Govt to detail quake recovery department

The Government will today give details about the new government department that will oversee the rebuilding of Christchurch following the devastating February 22 earthquake.

Prime Minister John Key will travel to Christchurch today to announce the interim leader, and the powers and structure of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.

Speaking at a post-cabinet press conference yesterday, Mr Key said the scale of the rebuild was too big to be handled by existing institutions.

"The new authority will pull together the resources of central government and coordinate them so we have an effective timely recovery," he said.

It was earlier reported that high-ranking civil servant Martyn Dunne had been appointed to lead the department, but Mr Key confirmed yesterday he would not.

"There were discussions with Martyn Dunne. We are not denying that."

However, someone else had been selected and Mr Dunne would now be taking up a new role as High Commissioner to Australia, Mr Key said.

Meanwhile, the Government announced yesterday that assistance packages for Christchurch businesses and workers would be extended, but that the schemes would be scaled back.

Both the Earthquake Support Subsidy for employers and the job loss cover for workers will be extended until April 18, followed by a second round of assistance with tighter application criteria.

Businesses that qualified for the second round would receive payments at gradually reducing rates each fortnight over a six-week period.

Labour's Canterbury Earthquake Recovery spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove told Radio New Zealand this morning that it was too soon to scale back the packages.

"This is not business as usual, you can't just say 'well after 12 weeks everybody's okay and if you're not tough luck'," Mr Cosgove said.

"If a business hasn't got access and nothing has changed for that business no one can say whether it can restart or not, so the Government's answer is 'you're chopped'."

Mr Cosgrove said putting a stop to funding meant there would be premature redundancies and taxpayers would end up paying for welfare for those people.