By John Tookey*
Cyclone Gabrielle caused chaos one year ago. Repairs due to that storm and the Auckland floods have required substantial time and resources. Hawkes Bay, parts of Auckland and the Coromandel all still bear the scars of the worst storm to hit New Zealand this century.
The good news is that most initial repairs are complete. The bad news is that the restored infrastructure is just as vulnerable as it was prior to Gabrielle. Restoring infrastructure to the way it was before a natural disaster is not necessarily the best approach for a resilient future.
Cyclone Gabrielle simultaneously exposed New Zealand’s dependence on “horizontal” infrastructure (electricity and roading networks, for example), and how tenuous and potentially prone to damage it is.
The cyclone also revealed the flaws in the country’s planning and consenting processes. There is a history of developing new housing in flood-prone areas – particularly in Auckland. A year after Gabrielle, New Zealand needs to look to the future of climate risk, policy creation and infrastructural investment.
Both the previous and current governments have expressed concerns over future climate impacts. Yet climate risk and related infrastructure investment were comparatively minor themes in the various election debates of 2023.
New Zealand now needs to ask some serious long-term questions:
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How frequently will it be exposed to the costs and chaos of weather events?
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How should it respond to those risks?
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What are the infrastructural investment priorities?
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How should it sequence its responses?
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And how will we pay for these measures?
Political agreement in theory
Failing to ask – let alone answer – those questions means New Zealand can’t plan, can’t build and can’t budget.
In October 2016, the National-led government’s environment minister Paula Bennett announced the ratification of the Paris Climate Accord. The treaty became legally enforceable in New Zealand in 2020 while Jacinda Ardern was prime minister.
Fundamentally, the commitment to addressing climate change is a point of agreement across the political spectrum.
Having ratified the Paris Accord, cuts to the country’s emissions are legally enforceable and time-bound. But New Zealand’s infrastructural planning, investments and commitments remain vague.
The Ardern government produced “Adapt and Thrive: Building a climate-resilient Aotearoa New Zealand” in August 2022. There was little coverage of this consultation document at the time or since, and the general public is largely unaware of it.
Adapt and Thrive advocates multiple strategies in response to climate change, including “avoid, protect, accommodate, retreat”. All elements of this plan have planning, legislative and resource implications.
But central to the report is the idea of “managed retreat” from flood-prone areas. The report indicates 300,000 dwellings will be directly affected by adverse weather events in the future. At least NZ$100 billion worth of property has been flagged as directly at risk, affecting 72,000 New Zealanders.
It is fair to say that the cost of new housing and infrastructure designed to protect at-risk communities, as well as service relocated ones, will be spectacularly expensive.
Can NZ ‘adapt and thrive’?
It is now time for New Zealand to decide to what degree it wishes to ameliorate the effects of climate change.
If this is a national priority, then planning, budgeting and sequencing need to be committed to. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be needed over a multi-decade, integrated programme of planning, compulsory purchase and infrastructure construction.
With the change of government, however, will that plan be put into action? There are aspects of it that make this questionable.
The different treatment of stakeholder groups around compensation during “managed retreat” will be problematic for the new governing coalition.
For example, Adapt and Thrive proposes 50% compensation for businesses and rental property owners, with zero compensation for bach or second home owners. Relocated communities’ resilience in terms of jobs, economic activity and housing will become contentious.
Adapt and Thrive also proposes limiting of rights of appeal for affected communities. The extensive planning and procurement processes involved make it hard to imagine the right to appeal being entirely quashed. Inevitably, the process of planning, financial commitments and appeals will be drawn out.
Time for big decisions
To say Adapt and Thrive will be challenging to put into effect is an understatement. If the policy is going to be reconsidered, so be it.
But New Zealand has pressing infrastructural investment needs to facilitate growth and sustainability. The planning and procurement needed to implement such policy is time-consuming and costly. Irrespective of political orientation, there is an absolute need to prioritise it.
Given the huge financial consequences, and inevitable trade-offs in social programmes, education, defence and other budget priorities, a time frame for making big decisions is essential.
Failure to do so will inhibit future growth and housing provision, reduce cost-effectiveness, as well as threaten the sustainability of communities in vulnerable areas. Cyclone Gabrielle made it clear that kicking this particular can down the road is not acceptable.
*John Tookey is Professor of Construction Management, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
20 Comments
Adapt and Thrive proposes 50% compensation for businesses and rental property owners, with zero compensation for bach or second home owners. Relocated communities’ resilience in terms of jobs, economic activity and housing will become contentious.
Yeah, the whole notion of compensation is unsustainable from the get-go. We have EQC (with respect to land damage) and private businesses and property owners have the option of purchasing insurance or self-insuring. And, then we have a reasonable social safety net should people find themselves homeless and penniless (that should be the area we spend more on as a society - not compensating folks to re-build the life they previously had). When a person loses a working partner through illness or accident - the state doesn't move with compensation for loss of earnings - life insurance does. If there is none, individuals adapt.
