Storming The Christchurch Cordon

We have enormous sympathy for the frustrated group of central Christchurch business owners that have stormed a cordon to protest the lack of access to their businesses. In one video we saw, Denis Harwood the angry owner of 161 Hereford Suites & Apartments say:

"I have New Zealand's newest 5-star hotel. After the rescue effort finished (the hotel) was broken into. All the keys were on their hooks but every single $1,500.00 security door was smashed-in and the cash drawers were ripped open. Now there's no bodies in the cash drawers, so who is doing the looting?"

This is a classic struggle between non-producing bureaucrats that are protecting unwilling people from themselves and heroic small business owners that are ready and willing to take accountability for their own actions. Our producers wish to get their lives back on track and begin the process of taking back possession of their property to start the process of rebuilding Christchurch. 

Fresh from eyeballing the army, police and officialdom at the front line, Christchuch businessman and protest leader, Kurt Langer has circulated the following open letter:

Please forward this email/letter on to all that you know who can help us make this happen!
The people of Christchurch who own businesses and buildings within the Central area of Christchurch have the following concerns.
1. We have lost faith in the competence and willingness of the Civil Defence and the Earthquake Authorities to be effective caretakers of our property.

• Civil Defence is not adequately protecting property in the central city from looters.
• Civil Defence is demolishing buildings and businesses without consultation and against the declared interests of their owners.
• Civil Defence is destroying property without any due diligence or care about the value of what they are destroying.
• Civil Defence does not even care to consult with owners of property in any meaningful capacity.
• By any meaningful standard, the actions of Civil Defence are far more destructive to Christchurch businesses and business owners than the petty pilfering of looters.

2. We have lost faith in the ability of Civil Defence and the Earthquake Authorities to bring about meaningful recovery in the Christchurch central district.

• If recovery has any meaning at all, it is the recovery of Christchurch businesses.
• The "recovery" to date has been micro-managed, alienating the very individuals whose recovery is essential to restart business in Christchurch.
• There has been no interest in working with the very people of Christchurch whose business it is to run business, rather keeping the attempted recovery within the hands of too few individuals.
• Four weeks after the quake, and very little has been achieved beyond the original rescue effort. No surprise when the people who run Christchurch's businesses are excluded rather than embraced.

3. We call upon the New Zealand Government to:

• End the State of Emergency on Friday. With rescue and immediate recovery complete, responsibility, risk and stewardship for property should revert to its owners.
• Immediately reinstate personal property rights, guaranteeing property owners the final say in the determination of their property.

We say: “Tear down this State of Emergency and let Christchurch businesses begin the job of getting back on their feet.

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Photographer
Kurt Langer
Now no longer and maybe never accessible:
91 Cashel Mall
Christchurch 8011
New Zealand
M: +64 (0)21 407 506
mail@kurtlanger.com
http://www.kurtlanger.com