Trish Keith - General Manager EQC Customer and Claims, and an unfortunate Letter to the Editor

Did EQC approve Ms Keith's letter when it has factual inaccuracies?

One obvious failing is that the statistics just don't stack up with reality, nor what is publicly available in the wider media, nor with the statistics supplied by EQC / SR and the New Zealand Government. Ms Keith uses 3774 whereas MInister Brownlee uses 13244.

QUESTIONS TO THE HOUSE

  • 2452 (2017). Dr Megan Woods to the Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission (05 May 2017): What is the total number of remedial requests received, associated with the Canterbury Home Repair Programme, as of 30 April 2017?
  • Hon Gerry Brownlee (Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission) replied: As at 30 April 2017, EQC has received a total of 13,244 call back requests. This is from a total Canterbury Event Sequence building portfolio of 167,000 properties, or 7.9% of the programme.

SOME OF THE RESPONSES:

  • Andrew Hooker - Shine Law - noted that "It is quite misleading for EQC to rely on the number of people contacting EQC to measure the extent of botched repairs".  Full letter HERE.
  • Sam Lawrence - noted that "the detrimental effect on families having to have work done due to insufficient or negligent assessment, or poor project management should not be discounted. Full response HERE.
  • Dr Duncan Webb, Labour Candidate responds with some (full response below) numbers, Ms Keith points to 3774, whereas on May 9th 2017, in a Memorandum of Understanding between EQC and Southern Response, EQC themselves stated there were 11,500 outstanding claims related to building issues.

What is needed is a legislatively correct outcome, one, where if EQC has failed to assess correctly, repair correctly, or any of the other innumerable and notable failings, that EQC takes full responsibility, and NO CUSTOMER HAS TO PUT THEIR HAND INTO THEIR OWN POCKET, to continually prove EQC's failing of them and the tax payer.

In fairness to all, this is not perhaps the fault of Ms Keith, what it does point to is the ongoing issues within EQC. An inquiry is long over due.

Melanie TobeckComment