Happy anniversary Christchurch

56 comments on “Happy anniversary Christchurch ”

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1. Colonial Viper 1

   5 September 2011 at 7:42 am

   Yes Brownlee had to own up, couldn’t let that creep around and damage Key’s brand.

   At least John Key “slept in Christchurch” as an act of “solidarity”. What a loser. How about creating 5,000 new jobs in Christchurch as a proper act of solidarity?
   • Jim Nald 1.1

     5 September 2011 at 8:38 am

     Brings to mind a verse from the Bard ………

     Sleep shall neither night nor day

     Hang upon his penthouse lid.

     He shall live a man forbid.

     Weary sev’nnights nine times nine

     Shall he dwindle, peak and pine.

     http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_10.html
2. tsmithfield 2

   5 September 2011 at 8:01 am

   And how about the fact that things are far better than they could have been without the governments help.

   The region has escaped a huge leap in unemployment because of the speed at which businesses handled the crisis and the more than $200 million the Government pumped into supporting them with a 14-week wage subsidy.

   Many firms have credited that money with saving their business from failure and staff from the dole queue.
   • Colonial Viper 2.1

     5 September 2011 at 8:18 am

     hey ts, a 14 week wage subsidy when it was clear that many businesses would not be able to get back up and running in under 12 months.

     Did you notice that at the end of 14 weeks, businesses started to go under at an even faster rate and people started leaving Christchurch long term when it was clear the Govt was going to do fuck all more to keep the Christchurch economy going?

     How generous.
     • kriswgtn 2.1.1

       5 September 2011 at 8:30 am

       yeah while down the road good ol boy Hubbard gets alot of $ which cudda been used to pay those wages for a bit longer………………….

       i have an late unvelining in CHCH to go to in 2 weeks and I for one am not looking forward to visit the place- the pictures my sister has sent me over the past year-you wont see them on the news…………….

       I found on youtube in weekend 4 videos recewntly uploaded by a worker inside the red zone in cbd- I watched 1

       its all gone

       ll find the link later today if any one interested-theres 24 mins of driving around worth in 4 vids and post em in open mike
     • tsmithfield 2.1.2

       5 September 2011 at 8:55 am

       CV: “hey ts, a 14 week wage subsidy when it was clear that many businesses would not be able to get back up and running in under 12 months.

       Did you notice that at the end of 14 weeks, businesses started to go under at an even faster rate and people started leaving Christchurch long term when it was clear the Govt was going to do fuck all more to keep the Christchurch economy going?

       How generous.”

       From the article I linked to:

       But unemployment in Canterbury has risen, of course. About 20,200 were unemployed as at June 20 this year, up from 16,800 in June 2010.

       That is a 5.7 per cent unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted), still below the 6.6 per cent national unadjusted rate.

       The 5.7 per cent rate does not sound high, but it is the highest in a decade for Canterbury.

       Note that, although not surprisingly, the unemployment rate is the highest in Canterbury for a decade, it is still substantially lower than the national rate. Hardly a collapsing economy.

       Also, it is unreasonable for the government (i.e. the people of NZ) to take responsibility for every aspect of business decision making, for instance the amount and duration of business interruption insurance that businesses did or didn’t invest in.
       • Colonial Viper 2.1.2.1

         5 September 2011 at 8:57 am

         Note that, although not surprisingly, the unemployment rate is the highest in Canterbury for a decade, it is still substantially lower than the national rate. Hardly a collapsing economy.

         You didn’t add in the 10,000- 15,000 unemployed workers abandoned by the Government and who have already left Christchurch (for elsewhere in NZ or some for Australia). If you counted them (instead of ignoring them) that would push Christchurch unemployment close to 10%.

         Also, it is unreasonable for the government (i.e. the people of NZ) to take responsibility for every aspect of business decision making, for instance the amount and duration of business interruption insurance that businesses did or didn’t invest in.

         Fuck off, the Government needs to take responsibility for the fact that Christchurch is a massive national disaster zone and 14 weeks wage support is a shitty low level of responsibility for National to take.

