Extracting the Urine

I answered an ad looking for student lawyers for preparing earthquake cases through the courts. I was a successful applicant and went to work preparing documents, sitting in the the High Court watching barristers doing tedious battle and hoovering up the worst coffee in the world while sitting in on meetings giving non-binding legal advice*. But then all of a sudden an email from EQC ended up in my boss's inbox that he wasn't supposed to get and all hell broke loose.
*So not strictly speaking legal advice as I am not qualified to do so under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, so don't bother asking.

Now my job has changed. While still being part of that department, I am now my own department responsible for satire. I am delighted. I get (badly) paid to dream up things that extract the urine out of the rebuild: EQC, Gerry Brownlee, insurers, CERA and the Christchurch City Council. Believe me there is plenty to lampoon. The thing about satire is that it exists to mock vanity, humbug and vice. In Christchurch, the rebuild is being handled so badly that I will have fodder for years. My brief was to draw attention to earthquake issues using humour and the issues that exist are so serious that I cannot believe that people in Christchurch aren't rioting. The EQC hubs should be on fire and Brownlee's electorate office should also be burning. Why there isn't a pitched running battle between protesters and the police with batons, tear gas and dogs I don't know... except that I do know. The problem with Canterbury is apathy. Cantabrians don't like protests, they don't like complaining and they simply don't care. On one side of the city there are smooth roads and settle earthquake claims, on the other side there are four wheel drive tracks, closed streets, ruined houses and people living in their garages coming into winter. But as long as the roads are smooth and the house is warm with all its services, why would people in Avonhead, Burnside, Ilam, Upper Riccarton and Fendalton care? For them the earthquakes are something that happened two years ago but it's all behind them.

Something boring you Gerry?

The issue is wider than just the people who cannot settle their earthquake claims or whose house is suffering from a shonky Fletchers job (this is the majority of the legal work that we do). The issue is sufficiently broad that it affects every single New Zealander because it involves a colossal amount of public expenditure. Was anyone worried by the headline last week that there had been $100,000,000 of excess payouts by EQC? Not really, because it is a win for those who got paid out. How about the instances of nepotism at EQC that were covered by media early on? Not many batting eyelids there, good for the 19 year old who was given a loss adjusters $6,000 a week job by his dad straight out of school. Incidentally, it takes three years to train and qualify as a loss adjuster. So no joy in eliciting vociferous public disapproval so far. How about that the rebuild is set to cost $40,000,000,000 of public money, that's forty billion folks, and EQC refuses to release how their part of the money is going to be spent; Gerry Brownlee refuses to countenance a council-funded insurance advisory service; insurers are obstructively reluctant to settle claims; people are having to take court action to get anything done; you cannot drive in a straight line down Bealey Ave, Madras St, Manchester St or Moorhouse Ave; a elderly man who has had open-heart surgery and is on EQC's urgent list still hasn't had his case settled two years after filing his claim; the CERA land offer is slashing the value of people's homes; there is still a red zone and people are still living in it; the central city still has a cordon around it... there is a list and it can go on. This earthquake is the greatest farce since someone said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

For Sale: Spacious one bedroom house on one sixteenth
of an acre. Access to four wheel drive track, neighbourhood
mainly on fire, cold and cold running water. Offers above
$350,000

Why should I get in a tizz about all of this? I was in Wellington recently and looking down Courtenay Place at night I got a bit emotional. Wellington wasn't buggered, it's nightlife was vibrant and its roads were baby's bottom smooth. I love Christchurch, or at least I used to. I am kept here and Attila the Wife and I are looking for houses. The open homes we go to are well-attended but when the homes (invariably) got to auction, first home buyers are being out-bid by people looking investment properties or by people who are desperate to purchase a home prior to the EQC cutoff. People looking at getting onto the first rung of the property ladder either cannot afford to or have to 'manage their expectations' - which means you have to buy shoebox in a suburb that makes Harlem seem like Remuera. Why would you want to buy a shitty house in a city you don't really like anymore? I'd be quite happy to move but we're tied to Christchurch. People are tired, they're strung out and if you don't laugh, you cry. So armed with my sense of outrage, I'm happily turning my lampoon against some very large whales. 
It should be fun. www.ministryofawful.co.nz coming soon.