New legislation to help with quake recovery

New legislation to set up an earthquake recovery commission and enable repairs to be done more quickly will be passed by Parliament tomorrow, Prime Minister John Key says.

The cabinet would consider the bill today.

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee told NZPA yesterday he and Environment Minister Nick Smith would present a joint the cabinet paper to colleagues to consider.

"That will scope out the reconstruction legislation and will have a proposal in it for a reconstruction commission," he said.

"This has been discussed with all of the district councils and they have had a hand in writing of that bill."

The commission would be able to make long-term repair plans – for example, some pipe reconnections were not permanent solutions.

"Giving the district the ability to corral all their reconstruction stuff into one place with some different processes is going to work really well."

Mr Key said the commission would include the mayors of the three affected areas.

"We want to deal with one entity... I think it's easier to bind them all together," he told Newstalk ZB.

Mr Key previously indicated that the legislation could include the ability to grant building consents retrospectively to get work under way.

Today he told Breakfast on TV One that it would be good for the region to lift the state of emergency and the legislation was needed so progress did not stall when that was done.

"So that's going to be passed, hopefully Tuesday, under urgency... It gives... ministers and the cabinet the ability to make calls and do things much more quickly."

Mr Key recognised people had concerns about the speed of insurance payouts. He said the fastest way was for people to pay themselves and be refunded but accepted that was not always possible.

"That's one of the issues we are dealing with."

Mr Brownlee yesterday said that insurance payouts for contents would start this week.

"(Insurers) will start calling those people this week and they will start settling those claims this week."

Up to 40% of claims registered so far were for contents.

About 100 geotechnical assessors would be in the area from today -- they were from all over the country and some from Australia.

The assessors would contact about 2500 households who indicated on their EQC claim registration that their houses were uninhabitable.

Mr Brownlee said he expected many of those properties could be repaired. If the houses were on stable land, the insurers would "put together very quickly a proposal for alternative accommodation and rebuild."

The minister said he understood some people were feeling "lost" not knowing what would happen to their homes.

"A function of the sheer volume of claims, 2500 houses in this position, has meant things have gone a little more slowly up to this point but I would hope we make very serious progress this week and people get a clearer picture."

However, homeowners in areas where there were concerns about the land would have to wait longer.

"We need to give them (assessors) a bit more time to get about that. The effort last week, quite rightly, was on getting the city reconnected -- that's pretty much happened. The next bit is the repatriation as much as possible."