The Natural Disaster Fund is filled by the EQC levy you pay on your home insurance (currently, $200 a year) and is there to cover EQC payouts. Now, the Fund sits empty. So what happens if there’s another big one, or even a medium-size quake – as is likely and as the Wellington quakes have reminded us is possible? Key would try to borrow billions.
The EQC data leaked to a Christchurch advocate / blogger has been posted on line.
Labour’s EQC policy has taken the holes in the current system revealed by the earthquakes – too low cap, inequitable flat levy, non-universal coverage, lack of provision for accommodation coverage – and fixed them. On top of that, they’ve promised to give people access to their geotech info. Great policy. No wonder National’s angry.
The estimate of the liability for costs of the Christchurch quakes has just been more than doubled. Thank goodness or the foresight of the first Labour government who set up the EQC in 1947.
Sometimes you have to simply start from 1.0 for Godwin’s Law. This pretty much applies to anything re-subtitled from the movie “Der Untergang”. The latest one that I have seen is this side splitting rendition of exactly what has been going on inside the EQC operation in Christchurch.
Every day more stories of the poor management of the Christchurch recovery are coming out. Delays in physical rebuilding are understandable. Delays in EQC payouts are another. They undermine the city’s economy and stop rebuilding. A reader has sent in their story. It’s one of many. Brownlee should have sorted this months ago.
A headline on Newsroom caught my eye a couple of days back: “Deficit Falls Further”. Good news, so, well done the Nats? Turns out no, not so much…
