelihoods, these are the progress on our city. And what they wanted was they just wanted decent information and that’s the point we made.

Sean You’ve said though you're not playing politics with this, yet how many Christchurch residents have actually been coming up to you saying for example that national standards should be halted in Christchurch because of the quake, because that was the line you most certainly were pushing yesterday in the latest of I understand, 17 Christchurch earthquake bulletins that have been put out from the Labour caucus in Wellington.

Clayton I don’t actually think I was talking about that yesterday, some of the colleagues were, and we've had school principals, and we have had parents who have said to us look our kids are under real stress, and I'll say our teachers are a third of the public service down here, who have had their own homes bowled, their own kids in difficulty, and there are teenage kids in our city who are taking leadership roles in their houses because the parents are stressed and under pressure. And they have said to us look can we just back off a little bit. These are right things to raise concerns about, and the quid pro quo for not being political is that government and those empowered …

Sean So you'll admit you are being political here. You just told me you weren’t playing politics with it.

Clayton No I said when we raise issues which do involve politics, national standards does involve a political issue. When we bring those issues forward from the community, I think the smart thing for government to do is say okay let's treat that in good faith, and let's have a listen. Now government will make a call and that is the issue, but I will stand by my community and raise my community's concerns till I drop.

Sean Final question Mr Cosgrove. There's gonna be some new legislation obviously for the new agency to rebuild Christchurch. Are Labour going to back it? Are you going to vote for it, and if you do does it mean you're gonna look …?

Clayton Sean we just had rather a large quake as we speak – sorry. So I missed that, we just had a good rattler.

Sean Alright are you going to support the legislation…

Clayton We've said that we'll give the bureaucrats a go, we will not stand in its way, but we will be putting some robust amendments up because your New Orleans piece has just said community's king, and we believe our communities want a say, they want efficient planning put in place, but they want a damn big say, and then they want the plans implemented quickly. And a committee of 20 who represents 400,000 I don’t think cuts it, and if you want a good template, have a look at what the Waimakarere District Council has done without a department, without bureaucracy, and they have had some very hard meetings where people have been told it's gonna be a couple of years before you get your life back, and their community's very supportive of what they do. We've gotta listen to our community.

Sean Also fair to say though in that New Orleans piece that there was 18 months of anarchy without strong leadership, and perhaps that is what is needed, and if Gerry Brownlee's providing that rather than saying gosh national standards are the biggest issue here, Labour MPs, Opposition MPs, just have to back off a little.

Clayton We didn’t say national standards was the biggest issue, that’s your words, and I'd invite you to have a look at some of the contributions we've made. The modus operandi for us has been to talk to Mr Brownlee directly off line, to then write to him if there's no action, and then if necessary if we feel strongly about it we do put it in the public arena because we are actually representing our communities, and it is the community feelings that we are actually charged with dealing with, and that shouldn’t be treated as politics. I would have thought the powers that be would want to listen to their communities, would want that feedback, and we will continue to give that in a constructive way, just like we will put positive amendments up to the legislation, because we believe it can be better, and we are worried about bureaucrats, and we've got 50 of them, the first battalion is coming down here I think next week, and we are worried about that, and if we do have positive suggestions that’s what they pay us a wage to do, is to make those suggestions. If the deal is that if you shut up and say nothing that’s what you should do, and that means you're not playing politics. Well sorry, I will continue to make recommendations to Mr Brownlee like I did over the business community. I hope he just listens.

Sean Would you be more positive – and you'll disagree with me that I'm saying you're being negative – if perhaps there was some more joint approach to the rebuild, if perhaps you could be brought into the camp and given some responsibility?

Clayton Oh I don’t think it's about patch protection. Look Mr Brownlee's the Minister, the government is the government, they hold all the cards they make the decision. It's not about me or what I want or what my colleagues want. What we do want is when we bring issues forward like saying Mr Brownlee for three weeks the business community is under huge pressure, they need information, that we're actually listened to, not about us actually, but those members of the community, that they’ve come to us, and other stakeholders…

Sean A final question Clayton Cosgrove. Will Labour support an abrogation or a limiting of people's legal rights to appeal against decisions made about their homes and property in the rebuild process?

Clayton Well I haven’t seen any legislation. We weren’t consulted on the legislation, nor were we consulted on the structure of the legislation even though Mr Brownlee committed to this.

Sean Is that a no?

Clayton No, I'm very worried about that abrogation of appeal rights, so we'll have to see what.

Sean So we'll have to see what's in the legislation.

Clayton Absolutely.

Sean Thank you for your time Clayton Cosgrove, he is Labour's Earthquake Recovery Spokesman.

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