The inquiry presented dozens of recommendations to the Government in April, with a hefty 246-page report potted with statements gleaned from people and groups who painted a picture of a disaster response that was as traumatising as the events that precipitated it.
"The earthquake didn’t break me. EQC almost did," one homeowner told the inquiry. Disorder, dysfunction, arrogance and even incompetence were described at length by submitters who reckoned the Crown-owned insurer had simply failed to do its job.
After several months of considering the report, the Government this week pledged to implement the recommendations, to modernise the law that underpins the commission, and to ensure the new-look EQC is fit for the purpose it ought to have been fit for a decade ago.
If followed to the letter of the recommendations, the new law should clarify EQC’s role, as well as clarifying and improving how it deals with claimants, and how — and if — it assesses damage, manages repairs and settles disputes. It should address the problems of the past.
It will need to. The problems of the past continue to haunt the rebuild and public confidence in the EQC. As the inquiry noted, the EQC’s reputation suffered "serious damage" – some deserved, "but much because it was simply unprepared for the role assigned to it".
This is a point that must be identified and overcome in the new legislation. The inquiry found the EQC had been left on its own for years before the first earthquake, allowed to chart its own course but not given the support it needed to plan for, and fund, its future.
After years of inaction and inattention from successive governments, the EQC was not ready because it had not been readied. It is easy to believe the response was damned well before it was needed.
Seemingly caught on the hop, the EQC was consistently overwhelmed after the September 2010 earthquake, a situation made significantly worse by further earthquakes, the absence of clear prior direction from the government, and internal systems that were inadequate for the job.
Its response was critically hampered by little to no previous planning as to how to manage large-scale repairs. A paucity of planning and experience affected quality control, staffing decisions, project co-ordination and relationships with claimants.
At the end of all this, shoddy damage assessments were compounded by shoddy relationship management, and in disputed claims that revictimised claimants who naturally expected the EQC to do what they believed it was set up to do.
Now, ahead of the new law to make further sense of its role and responsibilities, the EQC says it is a completely different organisation to that which was overwhelmed for what seemed like the vast majority of the disaster response. It has had months to start implementing changes in light of what was heard in the inquiry and what it — and many claimants — learnt the hard way.
In her response, new chairwoman Mary-Jane Daly highlighted the need for greater clarity in the organisation’s role "as a matter of urgency", along with a clear mandate and mechanism for its post-disaster operations.
Such clarity will be fundamental to making further improvements. The EQC needs to know what it is, post-quake and pre the next one, before it can ensure it is doing exactly what the Government and the public need it to.
It is committed to having a broad-reaching advisory group to help guide its work into the future, and having more voices contributing to the development of the oft-maligned monolith is welcomed.
Hundreds of voices helped the inquiry understand what needed to change at the EQC. The new law, when and if it comes post-election, must assure us all ahead of the next big disaster.