         Businesses didn’t get enough business interruption cover? Why should employees suffer for bad business owners and bad business management decisions?
         • Enough is Enough 2.1.2.1.1

           5 September 2011 at 1:04 pm

           CV

           We are sick of bailing out private business after they make silly decisions. Every private business should have at least 12 months Business Interuption insurance. There is no excuse for not having that.

           As a nation we should look after our fellow citizens that are left high and dry because of the earthquake.

           That shouldn’t extend to capitalists who take short cuts and don’t insure their business properly.

           I am sick of profits going to business owners but the state having to pay for their losses.

           Government for people…not profits.
           • Colonial Viper 2.1.2.1.1.1

             5 September 2011 at 1:40 pm

             Every private business should have at least 12 months Business Interuption insurance. There is no excuse for not having that.

             Time to make it law then. But better recognise that Business Interruption Insurance is not a substitute for rebuilding the Christchurch real economy. And that is a Government responsibility.

             And I agree, workers and citizens who have been left high and dry need much more support than National has been giving them.
           • prism 2.1.2.1.1.2

             6 September 2011 at 11:10 am

             @ Enough is Enough
             Most small businesses are just people like you who have had a go at making something and selling it themselves. They do their best but may not have enough profit to take out expensive insurance based on unlikely events. Such events as one, two, three…earthquakes were never envisaged by anyone.

             In NZ the majority of businesses are mini ones employing just a few people. That forms the fabric of NZs trading life, not bloated sorts that you might imagine. The bloated ones are more likely the large fish that have eaten the small ones or land speculators that play chess with property schemes for big money, or financiers lending for this or providing credit for those with a gap between need and want, constant poverty making such people vulnerable to temptation of bad borrowing.
3. Lanthanide 3

   5 September 2011 at 9:21 am

   “My question for our legal experts – can the government appeal this? If so, in what time frame? ”

   I’m not a legal expert whatsoever, but a few weeks ago when this was first going to the court, the story on Checkpoint on Radio NZ was that both the insurers and the EQC were taking the issue jointly to the court for the court to decide, simply because the law wasn’t clear in this particular case.

   This isn’t an instance of EQC “losing” a case.
   • r0b 3.1

     5 September 2011 at 12:02 pm

     Thanks for the clarification.  I would assume, however, that there is still an appeals process for this decision?
     • Lanthanide 3.1.1

       5 September 2011 at 12:24 pm

       Probably, but if they deliberately went to the court to ascertain where the cost was to lie, then there’s probably not much for them to appeal on or any desire to do so.

       I don’t recall if they had a spokesperson from the insurance companies talking about it, but IIRC they did interview someone from EQC. They definitely didn’t say it directly, but from their tone and the words used, I got the distinct impression that they were expecting to have to foot the costs, but just needed the court to set a legal judgement one way or the other.

       Note that one aspect of the decision is that EQC have to pay multiple claims, but for each additional claim they are entitled to a new levy (which is like $75 or something, so meaningless in the face of a $100k claim, but still has to be accounted for).
4. tsmithfield 4

   5 September 2011 at 9:29 am

   CV “You didn’t add in the 10,000- 15,000 unemployed workers abandoned by the Government and who have already left Christchurch (for elsewhere in NZ or some for Australia). If you counted them (instead of ignoring them) that would push Christchurch unemployment close to 10%.”

   You are assuming that all of these actually lost jobs, when in fact a lot of people left because they were freaked out. Also, many may have already been unemployed, retired etc. So your assumption is not valid.

   CV “Fuck off, the Government needs to take responsibility for the fact that Christchurch is a massive national disaster zone and 14 weeks wage support is a shitty low level of responsibility for National to take.”

   Even if the government had extended its wage subsidy for twelve months, businesses such as hotels in the red zone that are being demolished still wouldn’t be up and running within that time frame. However, my experience with dealing with businesses in Christchurch is that even those in the hard hit east have been able to get up and running again. In fact we have benefited a lot by helping them to do so.

   CV “Businesses didn’t get enough business interruption cover? Why should employees suffer for bad business owners and bad business management decisions?”

