Earthquake Recovery Authority head named

An aerial view of the PGC building in Christchurch. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Prime Minister has announced details of the new body in charge of the Christchurch earthquake recovery effort.

The Government has created a new, stand-alone authority - the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, or CERA.

John Key says it will provide leadership and coordination of the ongoing recovery effort.

CERA will have a life-span of five years and its operations will be reviewed annually.

Its interim chief executive will be Deputy State Service's Commissioner John Ombler.

Mr Key says the rebuilding in Christchurch will be a long and complex task which will require huge resources.

It is vital to move forward with business recovery and getting vital infrastructure running.

An Order in Council will have to be made to establish the new body, and that's due to happen within weeks.

"The new authority will pull together the resources of central government and coordinate them so we have an effective timely recovery," he said in a press conference yesterday.

Government asistance packages to be scaled back

Meanwhile, the Government announced yesterday that assistance packages for Christchurch businesses and workers would be extended, but that the schemes would be scaled back.

Both the Earthquake Support Subsidy for employers and the job loss cover for workers will be extended until April 18, followed by a second round of assistance with tighter application criteria.

Businesses that qualified for the second round would receive payments at gradually reducing rates each fortnight over a six-week period.

Labour's Canterbury Earthquake Recovery spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove told Radio New Zealand this morning that it was too soon to scale back the packages.

"This is not business as usual, you can't just say 'well after 12 weeks everybody's okay and if you're not tough luck'," Mr Cosgove said.

"If a business hasn't got access and nothing has changed for that business no one can say whether it can restart or not, so the Government's answer is 'you're chopped'."

Mr Cosgrove said putting a stop to funding meant there would be premature redundancies and taxpayers would end up paying for welfare for those people.

- NZPA