Back view of IBIS House during demolition following February and June quakes.

Site of IBIS house (and Hereford Street) on December 12th 2011. One of the many vacant sites in the city following the devastating February quake.

This time last year I wrote about the devastating earthquake that hit Christchurch in September 2010. Unfortunately, the subsequent earthquake on 22nd February 2011 just before 1pm, whilst smaller than the September one was closer, shallower and nastier. This quake involved substantial loss of life and far more property damage. Whole suburbs, iconic buildings, schools and businesses have been destroyed, the Christchurch CBD is still in lockdown and despite over 500 buildings in the CBD having being demolished, there are still over 600 more that will need to come down. Whole city blocks are now bare and the CBD is one big demolition (or de-construction to be PC) site. It will be for some time.

Tomorrows Schools Today’s Head Office was right in the heart of the CBD and two of our staff suffered minor injuries, but all were able to safely evacuate our building and the city. We witnessed terrible sights as we left the city and realised then that unlike the September quake where no one was killed, this time there would be a substantial loss of life.

It will be some time before the people of Christchurch who went through the earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks begin to feel confident about the ground beneath them. In the meantime many lives are on hold as the multitude of issues that need to be addressed are sorted out. One thing is for sure; the task of rebuilding Christchurch is so overwhelmingly massive that it will not be accomplished in the lifetime of most of those reading this. Tomorrows Schools Today will feature a series of articles, starting in the New Year covering the issues facing Christchurch and the Education Sector as a result of the earthquake.

The other tragedy in the South Island, The Pike River Mine explosion on the 19th November last year is still in the news as the Inquiry into the disaster winds up. The findings have not been released yet but it is obvious that blame will be apportioned and that those held responsible will probably face criminal charges. Meantime the bodies of the 29 dead have still not been recovered.

This year saw the Rugby World Cup finally arrive on our shores and thanks to The All Blacks winning the final (just) against France, staying here. After all the hype, there were many (this writer included) who thought that the whole event would fail to live up to expectations, but the way that New Zealand embraced the event made it an unqualified success. The smaller towns especially made the visiting teams welcome with their hospitality and support. The Australian team in particular will remember the warmth of their welcome and stay in Hamner Springs for a long time.

Dunedin’s Forsythe Barr stadium was completed in time for the RWC and proved the decision to build a covered stadium was an inspired one. Indeed, Christchurch could do a lot worse than simply copying the Dunedin model as a replacement for AMI Stadium, which must now be demolished due to earthquake damage.

The General Election and Referendum on our Electoral System came and went with the result never in doubt, only the margin by which it would occur. Polls prior to the election were fairly close to the final result with perhaps the only surprise being the acceptance of MMP by the majority of those who bothered to turn up to exercise their constitutional right. The low voter turnout is not something we can be proud of, especially as throughout the world people are being killed for protesting against the fact that in their country, they do not have free elections or the right to vote. On Election Day I spoke to a recently arrived immigrant family from the Middle East who were overjoyed to be able to vote for a government for the first time in their lives. It is easy sometimes to take for granted what we have here and looking through the eyes of the recently arrived can remind us of that.

The announcement that Primary Schools will be required to publish league table results after repeated assurances that this would not happen and the trialling of ‘Charter Schools’ sets the stage for more unrest in the Education Sector. National has shown its disregard for any input from Educationalists and appears to be looking for a major confrontation with schools. On a tactical level this makes no sense, however strategically one wonders if charter schools are really just a stalking horse for the introduction of a voucher system for education in New Zealand.

Globally, the ongoing financial crises in Europe casts a dark shadow over the world and to date no satisfactory solution seems to be near. Put simply, most of the Western World went on a spending spree for a decade using borrowed money from all over the world. Now the money needs to be paid back and there is no more that can be borrowed to do so.
The credit card has been maxed out! People throughout the world are opposing austerity and belt-tightening measures and the prospects for the next two to five years are not good.

All in all, to paraphrase Queen Elizabeth, 2011 is not a year that we will look back at with undiluted joy. A depressed economy, destroyed major city and uncertainties for the future create an air of tension in New Zealand unlike any I have seen before. Hopefully the upcoming Christmas holidays will bring some respite from what has been a long and stressful year. I would also like to thank all our readers and advertisers for their support and concern for the staff at TSTNZ immediately after the earthquake; your calls and messages of support were most appreciated.