WE HEART CHRISTCHURCH: The Christchurch Earthquake is a national tragedy. People around the country and the world have been touched by this event. How do we make sure Cantabrians are getting the help they need? How do we make sure payments get to Christchurch on time? How do we begin to rebuild our city? Is moving the CBD the best idea? Is an Earthquake levy a good way to raise money for the people of Christchurch?

WHAT CAN I DO?: Many of us living outside of Christchurch have been feeling helpless not knowing how to help friends, families and strangers. What can we do? Is it cash? Are there things besides cash that we can offer? Please note: Should you like to contribute to Christchurch Relief—Back Benches will be accepting donations from our viewers on behalf of the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

LIVE pub politics from the Backbencher Pub: Wednesday, 2nd of March. 7.30pm The Panel: Green MP Gareth Hughes, Labour MP Darren Hughes, and National MP John Hayes. United Future Leader Peter Dunne.

Tragic events in Christchurch have overtaken National’s Welfare Working Group’s report into the future of the welfare system, which was released on Tuesday.

This is a time when all New Zealand stands together, including political parties, out of respect to the victims of the quake and their families and to ensure that the rescue and recovery operations in Christchurch can proceed without unnecessary distraction. 

For that reason Labour has not formally responded to the WWG report’s recommendations or the Government’s response.

However, I do have some initial thoughts, which you will see below. I and my Labour colleagues will expand on these when the time is more suitable.

The WWG report sets a target of taking 100,000 people off welfare and into work over the next decade:

• Where are the jobs going to come from?
• Jobs have been not been a priority for this government.
• Moving 100,000 people off benefits and into work takes us back to the total benefit figures in 2008 when National took over.
• The past two years have been a huge wasted opportunity.
• The economy has ground to a halt under National.
• It is not possible to force people into jobs that do not exist.
• GDP will have to increase by 3 per cent a year over the next decade to meet this target. Current forecasts average 2.5 per cent a year. Where’s the plan?

The report is a mix of:

• Tried and failed ideas from the 1990s – privatising welfare delivery, splitting welfare policy and delivery arms, work for the dole, and,
• Advocating for incentives and programmes to get people into work. Many of these existed under Labour but National abolished or slashed them – such as the Training Incentive Allowance for solo mums on the DPB, scholarships, dedicated Winz case managers who built up knowledge of individual clients and were better able to assist them, ECE funding, strategic skills and training programme funding, and,
• Extreme ideas which give the Key government room to appear less hard line by rejecting them. Eg forcing solo parents who have another child to look for work when the youngest turns 14 weeks; and giving young parents access to free “long acting, reversible contraception”;

Making solo mums look for work when their child turns three, instead of five, says paid work is more important than the job of caring for and nurturing young children.

The first six years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of development.

Child poverty, which is already on the rise under National, will get worse still.

Forcing severely disabled people on a “Jobseeker Support Benefit” with supplementary payments tied to efforts to get into work will result in severe mental anguish and hardship for an already vulnerable group of people.

Early childhood education fees, which have already gone up under National, will rise again.

Blaming and punishing the poor lets tax avoiders who do not pay their fair share of tax off the hook.

A statue of William Rolleston, a founding father of Christchurch, lies head-first in the paving on the avenue named for him.

Mother Earth heaved him and many others downwards on Tuesday; a savage 6.3 quake none of us expected; nearly six months on from September 4’s wake-up call, we had thought the worst was over.

A statue and a building can be repaired or replaced.

 Not loved ones. The death toll will without much doubt climb into triple figures.  

Perhaps we were  tempting fate by saying time and again how lucky we were to escape September 4 and Boxing Day’s reprise without a single fatality?

Tonight the first names of victims were released; two men, two babies, all from Christchurch.

May they rest in peace.

The full list will stretch around the planet as the growing international media presence attests.  

 A  friend tonight told how he and his son were eating lunch in the Square at 12.50 on Tuesday when the quake struck.

He saw three people thrown out of the Cathedral’s tower to the ground, 30m below. The police believe perhaps six and as many as 20 people may still under the rubble. Many if not most are likely to be tourists.

Phil Goff and I walked to the Cathedral today. Two weeks ago, I’d toured Phil around with Anna Crighton, deputy chair of the Historic Places Trust, outlining our concerns for heritage buildings under threat from the two earlier quakes. We could not have believed that today the future of our city’s icon of icons, the Cathedral in the Square, is in doubt.

