-
John Key and mayor Bob Parker survey the damage to buildings in central Christchurch following the quake - Source: Reuters -
Watch Video
BOB PARKER Interviewed by PAUL HOLMES
PAUL The Mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, very nice to see
you. Bob I was going to ask you first what is that building
that we've been looking at for all afternoon yesterday, last
evening with the news and now this morning, what is that wreck
behind you?
BOB PARKER - Christchurch Mayor
Well it was a jewellery shop down below Paul and upstairs you can
still see some offices up there, and with the wind that's coming up
I imagine the contents of those are gonna be well distributed
around the town, so we hope there are not confidential papers in
there. But down below a jewellery shop. On the opposite
corner behind the camera in effect, there's an historic all church
building, it's now a restaurant. I'm just really worried
about that, I've just been getting people to get away from
it. With the after shocks we're having the guys on the crew
are telling me they're seeing part of that just tilting.
There's a lot of damage across the road, just another old
restaurant. We had a fire yesterday. This is a pretty
devastated part of the central city, and it's the old masonry
buildings that have really suffered. But you know the
blessing mate is that despite all of this we haven't lost anybody
to the earthquake, and you've got a 7.4 hitting 30ks from the
centre of a population base of greater Christchurch of around half
a million people, and you know it's just a miracle. I just
cannot believe that we've got through this. So you can fix
roads, you can patch buildings, you can replace pipes, you can't
replace people, and that is the blessing. So although we've
got some tough days ahead of us Paul, and I'm not optimistic - I
heard Peter, and I'd like the central area to be open for business
tomorrow, but I have to say looking at some of the buildings around
here, that would be less likely I think.
PAUL As well; with the weather you've got coming. You
actually Bob have been flying over the city this morning, we have
pictures ourselves I think of some of the sites, that you or we may
have seen over the city. What did you see as you flew above
Christchurch?
BOB Well the Air Force put a machine on for us, and you know
the first glance is that everything looks okay from a
distance. Then you start focusing in and you see the areas
where walls have broken. Here we're looking at areas around
the side of a river where there's been liquefaction. In other
words the ground has simply and frighteningly turned to a kind of a
liquid mush. It squirts up through cracks in the paving and
then it leaves a gap underneath. The roads collapse into
that, houses collapse into that. So you know that kinda stuff
is scary, and we've all been to Civil Defence meetings and lectures
where people say now liquefaction's a bad thing and your city's
gonna have problems with that. You know I can really see
that, you know I think stuff tipping over is what the problem's
gonna be, but I really have seen this now and from the air the
devastation in the eastern part of the city is amazing you
know. One house will be up, one house will be down in a
slight pit. Houses off foundations. We've got a lot of
work to do in the infrastructure. There are over 200 leaks
identified yesterday and early this morning. We've got water
back to 80% of the city. Power back to more than 90% of it,
but the damage on the roads. I tell you what was great, and
that was getting three ministers and the Prime Minister down here
on the ground, and they could see for themselves the scale of
what's happened, and I think that will help us get the kind of
central government support that we've been offered, we're getting,
and it going to be so important in the weeks ahead.
PAUL It was of course, and we could all see this Bob, one hell
of a day for people in Canterbury, people in Christchurch
yesterday. Must have been for yourself and for your people, a
very long day, probably a very long night as well. I was
watching things unfold yesterday and thinking about the things you
were saying at your state of emergency meeting, at 10.15. I
was listening to you, I'm thinking gosh there are so many small
details that one suddenly has never thought about before that one
has to get right. For example, I was thinking, when the
announcement was made that only inner city residents, some 8000
people may come back into the CBD, and then I'm thinking who makes
the rule on what is the test, by which a person tells the Police
they exist in the inner city. Is a driver's license gonna be
it? How do you tell all the officers a driver's license is
enough? That kinda stuff?
BOB Yeah, oh you're absolutely right. You're completely
dependent on your fellow citizens and look the people here have
been absolutely bloody fantastic, and you had neighbours looking
after neighbours, checking on old people, and you know there are
always a few idiots in these things, you know there's always
someone who wants to just push it a bit further, who just treats
this as a joke, when in fact for most people this is as real as it
ever gets, and that's just their way of coping, and we have to
recognise that as well. This is about compassion and helping
and trust, and working together, and it's all the stuff that we
like to talk about, but here it is really happening Paul, and the
response from people around the country has been truly
magnificent. I've gotta say the media have done an
outstanding job, and I have to compliment everybody from the print
media through to the radio and the television, that helped us get
the messages out to our people. We couldn't have reassured
our community that we're out there that we're working, without the
sort of intelligent reporting we've had. And look I'm a guy
who's complained about a few things that I've had to
read&
PAUL I was going to say you've chosen a very good time in the
electoral cycle to be praising the work of the news media.
Bob speaking of people around the country, the Mayor of Waitakere
City would like to have a word with you.
BOB H Bob I really feel for you actually in what you're
doing. The fact is all mayors when they hit that moment of
truth they have that ownership and they have to take that
leadership. I felt for Bob Parker who I regard as hugely very
good mayor of New Zealand, but you know we've tried in Auckland
anyway to make sure that tsunami warnings were up in place, and
George Wood and I following the big Indonesian tsunami worked like
hell and every device is now on every beach, so we've got the
warning. But earthquakes there is no warning, and you've just
got to be there, and Bob is there, he's the man.
PAUL Bob can I just ask you. The Prime Minister has
said, so everybody else is saying it this morning that things
pretty well okay, there might have been some discussion about the
length of time it took to call a state of emergency, but people
seemed to be thinking and saying that in Christchurch yesterday
morning things worked pretty well towards a resolution of where you
had to go as a city. Looking back to yesterday morning
however, as the Mayor, if you were to look honestly at your
performance or the performance of the services, what would need to
change, what would you want to have a look at say if you continued
to be the Mayor, in terms of civil defence.
BOB I think we're too early, we're actually living this
moment by moment Paul and I think that you know okay we're getting
a bit of space to do more assessment now, and we'll start looking
back. You know we declared the state of emergency when we had
the knowledge to declare it, you could jump in and go straight for
it, but you don't want to send the wrong message. The
cooperation has been extraordinary. So I don't have a single
complaint, or a change that I can think of at this second, and
that's because like everybody here, and thank you for your kind
words Bob, I really do appreciate that. But everybody here
from the Mayor down across the structures of this city is working
really really hard. This is in a sense like a military
campaign I imagine, because the best laid plans will never work
out, you're continually adapting that which you take for granted
one minute has completely changed the next. I can't tell you
what will happen in the next 30 seconds. And that's really
the reality of the situation that we are in.
PAUL I understand. Very good, Mayor of Christchurch, Bob
Harvey&
BOB No Bob Harvey's the Mayor of bloody Waitakere.
PAUL I beg your pardon Bob Parker. I was just going to
say there are no trees in our shots, we can't anywhere around the
country see what the wind is doing, but we can see it from your
hair that the wind is starting to come up, and so I hope that's not
too unpleasant a problem for the people of Christchurch.