   And why should taxpayers suffer for those decisions?
   • Lanthanide 4.1

     5 September 2011 at 9:59 am

     There is also something to be said for limiting the support to 14 weeks only. It forces businesses to get up and running; they can’t simply take it slow relying on the government handout.

     My sister and her boyfriend are both clinical psychologists and have a bit to do with ACC and people who have injuries like chronic pain. They’ve said one of the biggest barriers to recovery is actually ACC payments. She gave a good example: if you were working as a professional earning $80-90k and then got injured in a car crash, ACC will pay you your salary at 75% (or 80%, anyway the rate is unimportant). These people effectively get paid a lot of money to sit at home and do nothing. If they actually returned to the workforce, because of their injury, they’d be earning much less. So the ACC payments act as an incentive against meaningful recovery.

     Similarly propping businesses up on life support for 12 months wouldn’t actually have been in the best interests of the businesses, and certainly not for the tax payers in the rest of the country.

     I think they should have extended the payments a bit longer than 14 weeks, or at least had additional funding available on a strict case-by-case criteria, but I’m not entirely sure that anything offered by a Labour government would have been much more generous than what National did.
     • tsmithfield 4.1.1

       5 September 2011 at 10:07 am

       An unusual break-out of agreement between Lanth and myself. 🙂

       The whole point of the subsidy was to keep otherwise viable businesses viable.

       Businesses that required ongoing support for twelve months would likely to be unviable after that period of time for a whole host of reasons. So it would likely have been pouring money down the toilet.
     • Carol 4.1.2

       5 September 2011 at 5:08 pm

       I disagree that ACC is a disincentive to return to work. I am on ACC due to a recent non-work accident. The line I get from ACC is that they will be looking for me to be returning to work as soon as. Their official line is that it’s better for people to be working. I was interviewed in a fair amount of detail as to what my work involves. They will be talking to my employers about getting me back to work, possibly on reduced hours and/ lighter duties in the first instance. My ACC case manager will be talking to me again this week.

       Actually, I felt mildly harassed, as it seemed it wasn’t about what’s best for me, but about the moneyz. But, whatever… I trust the doctors and will go by what they say about my work readiness.

       And overall, I am impressed with the whole ACC system, as I really didn’t know much about it before.
       • Lanthanide 4.1.2.1

         5 September 2011 at 5:45 pm

         They were talking in the context of people who have had serious disablement from an accident that has left them out of work for quite a long time, while also receiving very large payments from ACC.

         Also, being psychologists and dealing with things like chronic pain, they were talking about cases where someone’s ability to rehabilitate is strongly linked to their desire to do so, as in it’s not simply a matter of waiting 6 weeks for your leg to get better, but you have to actively push yourself and in some cases simply learn to manage your pain.
         • Carol 4.1.2.1.1

           5 September 2011 at 6:10 pm

           OK. That is different. I don’t know a lot about long term recovery & pain.
   • bbfloyd 4.2

     5 September 2011 at 11:57 am

     t.s; ” why should taxpayers suffer for these decisions”…. what are you using for a brain now that your dog has got his balls back? tens of thousands of people leave their home because the so called “leaders” have done NOTHING to actually get the rebuild going at a reasonable rate… NOTHING towards contributing to the serious decisions needed regarding the long term future of the christchurch region..

     they couldn’t even get temporary housing underway in less than a year…. they are only NOW actually building the temporary homes required a year ago… and by the way… the main impediment to that happening was problems getting the govt to actually pay the builders for them..

     and don’t waste my time attempting to tell more of your silly little lies in order to simply continue arguing black is white… i know personally the people involved in one of the contracts supplying these units…. at present, the company is owed approximately $400k by the govt, which goes a long way to explaining why it has taken so long to get anything done…

     the reports i am getting from workers down there is that they have never seen, and experienced so much anger and frustration… the people of christchurch are seriously pissed off with brownlee and key…

     they are sick of watching their sons and daughters leaving to places where they have some sort of future…sick of being used as no more than props for johnny sparkle to playact the caring, concerned leader when it is well known that the nats are happy to see labour voting electorates empty out…

     you really are a unwholesome piece of goatshit if you think that defending incompetence and corruption is preferable to accepting that this whole situation has been cynically mishandled from the start….

     reality for the people of christchurch bears no resemblance to the utter drivel that passes for news coming from those shaved poodles who we laughingly refer to as the “news” media…
     • tsmithfield 4.2.1

       5 September 2011 at 12:23 pm

       bbf “they couldn’t even get temporary housing underway in less than a year…. they are only NOW actually building the temporary homes required a year ago… and by the way… the main impediment to that happening was problems getting the govt to actually pay the builders for them..”

