The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 was a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

statute that repealed the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010 and set out measures to respond to the impact of the Canterbury earthquakes, and in particular the February

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

Background

Earthquakes

On Saturday 4 September 2010, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Christchurch and the central Canterbury region at 4:35 am. Located near Darfield on the Greendale Fault, west of the city at a depth of , it caused widespread damage to the city and minor injuries, but no direct fatalities. Nearly six months later on Tuesday 22 February 2011, a second earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3 struck the city at 12:51 pm. It was located closer to the city, near Lyttelton at a depth of 5 km. Although lower on the

moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mwg, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. was defined in a 1979 paper ...

than the previous earthquake, the intensity and violence of the ground shaking was measured to be MM IX, among the strongest ever recorded globally in an urban area and in total 185 people were killed with nationals from more than 20 countries among the victims. Widespread damage was caused across Christchurch to buildings and infrastructure already weakened by the 4 September 2010 earthquake and its aftershocks. Significant

liquefaction In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics. It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of t ...

affected the eastern suburbs and parts of the central city, and the total cost to insurers of rebuilding has been estimated at NZ$20–30 billion. Due to an older building stock, and many buildings being multi-storey, the central city was hit especially hard.

Bill history

The bill, which was introduced by Hon. Gerry Brownlee of the

National Party National Party or Nationalist Party may refer to: Active parties * National Party of Australia, commonly known as ''The Nationals'' * Bangladesh: ** Bangladesh Nationalist Party ** Jatiya Party (Ershad) a.k.a. ''National Party (Ershad)'' * Californ ...

, had all three readings on 12 April 2011. Members who gave speeches in the first reading were Brownlee,

Clayton Cosgrove Clayton James Cosgrove (born 31 October 1969) is a former New Zealand politician. He is a member of the Labour Party. Early life Cosgrove was born in Nelson, New Zealand. He received a BA (Triple Major), in History, American Studies and Polit ...

( Labour),

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(National),

Lianne Dalziel Lianne Audrey Dalziel (; born 7 June 1960) is a New Zealand politician and former Mayor of Christchurch. Prior to this position, she was a member of the New Zealand Parliament for 23 years, serving as Minister of Immigration, Commerce, Minister ...

(Labour),

Kennedy Graham Kennedy Gollan Montrose Graham (born 1946) is a New Zealand politician, academic and diplomat. Following a career in diplomacy and international relations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand), New Zealand Foreign Servic ...

( Greens), Rahui Katene (

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

Nicky Wagner Nicola Joanne Wagner (born 23 July 1953) is a former New Zealand politician. After a career in teaching and business, she was a National Party member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 2005 to 2020, when she retired. Wagner repr ...

(National),

Ruth Dyson Ruth Suzanne Dyson (born 11 August 1957) is a former New Zealand politician. She was a Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1993 to 2020. She represented the electorate from the election to 2020. She also held a number of senior offices i ...

(Labour),

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(National), Brendon Burns (Labour),

Aaron Gilmore Aaron Wayne Gilmore (born 26 August 1973) is a New Zealand former politician and member of the New Zealand National Party. He was a list MP from the 2008 election until the 2011 election and again from February to May 2013. Early years Gilmore ...

(National), and

Jim Anderton James Patrick Anderton (born Byrne; 21 January 1938 – 7 January 2018) was a New Zealand politician who led a succession of Left-wing politics, left-wing parties after leaving the New Zealand Labour Party, Labour Party in 1989. Anderton's pol ...

( Progressive). All of the

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speakers voiced their concern about the top-down approach that was prescribed by the bill, and asked for an approach where community input had a stronger emphasis. A party vote was called for, and the first reading had 111 ayes (National, Labour, ACT, Māori, Progressive, and

United Future United Future New Zealand, usually known as United Future, was a Centrism, centrist List of political parties in New Zealand, political party in New Zealand. The party was in government between 2005 and 2017, first alongside New Zealand Labou ...

) and 11 noes (Green and the two independents). In the second reading, Cosgrove was critical of the secrecy around the bill. He claimed that a draft of the bill had been given to

Christchurch City Council The Christchurch City Council (CCC) is the local government authority for Christchurch in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority elected to represent the people of Christchurch. Since October 2022, the Mayor of Christchurch is Phil Ma ...

's solicitor, instructing him that it not be shared with elected members. He stated that submitters to the select committee had less than 24 hours to prepare their submissions.

Expiry

The act was set to expire five years after it commenced.

References

External links