‘Quake outcasts’ get paid out for losses
The Government has paid more than $12 million to Christchurch residents whose uninsured homes were red-zoned after the earthquakes.
Known as the ‘‘Quake outcasts’’, they were paid for their land – but not their houses – when the Crown bought up the quake-affected properties. Those with insurance were paid for both.
In 2017, the Court of Appeal deemed the buy-out discrimination unlawful but only the
16 Quake Outcasts represented in the case received a top-up to the 2007/8 rateable value of their properties. Others in the same position, but not involved in the case, did not receive payment until now.
The Government has paid about $12.1m in 102 ex gratia to the remaining Quake
0utcasts. One further payment is in its final stages.
Pay-out recipient Dr Annette Wilkes, 78, said the Government had honoured its promise but she still believed her land was unjustifiably red-zoned.
‘‘The main thing I bear a grudge about is this business of identity and forcing us to leave there . . . the social outcomes of making us leave have been quite devastating for many, many families.
Wilkes had been in a dispute with her insurer over her premiums and was between insurers at the time of the earthquake. She felt pressured to settle
with the Crown late in the process.
Her family lived in the Dallington area since 1884 and she was forced out in October 2016. She said the place was her identity.
‘‘I miss the hills, I miss the river, all those important natural features that people become sentimentally attached to.
‘‘Taking your land off you, for whatever reason, is an injustice.’’
She still visits the property twice a day to remove weeds and see two important family trees – one her dog is buried under and a memorial tree to her father.
‘‘I could take you to the exact place my mother was born [more than 100] years ago . . . and she was born in her grandmother’s house. Only getting my land back
would give me closure.’’
A spokesman for Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods said the Crown carefully considered factors including fairness, consistency, precedent and fiscal responsibility.
It decided settling with the Quake outcasts would allow people to move forward with their lives.
‘‘The Crown offer was never about insurance and it had been unlawful to leave people out because of their insurance status,’’ she said.
The Government set aside
$35m of operational and capital contingent funding, of which
$12.5m was for ex gratia payments and $20m for new redzone buy-out offers, which reopened in August.
* Additional reporting by Tom Kitchin.
‘‘The social outcomes of making us leave have been quite devastating for many.’’ Annette Wilkes