       Actually, I have a son who works for a building company building temporary housing that has been building houses for probably four months now. To date they have probably built 100 or so. The uptake of housing built to date has been very slow. So it is probably a good thing the government didn’t follow the advice of articles I have seen on this site that suggested the government should be building thousands of them.

       bbf “and don’t waste my time attempting to tell more of your silly little lies in order to simply continue arguing black is white…”

       Really? I’ll call you on that one. Where have I lied?

       bbf “the reports i am getting from workers down there is that they have never seen, and experienced so much anger and frustration… the people of christchurch are seriously pissed off with brownlee and key…”

       Yes. I guess things can always be done better. But face it. Its not Haiti, is it?

       bbf “you really are a unwholesome piece of goatshit if you think that defending incompetence and corruption is preferable to accepting that this whole situation has been cynically mishandled from the start….”

       Probably no more than you who seems to think the way to argue ideas is to attack the person rather than debate the point of discussion.
   • Colonial Viper 4.3

     5 September 2011 at 1:44 pm

     And why should taxpayers suffer for those decisions?

     Uh…because we don’t want to leave fellow NZ’ers high and dry? Well, you might.

     Families in Christchurch are struggling to stay on their feet and protect their children from post traumatic stress and you are worried about protecting above average earners and the wealthy from a $1000/year levy.

     Good one, try and look after the country and its citizens for once, not the ‘tax payer’.
     • tsmithfield 4.3.1

       5 September 2011 at 1:53 pm

       “Good one, try and look after the country and its citizens for once, not the ‘tax payer’.”

       So, you are saying that the only people who are considered citizens of this country are those that are not tax payers? What a strange world you live in.

       By your argument, those who lost their jobs due to bad decisions made by South Canterbury Finance Ltd should be getting their wages almost dollar for dollar ad infinitum, if the government should step in where bad business decisions have been made as you suggest.
       • Colonial Viper 4.3.1.1

         5 September 2011 at 2:36 pm

         Glad you brought up SCF.

         English found $1.7B to support the big shot investors there.

         But him and Brownlee couldn’t find 1/10 of that to support Christchurch workers who had lost their jobs.

         Priorities of the National Government are very clear.

         f the government should step in where bad business decisions have been made as you suggest.

         Christchurch is a massive disaster zone; not a ‘bad business decision’ and the Government has given workers there shitty negligible levels of support which ended after 14 weeks.
         • tsmithfield 4.3.1.1.1

           5 September 2011 at 3:12 pm

           You can argue the specific merits of the SCF case. However, as I recall it, it was Labour who opened the door by introducing the scheme that allowed fat cats to be bailed out, wasn’t it?
           • burt 4.3.1.1.1.1

             5 September 2011 at 3:24 pm

             Yes it was, but it was OK because there was an election coming and they didn’t want to loose the votes of people who made ‘all eggs in one basket’ investment decisions.

             Socialism – making sure you never need to be responsible for your own choices.

             Spending others peoples money is fine till there is none left !
           • Colonial Viper 4.3.1.1.1.2

             5 September 2011 at 3:51 pm

             However, as I recall it, it was Labour who opened the door by introducing the scheme that allowed fat cats to be bailed out, wasn’t it?

             Yep. And Bill English approved and re-approved SCF’s involvement even though SCF did not meet the criteria for inclusion.
             • tsmithfield …

               5 September 2011 at 4:09 pm

               As I said, you can argue the specific merits of the SCF case, which you seem inclined to do. However, the point is that Labour didn’t seem to have a problem with bailing out fat cats in general principle. Did you support them on this?

