The Government was warned about shoddy workmanship on foundations around Canterbury but "arrogantly ignored them all", Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove says.
An official sample of around 100 Christchurch homes has found only a third of the properties had acceptable earthquake repair work and dozens failed to meet building code. Problems with concrete foundation and 'jack and pack' repairs have now been flagged all over the city.
The Earthquake Commission (EQC) has offered to repair the botch-ups for free and expects around 1200 homes to need some kind remediation in the coming weeks and months, with a total of 3600 properties to be audited for signs of failure.
Mr Cosgrove took a shot at Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee this afternoon claiming industry experts, a cross party working group and members of the public had already warned the MP about the shoddy repair work.
"Today's apology and commitment to new repairs comes far too late. Gerry Brownlee was warned numerous times by several experts that the people doing the underfloor repairs weren’t qualified and were using bad process," he said.
"People are extremely concerned that, for instance, they may have to move out of their house again to have yet more repairs done. People have also raised the question - if the shoddy builder who did the underfloor repairs also did repairs on other parts of the house will those be checked and, if necessary, fixed as well?"
Mr Cosgrove went on to claim there was a "pattern of arrogance" in the Government with Ministers refusing to heed fair warning.
"It is the height of arrogance for Mr Brownlee to insist he is right and everyone else is wrong. This apology will be bittersweet for those homeowners for whom the ongoing fallout of the earthquakes doesn’t seem to end."
Mr Brownlee played down the ordeal today and described it as a "minor problem".
"It's not very widespread at all. Less than 2 percent of all the houses that are done may have a problem. A smaller subset of those houses will have to have one or two things done," he said.
"It has been a problem with who signed it off. You heard today from Graham Darlow from Fletcher say they take a dim view of what's been done in an inappropriate way and they want to fix it."
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) have described most of the shortcomings as "relatively minor and easy to fix".
None of the remediation work will be at the homeowner's expense.
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