Prime Minister John Key says a bill may be needed to speed up the rebuilding process in Canterbury following Saturday's earthquake.Speaking to media from the quake-hit region, Mr Key said Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee was today meeting with
Prime Minister John Key says a bill may be needed to speed up the rebuilding process in Canterbury following Saturday's earthquake.
Speaking to media from the quake-hit region, Mr Key said Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee was today meeting with Local Government New Zealand, the Earthquake Commission and private insurers to look at how repair processes might be hastened.
"It may at the extreme take a legislative change to allow us to undertake work and retrospectively get building consents," Mr Key said.
"The other thing is trying to get a position where people can move quite quickly."
Mr Key said some bigger building companies had said they had large teams which could do a lot of restoration work quickly.
"What we don't want is the bureaucratic process holding back the restoration process, and if we have to get at it in reverse order I think that's totally fine."
The situation could well be different for bigger buildings, Mr Key said. However, with the smaller jobs the aim was to fix things quickly.
"If you're talking about chimneys for instance, that are down, you are talking walls that are damaged -- that sort of thing -- I think we just get in and get that work done and then retrospectively get the building consents.
"It would have to be in a controlled environment, so that's what we are working our way through."