               Your complaint at which seems to be the source of your complaint in your post at 4.3.1.1 seemed more to do with the fact that National would bail out fat cats such as SCF at all without reference to the specific arguments around whether the SCF bailout was justified or not.
               • Lanthanide …

                 5 September 2011 at 5:47 pm

                 “However, the point is that Labour didn’t seem to have a problem with bailing out fat cats in general principle. Did you support them on this?”

                 That’s not strictly true. There were limits put on the guarantee scheme that you had to meet in order to:
                 1. Become covered by the scheme.
                 2. Remain a member of the scheme.

                 SCF fell well outside those limits, if not during Labour’s government then definitely during National’s (Bill English said that they were warned SCF was in trouble the day after the election).

                 So, Labour did have a problem with bailing out reckless fat cats and they accounted for that in the rules of the scheme.

                 National failed to uphold those rules. Not Labour’s problem.
               • Colonial Viper …

                 5 September 2011 at 5:49 pm

                 I see ts you aren’t comfortable with the miserly 14 week support that the Govt gave to workers of Christchurch compared to the generous support they gave to SCF bond holders. Many of whom were foreigners.
5. vto 5

   5 September 2011 at 9:47 am

   Oh yes, happy happy joy joy …

   Nice sentiment though r0b for the developing doughnut city, the city made up of a thousand suburbs and nothing else, the city with no hills, rivers or sea of any use, the city flooded with uncertainty and with leaks galore through which people continue to slip. The non-existent city.

   Can someone please just turn back the clock about 370 days? That would be great, thanks.
   • felix 5.1

     5 September 2011 at 10:12 am

     “Can someone please just turn back the clock about 370 days?”

     Eh? You want to do it all again?
     • vto 5.1.1

       5 September 2011 at 10:30 am

       Well no, what I had in mind was turning the clock back and then somehow stepping the world to a parallel universe and so avoid the shakes.

       Having no central city certainly creates a previously missing appreciation of what we had. And the rest of NZ should similarly appreciate what they have in their towns and cities. The long building of a city with its myriad of components. It is no small thing.
       • felix 5.1.1.1

         5 September 2011 at 6:02 pm

         True that.
6. Afewknowthetruth 6

   5 September 2011 at 10:20 am

   The sad reality is, Chrischruch was built in the wrong place (on a swamp). And we know it has no long term future because of the masive sea level rise which is coming in a few decades.

   Acknowledging that, one would think that the sensible thing to do would be to abandon Christchurch in an oraganised manner and gradually shift the people to a location with some long term prospects.

   Being gutless imbeciles (or insane sociopaths), the government will continue to offer false hope for a ‘better brighter future’ to the people of the district while it continuously deceives them.

   The real problem is, the people of Christchurch are so uninformed and so easily misled they believe government and local authority propaganda.
   • Lanthanide 6.1

     5 September 2011 at 10:35 am

     A sea level rise of 6M won’t even take up 50% of Chch’s boundaries. Even less so now that the eastern half is going to be effectively abandoned.
     • vto 6.1.1

       5 September 2011 at 10:43 am

       With a port like Lyttelton in the middle of our largest land mass I don’t think Chch will be moved, except perhaps up onto the hills and slightly westish to more solid ground.

       And the vast vast majority of land in Chch is not swamp. It is absolutely fine for building on.
     • Afewknowthetruth 6.1.2

       5 September 2011 at 11:04 am

       When you wrote 6M did you mean 6m?

       Nobody knows how much sea level rise there will be, or how fast, but the latest thinking is that Greenland plus the West Antarctic will provide enough water for about 15 metres of sea level rise in a few decades. And of cvourse, ther is the thermal expansion effect. In geological time the sea level has varied by around 60 metres and humans are inducing the fastest meltdown ever recorded.

       The speed and extent very much depend on the rate at which positive feedback mechanisms interact and reinforce one another over the coming few years (there are no known negative feedbacks).

       Needless to say, every government on the planet is working hard to bring about abrupt climate change (and the massive sea level rise that goes with it), via their obsession with ‘economic growth’ based on the burning of fossil fuels, which is not only absurd but is also unachievable now that we are in a post peak oil world -the other factor which will ‘demolish’ the idiotic plans for building Christchirch as an industrial city.
       • tsmithfield 6.1.2.1

         5 September 2011 at 3:24 pm

         Interestingly, sea levels have actually been falling for the last six years.
         • lprent 6.1.2.1.1

           5 September 2011 at 4:44 pm

           What was that for?

