Government abandoning homeowners as EQC mess gets worse
new-zealand-labour-party
Wed Aug 10 2016 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Government abandoning homeowners as EQC mess gets worse
Wednesday, 10 August 2016, 5:25 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party
Megan Woods
MP for Wigram
Canterbury Spokesperson
MEDIA STATEMENT
10 August 2016
Government abandoning homeowners as EQC mess gets worse
Gerry Brownlee and National have turned their backs on people in Canterbury, slashing the number of staff available to resolve EQC problems, even as new information reveals yet more major delays in fixing up dodgy repairs, says Labour’s Canterbury Spokesperson Megan Woods.
“Gerry Brownlee is walking away from the commitments he has made to homeowners impacted by the earthquakes. Today, he has slashed the resources available to help people get their claims resolved. This will mean more people waiting longer to get their homes repaired.
“To add insult to injury, this is happening just as it emerges there is no end in sight for people with dodgy first time EQC repairs. New information from the Government’s statement of performance expectations for EQC shows that only half of the thousands of second time repairs will be finished this year, and new remediation repair requests are expected until at least the middle of next year.
“The Government had been warned there were real issues with the high number of botched repairs and has chosen to do nothing and the problem has only grown. Now, they are cutting the staff whose job it should be to fix this mess.
“Incredibly, they actually seem to be fine with allowing things to get worse. The standards they are setting for EQC are embarrassingly low.
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“In this report, the Government says it expects just 60% of customers to be satisfied with the quality of service. That means they are planning for nearly half of their customers to have low quality service. A Government that was really committed to Canterbury would never let EQC treat people like this, or botch so many repairs so badly.
“We need a government that will side with people trying to get on with their lives, and make sure the support they need is there. Gerry Brownlee needs to stop tolerating failure, and launch an independent enquiry into what has gone wrong at EQC, and what resources are really required to help us get things fixed,” says Megan Woods.
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