The Muller Report
Hey Christchurch! Did you see what a great job we did of fixing your city! You can thank us later!
Todd Muller, the interim leader of the National Party, chose Christchurch to make a significant speech about his party’s plan if they somehow found themselves behind the government benches after the upcoming election. It was billed as a significant policy speech, but it was predictably light on detail. However, the tone of his introductory comments suggests that he isn’t reading the room - he’s on the toilet out back reading Dilbert on his phone.
I get it. The guy is new. He probably doesn’t have much to do with Christchurch. He entered parliament in 2014, so after both the quakes, and the Blueprint. He isn’t responsible for National’s response to the quakes, but nor is he going to criticise it, especially when his two most senior colleagues and supporters in his recent coup, Amy Adams and Gerry Brownlee, are both so heavily intertwined with the rebuild.
I am delighted to have here with me, two of my most senior colleagues: Amy Adams, my Policy Chair, Covid-19 spokesperson and number three in caucus; and, of course Gerry Brownlee, my Campaign Chair and set to take one of the most senior roles in my Government in September.
But the following paragraph is such a distorted misreading of history that I wonder if he was even paying attention to the news during the quakes.
Ladies and Gentlemen, when the earthquakes devastated this great city it was a body blow to the whole country. The National Government took decisive action to generate the rebuild. Our legacy isn’t one of ruined buildings behind fences, awaiting insurance settlements, it’s of a new vibrant city, from the beautiful riverside to the shiny new buildings.
Where to start? Our legacy isn’t one of ruined buildings behind fences. Well, whose legacy is it then? Central Christchurch is still littered with ruined buildings behind fences - who does he think that legacy belongs to? The Wizard? Punk kids who don’t maintain their property portfolios? You can’t go and give one man extraordinary powers to do whatever he likes in the central city, then turn around and say “na that wasn’t us”.
Awaiting insurance settlements. Todd, I’m not sure if you are talking about private insurers or EQC here, but either way, National didn’t leave things in a great place. Under your team, people had to take their insurers to court to try and fix things. It ended up going all the way to the top, and it didn’t end well for your guys.
When it comes to EQC, the government insurer that was set up to help people in exactly this sort of situation, they were also found to have significantly mismanaged things. Don’t take my word for it - there is a 245 page report into them, and the findings weren’t great:
A public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC) found it was poorly prepared for the Canterbury earthquakes and has left people with a "deep mistrust of government" that will take years to overcome.
A new vibrant city, from the beautiful riverside to the shiny new buildings. Yup, the river looks nice, and there are some shiny new buildings. But have you actually walked around? A depressing number of those same buildings have for lease signs in the windows. Some have had them since the day they were finished.
A major part of that recovery strategy was the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, put together in just 100 days. Our execution of that plan returned life to a devastated CBD.
National’s plan certainly returned some life to the CBD - there have never been more feral rabbits than there are now, finding comfortable homes in the acres of gravel Wilson’s carparks. Central Christchurch isn’t functioning the way a central city should be - and the majority of Christchurch residents share that sentiment. As a recent survey showed, despite the billions of dollars that has been poured in, only 29% of residents think that the city is better than it was pre-quake. Under a third. That is a stunning indictment on the rebuild that Muller is so proudly boasting of.
I understand that this was a stump speech, to a business audience who will be about as National-friendly as he could hope for. But they aren’t dumb. They live in this city, and they will understand the gulf between what Muller is saying, and the city that they live and work in. The disconnect between the two would suggest that Muller is seriously disconnected from the world outside a Crown Limo. I’ve got to assume that Gerry wrote large parts of this speech himself, as I can’t understand how lines like this would otherwise have got in:
We rebuilt – Gerry rebuilt – this city, along with you, the business community.
Of course, Gerry will hold his Ilam seat at the election, but he is not a popular politician in this city. It seems remarkable that Muller would deliberately try and hitch himself to that shabby wagon. I can’t imagine that the results will please him.
Finally, it is interesting to note what isn’t in this speech - any acknowledgement of the March 15 terror attacks. I know a lot has happened since, but it was only last year. This is Muller’s first speech in the city, and while he is talking about the COVID pandemic, and the natural disaster that happened a decade ago, there is no room for even a cursory mention of the pain that this city felt then. It is worth remembering that only months before the gunman went on a rampage against the Muslim community here, Gerry Brownlee was banging the anti-migration drum, with National opposing New Zealand signing up to the UN Compact on Migration. The petition was swiftly deleted from their website, but the bad taste lingers on.
They say leader of the opposition is the toughest job in politics, and Muller certainly hasn’t made anything look easy since he rolled the yak-loving Simon Bridges. Clearly I’m not a National voter, and Hooton and friends won’t be taking any of my advice, but I would suggest that doubling down on “See what a great job Gerry did!” is not a winning strategy in this city.
And some of us are still dealing with botched repairs of onsold properties mental stress is terrible when will it end?