Residents face long wait to hear of fate of homes

The bust has highlighted the risk to the public and police from links between the illicit drugs trade and illegal firearms. File photo / Martin Sykes

The Government is still months away from a definitive answer on where and how many homes in Christchurch will need to be demolished and abandoned.

Three weeks ago, Prime Minister John Key cited preliminary geotechnical advice that 10,000 homes will need to be brought down and parts of Christchurch will not be able to be rebuilt on.

He was criticised for unnecessarily alarming residents, who started asking which parts would be abandoned.

Mr Key stood by the comments, saying it was important to make information public, even though it was only an estimate based on an engineer's flyover.

Yesterday the Government was still "some months" from any definitive answers, as it was still collating and analysing information across several agencies, including GNS Science, local authorities, Land Information NZ, the Department of Building and Housing and the Earthquake Commission.

Data being gathered included the extent of liquefaction, how much the earth has been spread laterally, the ongoing danger of rockfall, the stability of sloping land, and Lidar (light detection and ranging) data.

"There are terabytes of data," a spokesman for Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee said.

"When you get that, though, you are able to be quite definitive for people, be it a house or a street or part of a suburb or a suburb, and part of the message is for those that might have to go, but you also have to have good enough data for those who can stay. Until we get that, which is some months away, we can't be more definitive."

Meanwhile the Labour Party has attacked the Government for wasting money over ads it has taken out in 13 newspapers about the newly formed Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera). The ads cost $43,600 and ran yesterday in all South Island daily newspapers, as well as two community newspapers, the Dominion Post and the New Zealand Herald. They will run again on Saturday.

The ads, organised by the State Services Commission, come as the Government speaks of austerity and the elimination of "nice to have" but non-essential public-sector programmes.

Commission spokesman Jason Ryan said the establishment of Cera was important public information.

"It's important that people know that the agency is up, that there is a website, and particularly given the nature of this agency which is focused on community and stakeholder engagement.

"It's important people know that it's here and they will be hearing from it."

But Labour quake recovery spokesman Clayton Cosgrove said it was a waste of money.

"Gerry Brownlee is spending goodness knows how many thousands of dollars on so-called public information newspaper advertisements that are really just propaganda."