           Oh to demonstrate that Wishart does a sampling on one side of the el nino / la nina cycle? You know the cyclic effect that changes the currents and therefore the sealevels around the pacific…

           So if your sensors are mostly on one side of the pacific…. and you take only one part of a longer cycle, then you can get exactly the slope that supports your predefined (and probably paid for) conclusions.

           Ian Wishart – the ONLY thing he is good at is being selective in how he gets data. You know – the technique of lying with numbers..

           tsmithfield – gullible ‘skeptic’ who doesn’t ask the simple skeptical question – why did he pick 6 years?

           It is too short for meaningful results in this field. But it is good for picking up just one side of a cycle. I didn’t bother to look at anything beyond that scale because it was quite obvious what he’d done as soon as I saw it.
           • NickS 6.1.2.1.1.1

             5 September 2011 at 5:12 pm

             And even then it’s lacking any info on the statistical significance of the trend, so there’s no way to see if Wisfarts claim is correct, not to mention the failure to look at global trends along with the short sample time slice he’s using.

             Pretty typical though of teh moron to lie by omission.
           • Lanthanide 6.1.2.1.1.2

             5 September 2011 at 5:49 pm

             Yeah, I didn’t know the El Nino aspect behind it, but I was immediately suspicious when I saw the data started in 2004.

             Surely this sort of data should be relatively easily accessible going back to 96-97. So I concluded that he must have chosen to leave it out.
             • lprent …

               5 September 2011 at 7:09 pm

               There are several aspects of ENSO that change sea levels. Off the top of my head…

               1. Simple changes in where currents go. You ram a lot of water into land (or not) from a current and you’ll get a sealevel change

               2. Colder water has less volume and warmer water has more. So if you change where the cold and warm currents are then you can expect to get effects in the sea level.

               3. Air pressure above the ocean areas will change sea levels. So if you change the average air pressures by the weather systems shifting then you’ll get sea level changes.

               4. Consistent winds between air pressure systems will cause movement of water and rises in sea levels around continental shelves

               All of these are way less in effect than the lunar cycles. But you can see them statistically all around the world. Average sea level is different in different places because of it.

               I can’t remember where I saw it (probably something I read at RealClimate if my programming fatigued brain is to be believed), but they have measured the ENSO effect on sea level at several places over several cycles and it was significant. There was a lot of discussion about which off the processes was most effective.
               • joe90 …

                 5 September 2011 at 8:58 pm

                 From the useless but interesting bookmark folder.

                 If the Earth Stood Still

                 Sea level is—and has always been—in equilibrium with the planet’s gravity, which pulls the water toward the earth’s center of mass, and the outward centrifugal force, which results from the earth’s rotation. After a few billion years of spinning, the earth has taken on the shape of an ellipsoid (which can be thought of as a flattened sphere). Consequently, the distance to the earth’s center of mass is the longest around the equator and shortest beyond the polar circles. The current difference between the average sea level as observed along the equator and the distance to the earth’s center of mass from the sea level at the poles is about 21.4 kilometers (km)
                 • tsmithfield …

                   5 September 2011 at 9:57 pm

                   You all leapt in without giving any thought whatsoever.

                   Firstly, even though Wishart has reported this data, it was in fact first reported by NASA, who give an explanation. I deliberately linked to Wishart because I knew it would provoke lots of mindless hatred that would not have occurred if the same data were reported directly from NASA. .

                   Secondly, you all assume I was making some sort of denialist argument, when I simply noted an interesting feature without making any particular comment on it.

                   I actually think the trend will probably reverse. However, if that chart in the article I link to on this post was a financial chart, it would be considered that resistance had been broken to the downside indicating a trend reversal.

