Parliament could soon be dealing with a bill under urgency to speed up the rebuilding of earthquake-damaged homes and buildings in Christchurch.
Prime Minister John Key, visiting the city yesterday, said it might be necessary to change the law so that building consents could be granted retrospectively.
"What we don't want is the bureaucratic process holding back the restoration process, and if we have to get at it in reverse order I think that's totally fine," he told reporters.
If the Government wants to it could pass a bill through all its stages in a single day by putting Parliament into urgency and bypassing the select committee process.
Mr Key said the aim was to fix things quickly.
"If you're talking about chimneys that are down and walls that are damaged, that sort of thing, I think we just get in and get the work done."
In Parliament yesterday National's Selwyn MP Amy Adams, whose house is near the epicentre of Saturday's quake and was damaged, said there were going to be problems with repairs which would prolong the anxiety and trauma people were going through.
"When you think there's 100,000 homes that are going to need repairs and you look around your house and think `how long am I going to be living in a house like this' that is a very sobering thought," she said.
The Treasury yesterday revised its estimate of the cost of earthquake damage, doubling initial estimates and saying it could be as high as $4 billion.
"The costs faced by the Earthquake commission, by individuals, by businesses and by insurance companies could be in the order of $4b," said Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.
NZPA