Brownlee’s attack on council unwarranted

new-zealand-labour-party

Fri Jul 01 2011 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Brownlee’s attack on council unwarranted

Friday, 1 July 2011, 10:32 am
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee’s attack on Waimakariri District’s Mayor and officials over the Kairaki Beach land issue is very disappointing, says Labour’s Earthquake Recovery spokesperson and Waimakariri MP Clayton Cosgrove.

“I am astonished by the level of Gerry Brownlee’s attack,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “A war of words led by the Minister is not going to help earthquake victims in Canterbury.

“This district has been consistently ahead of the game --- and ahead of the Government --- in terms of earthquake recovery, and yet Gerry Brownlee has called the mayor and officials ‘bloody ridiculous’ and accused them of buying into ‘silly nonsense’.

“That is a deplorable slur on people who have been blindsided by Gerry Brownlee’s decision not to rebuild on Kairaki Beach land,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “To quote Waimakariri District Mayor David Ayers, they didn’t have an inkling Kairaki was going to be red-zoned.

“Gerry Brownlee tries to give the impression that ‘we are all in this together’, but as soon as he is criticised then those making the criticisms are slammed as being ridiculous or talking nonsense.

“How that can be construed as being ‘all in this together’ is beyond me,” Clayton Cosgrove said.

“Gerry Brownlee’s attack is unprofessional. If the Government had followed advice, and released factual information to residents as it came to hand instead of telling local officials just a couple of hours before re-zoning a whole area, then the Waimakariri council might not have been blindsided.

“If this is Gerry Brownlee’s idea of taking people along with him on the ride to recovery, then he has a very strange appreciation of human nature, and of the deep-rooted frustrations Canterbury people are feeling.”

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