                   Interestingly, for NASA to be correct in their explanation, it requires a huge amount of water to be dumped and retained on a very small amount of land as per their map in order to achieve the magnitude of sea-level drop.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     5 September 2011 at 10:30 pm

                     However, if that chart in the article I link to on this post was a financial chart, it would be considered that resistance had been broken to the downside indicating a trend reversal.

                     Sure, because financial market technical analysis, which picks up on traits of human fear and greed as reflected in market movements, applies equally to Mother Nature.

                     Not.
                   • lprent …

                     5 September 2011 at 11:13 pm

                     I gave an explanation of why I thought it was wrong to draw any conclusions from it.

                     I also said exactly what type of fool I thought you and Wishart were for even bothering to raise it. It has essentially no significance because the time period of the data was far too short. You need a decade or so of data to isolate out the cyclic effects.

                     I’m sure the reaction makes your palms get sticky from excitement – but to me it just indicated that a causal effect of you being a fool jerking off
         • mik e 6.1.2.1.2

           5 September 2011 at 5:49 pm

           Otago university $30 million study proves that creationist bull….is wrong, those creationist kooks all want to go to heaven as soon as possible thats why they are backing the Deniers. they have lost all credibility amongst there flock so they are joining another weird cult mob of idiots.
   • prism 6.2

     5 September 2011 at 2:51 pm

     @ aftktt – I think that the first group that is being deceived is the politicians, and they are doing it to themselves as they don’t want to think beyond tomorrow. Yet they have the means to get the information and forecasts about Christchurch and we have skilled people right in this country who could fill in the gaps.
     • mik e 6.2.1

       5 September 2011 at 5:51 pm

       Not the gaps between brownlees ears though
7. Drakula 7

   5 September 2011 at 8:26 pm

   I will say it again; The governments big mistake is not putting on a price freeze, and as a consequence opportunists and speculators are rorting the public!

   These people should be named and shamed.

   But the government has just left it to the market forces!!
8. Armchair Critic 8

   5 September 2011 at 9:45 pm

   Christchurch is a strange place at the moment. From the west it looks fine, only hints of damage out round Ilam, even the big aftershocks can be written off as trucks driving past.
   If you drive around the edges, rather than going through the middle, and head east, the extent of the damage and the resulting misery becomes much more apparent, the aftershocks are wicked and, as vto mentioned some months back, the ground never really seems to stop moving. I’d never have believed it if I’d not experienced it myself.
   There are very much two parts to Christchurch, the part that the government wants to ignore, and the part it wishes would go away. Meanwhile….
   Honestly, I can do without Mr Key’s attempts at solidarity, and Mr Brownlee’s lies and inaction.
9. prism 9

   5 September 2011 at 10:24 pm

   @Armchair Critic – My sympathies are with you. Kia kaha if that helps. I heard someone criticising the weasel word of how “resilient’ you are. That praising resilience is just an excuse to leave you to your own resources. Keep sending the begging letters, you deserve lots of help while you repair the broken bits and your lives. And planning for a different Christchurch that serves you well. And it’s true about the different areas, my family is in the west and life goes on with a wobble and a bump now and then. As long as breakable and messy things are cordoned off, it’s not too bad for them.
10. ropata 10

    6 September 2011 at 12:02 am

    Never the same again:
    Fat Eddies bar, a special place and incidentally the last place I saw my friend Emma alive
    New Regent St, with its trendy cafes and curios shops
    Honeypot Cafe, with its grumpy staff but really cool art everywhere
    Warners Hotel, lived there for a couple of months when I had nowhere else to go
    St Lukes Church, where I experienced profound grace
    • prism 10.1

      6 September 2011 at 10:54 am

      @ropata
      Every time you mention a name, your bring the memory of that person into the new day.
      So sorry about Emma.
      I have yet to visit the earthquake areas as I have little family time when I take flying visits on grabaseat. But I feel I should go, like a pilgrimage. I think I’ll go to New Brighton, round the CBD, Ferrymead if I can. Was Warners in Latimer Square? If so I think I stayed there once.
      • ropata 10.1.1

        6 September 2011 at 11:37 am

        Hi prism,
        Warners is in Cathedral Square, actually I think it’s recoverable except some of its heritage features (ie, the original facade) probably have to be demolished.
        Cheers mate.

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