For many, Christchurch mayor Bob Parker was the face of calm and reassurance in the days after the Christchurch quake.
But infighting among city councillors and a payrise given to CEO Tony Maryatt over the past year have fuelled public discontent over how the council is handling the recovery.
Mr Parker says despite all this, he still has faith and respect for his councillors.
“I think we’re in unexplored territory, there’s no blueprint for the world that we find ourselves in or the tasks that we have in front of us. It’s been a long, long time and there’ve been so many more earthquakes than I think anyone could have begun to have imagined at the start of this process,” he says.
Mayor Parker says he has a lot of praise for the council and is confident it can continue to work together – but says the job is still too large for local Government only.
“I just think that we have so much to do and so much expectation that we have to recognise the good things that we’ve all done together, we can handle this task together with central Government,” he says.
Reflecting on last year’s quake, Mr Parker says he will always remember where he was when the quake happened.
“There’s that moment at 12:51 that every one of us forever will have imprinted on our memory where we were, things that happened around us, people we lost, the extraordinary bravery that we saw from so many people, the courage, when we realised that the most important person in the world was our neighbour or friend or the stranger that came to help and our world just changed forever,” he says.
“It’s going to be a very long day, and a very sad day for a lot of people.”
3 News