And so much more. Rescue workers were today preparing to retrieve a body from the top floor of The Press building. A few weeks ago, editor Andrew Holden, was giving me a hard time about the bricks from my former office, which adjoined The Press, having rained some bricks down upon his building in the Boxing Day shake. Both buildings are now severely damaged. Further up the street is the site of the Octagon restaurant, famous for its jazz as well as its food. Its owner Alan, stood outsight each evening in a fedora welcoming guests.

 The Octagon had been propped up after September 4 quake. There is nothing left to prop.

Looking back up Manchester St we saw the leaning tower of Christchurch’s highest hotel, the Grand Chancellor. Unlike Pisa, this building is going to have to come down.

We didn’t walk to Latimer Square today but had both visited yesterday. Viewing the rubble of the CTV building, I thought back sadly to last Friday. CTV’s newest recruit, Emily Cooper, just a month into her career, had interviewed me. A few minutes later, Emily appeared out in front of me. Big hugs all round.  She’d been out of the building 15 minutes when the quake struck. Tonight, a man hug from CTV veteran Rob Cope Williams who was also out of the building on Tuesday. Canterbury to the core, he’s planning to revive a regional television service. His young colleague Tom then told me about returning from a lunch break in time to see the building disintegrate in front of him. There may still be as many as 80 people under the rubble.

The last major stop for Phil and I today was at the Pyne Gould building. Yesterday I’d spent two hours there as the rescue of a trapped woman unfolded. On arriving, I turned to the man to my left and asked if he knew the woman. He said “Yes, she’s my wife!”  Graham Richardson had visited the site the previous afternoon and gone home expecting the very worst. His wife of 10 years, Ann, had worked on the third floor. It was sandwiched between floors four and one.

Yesterday at 11.30 he got a phone call, asking him to confirm if he was Ann’s husband. He said yes. The caller then said that Ann had asked him to call!

I stood with Graham for more than an hour as an Aussie rescue crew extricated her. He was hyperventilating by the end. More hugs were needed after she was brought out onto the platform and given a few minutes of medical attention. As they started gently lowering her, my phone rang. I’d earlier agreed to do an interview with the ABC’s lunchtime news programme. (As a journo, I was the ABC’s NZ stringer for more than 10 years.) When they learned Ann was being brought out and down, they kept the interview rolling. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3146560.htm

Afterwards, I encouraged Graham to come with me and to talk to waiting media, notably John Campbell. Graham was utterly elated. The wife he’d feared gone had been brought back to him. And that’s where I’ll finish for now. A story of hope triumphant; a tribute to the efforts of rescuers, both our own and from overseas, with us in our darkest hour. As stoic as we are in Christchurch, many people are feeling a bit like Rolleston – shaken off their foundations and  flattened.  We are going to need a helluva lot of hugs and help from you all from here on.

Emergency service staff, whose priority is saving lives, are doing everything they can in what resembles a war zone. I have been helping distribute emergency phone numbers and I have come across some tremendously moving human stories. I was speaking with a woman whose relative had been killed. The person had accepted that, but didn’t know where the body was being kept. At the Hagley Park centre I was talking to a senior St John man who was marshalling his troops, and who told me his elderly father had gone into the city that day and he hadn’t been able to make contact with him since. It was amazing that given what he was going through he was still continuing to marshal his troops.

Might be hard for some of us but I think this is a great idea :-

Red & Black Day
Saturday 26 February is RED & BLACK DAY.

This week’s devastating earthquake in Canterbury has shocked everyone and it’s time to think about what we might do to help, especially for those of us who are removed from the scene.

The Hurricanes v Canterbury Crusaders Super 15 match scheduled for this Saturday at Westpac Stadium is CANCELLED, but let’s show solidarity with the people of Canterbury by showing our support.

So get out your streamers, scarves and stripped shirts. RED & BLACK DAY is Saturday, 26 February.

Parliament has adjourned for the day as a mark of respect for the people of Christchurch. Police are now reporting that there have been fatalities and many, many injuries. Buildings have collapsed, water and power are out.  It is a devastating scene.  The sight of the Cathedral collapsing was particularly poignant.

Our thoughts and best wishes are with all the people of Christchurch, and their friends and families.  Many people, including Christchurch MPs are trying to get hold of loved ones, and we feel for them at this time.  Labour Leader Phil Goff was in Christchurch at the time, and he is there offering whatever practical support he can.  The whole of New Zealand stands ready to provide all the practical and emotional support that we can.   We all stand alongside the people of Christchurch.  Kia Kaha.

UPDATE:  As most of you will know the news is through that 65 people have died, and that toll is likely to rise.  This is a massive tragedy, and our hearts ache for those people and their friends and families.