The Star: September 08, 2016

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Thursday September 8 2016 21
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Time to learn lessons from the quakes
THIS PAST Sunday was
the sixth anniversary of the
September 4 earthquake.
Like most Cantabrians, the
memories of that first morning
are still pretty raw. I remember
crouching under the doorway
wondering if the shaking was
ever going to stop. I remember
driving down totally empty
streets, and being utterly
shocked at what had happened
to our city.
Looking back, it really is
incredible what we all went
through. Thousands of aftershocks,
multiple major quakes,
We said:
A $9000 barbecue set in
a shipping container and
picnic tables have been installed
near New Brighton’s
whale paddling pool. The
new tables and barbecue
can be found north of the
New Brighton Library.
You said:
Rachel Ferguson - Well
done Jason Mill and all the other
positive people out there trying
to make a difference in the community.
This looks awesome! If
all the negative people commenting
got off their butts and tried to
do something positive, this world
would be amazing.
Lisa Haua - I think there will
be lots of frustration from people
waiting to use it while its occupied
as there’s only one. Cool
idea but more needed.
Megan Woods
one of the largest insurance
events in world history. An
enormous amount of disruption
to people’s lives.
But six years on, it’s clear that
we couldn’t have known that first
morning what was still coming,
how long the disruption was
going to last or how lasting the
impacts of the more than 10,000
I AM very proud of this Government’s
record on education, particularly
here in Christchurch,
where we’ve committed over $1
billion to re-developing schools
since the earthquakes.
Since coming to Government
we have increased the education
budget by 35 per cent.
We have more than doubled
spending on early childhood
education.
And we have increased spending
on special education learning
support by 30 per cent.
Between the 2010 and 2015
school years, CPI inflation
increased by 9.6 per cent. The
cumulative increase in the
education Operations Grant over
this period was over 15 per cent.
On top of the $1.35 billion
schools receive now in operational
grant funding, we are
investing $43 million over four
years to state and state-integrated
schools to support around
133,000 students from long-term
welfare-dependent families.
We are targeting the money to
these students because we know
they are at risk of educational
under-achievement.
We want to get the right resources
to the rights kids at the
right time – where it will make
the greatest difference, over and
earthquakes would be.
One thing that I hear constantly
from people, especially
around anniversaries like this,
is the desire that we learn the
lessons of what has gone wrong
with this recovery, so that we can
do better in future as a country.
With the spectre of the Southern
Alpine Fault still hanging
above the base funding.
Schools will continue to receive
$1.35 billion in operational
funding but this year there will
not be a general increase across
the board to that funding.
Budget 2016 includes the
equivalent of a 1 per cent increase
in schools’ operational
grants ($43 million over four
years) which will be targeted, as
opposed to universally allocated.
Gerry Brownlee
over us (and Wellington), we’d
be fools to think this is the last
major earthquake or natural
disaster that will happen in New
Zealand. Just last week, we saw a
major quake on the East Coast of
the North Island.
For me, there are some obvious
lessons – more funding and
support should have been made
available for mental health, especially
for young people and children
impacted by the quakes. I
think, too, the Government’s top
down, heavy-handed approach
to decision making became less
useful as time went on.
And then there is EQC. How
much of the disruption to people’s
lives over the last six years
can be put down to the mess
at EQC? In this case, I think a
full, independent inquiry is still
needed.
These lessons need to be
learned not just for the next disaster,
but for how we move forward
here in Christchurch over
the next few years. My strong
hope is we will have seen much
more progress by the time we
reach the seventh anniversary.
Megan Woods is Labour’s
Canterbury spokeswoman
Targeted education funding for better outcomes
The funding will support
students aged five to 18, who
have lived in benefit dependant
households for 75 per cent of
either the first five years of their
life, or for the last five years.
The additional targeted funding
will result in schools receiving
about $92 extra for every
student from long-term welfare
dependent families. If the funding
had been allocated universally,
it would have resulted in
schools receiving $16 for every
student.
Only a very small number of
schools are receiving no increase.
Some schools – those with significant
number of students from
disadvantaged backgrounds –
are receiving considerably more.
Lower decile schools are generally
benefiting more from the
targeted increase. This is to be
expected because these schools
have more of their students in
the target group
Gerry Brownlee is Minister
supporting Greater
Christchurch Regeneration