One of the things that has been done very successfully by Key, Brownlee, Parata, and a host of other central government representatives, AND, the insurance companies, is to represent the situation in Christchurch and Canterbury as a "local" issue. The failures in Christchurch are very much a failure of central government, and as a result of representing it as only a "local" issue, we don't get to discuss why EQC is underfunded, why insurance companies have been acting in an unregulated manner, and a host of other things. Under the guise of the "local" earthquake, education "reforms" have been foisted on some areas of Christchurch. We don't talk nationally about whether it is acceptable that regional government in Canterbury has controlled by central government for some time now (primarily for the benefit of the dairy industry). We don't talk about whether it is acceptable that a minister (Brownlee) has been given unprecedented powers to override legislation and local and regional government in Canterbury.

The discussion here is about what the micro or local failures in Christchurch and Canterbury represent about our central / national government, and it is dangerous for all those interested in government and democracy to not have those issues represented and discussed nationally, in our national media.

To buy in to the idea that the failures in Christchurch by central government is a "local" issue and that it's all about the anglican cathedral is foolish and blind to the much larger issues that the past four years have exposed about our central government.

But the post by Gerard is about 'national' media (primarily television), that happen to be based in Auckland. Not about regional newspapers or regional radio or regional television.