Given we do not have non-recourse loans, the cancellation of outstanding debt (as a result of a complete loss of earnings and/or capital as a result of a weather event) might be something the government wishes to regulate where our banking system is concerned. But that's the only 'new' consideration I think is worthwhile in this regard. Might get the banks to risk weight residential property lending differently - and that would be a good thing.
Really, this seems to me to be so simple. Compensation above and beyond what exists today is replete with moral hazard - let alone plain and simply pie-in-the-sky unaffordable without massive QE post a widespread event such as we have seen recently..
"And, then we have a reasonable social safety net should people find themselves homeless and penniless (that should be the area we spend more on as a society - not compensating folks to re-build the life they previously had). When a person loses a working partner through illness or accident - the state doesn't move with compensation for loss of earnings - life insurance does."
Protip life insurance in NZ can deny cover to most people on the basis of genetics or birth legally. Hence for many for most events there is no life insurance that could have possibly been available.
There is NO state support net for most people especially when you become crippled by illness and lose your job, then your home. You really need to be prepared to have a something similar to a severe brain injury and no income for years and no housing support (because even though accidental that is often what both ACC and the state in truth offer many TBI sufferers). Long covid yeah most people with that have no income or housing support.
Numbers have shown people with longer term chronic conditions often end up with no social supports and suffering severe destitution; they don't adapt, they die. Predominantly by suicide but often there is significant lack of access to medical treatment and care as well which causes deaths from preventable treatable complications. Then when they die NZ suffers a productivity hit because even if they were out of work and homeless their family is severely affected for months and their extended family & friends go out of work for a period too. Direct family members can take months if not years to recover. Some in turn who were destitute with the original dead person also die soon after. It can become a much wider cost to the social fabric & productivity.
[that is not even counting the cost to the family members pulled out of work that access to minimal medical support could have aided with, think of what it means to have 3+ people doing the job of one part time nurse, for more than 30+ hours a week each (because they are not skilled in health roles for chronic conditions), instead of their essential work roles mean].
'But New Zealand has pressing infrastructural investment needs to facilitate growth and sustainability.'
That is an ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE sentence from anyone at Professor level.
Growth and sustainability are incompatible.
Period.
But yes, we need to address the long-term future of infrastructure, including the ability to maintain it (to parry entropy).
Thanks John. Can you please write along the same lines at least monthly? Sooner or later, NZ Inc needs to find a way to ask the question.
It does seem obvious that our governance system is not fit for these kind of long term problems.
On RNZ this morning, I heard some lower South Island mayors saying they now understood the benefits of Three Waters.
I am old enough to remember the jubilation when Muldoon scrapped our first effort at a Superannuation Scheme. Australia kept their scheme. NZ is still living with the bitter results of that.
We have rallied behind leaders who can articulate a vision, John or Jacinda. Why is it that they can't deliver? The three year term? Frightened of the polls? Incompetence and sabotage by the civil service? Capture by special interests? Capture by political donors?
John, please keep this discussion going.
It's not like the private sector can do it better, look at Fletchers.
I think part of it is cultural. We have a short-term mind-set, we are stoic so accept poor infrastructure, we hate people who get ahead and we are not risk-takers. We are also very small. Like I have said before, the roads/tunnels in Sicily have to be seen to be believed. Driving through the interior through tunnel after tunnel, some up to 5km in length. It was 43c and I was thinking how back home we would be moaning about how hot it was and how we must ban something. The one thing you can say about Australians is they are risk-takers and think big.
I would go with the incompetence and sabotage by the civil service. The unelected bureaucracy that is off on their own mission. One example would be Immigration NZ. Did they not get the memo the previous incoming Labour Government wanted to reduce immigration? Everybody else did.
To be fair though, if you're a department whose job is to process visa applications, cutting those numbers by half would result in redundancies. Wouldn't surprise me if employment agreements and incentives were angled towards output/volumes. So a bit of a conundrum.
Agreed. I knew someone involved in power in Central Otago who told me for years that the power poles were dilapidated and the can had been kicked for decades when dealing with replacing them, they would rather pay to replace when a pole goes down than actually maintain the network as they didn't wish to sink the huge funds needed to replace the lot. This line of thinking is what has gotten us to where we are nationally today.
So how do we pry the public service at central and local government levels away from a philosophy of heavy centralised control and huge projects to connect everyone to everything, where localised networks or even self containment might be a very much better way to cost effectively create robust and resilient infrastructure.
I'm looking at building out on Otago Peninsula, and I plan to have the house at least ready to go off the power grid and water reticulation of all types as I can't see the networks being maintained that well out there in the future, given the council's priorities - and available budget.
It's indeed beautiful out there on the peninsula. The big question is will the road network be able to be maintained - as usually when it is disrupted, reticulated services go with it.
I haven't driven the road for years, but I suspect it has plenty of vulnerabilities.
I use the road to Eastbourne here in the Hutt as a case study for my students. There will come a time when keeping that open is likely unrealistic/unaffordable. One would then expect it to become a private road - maintained by a community collective - and moreover, perhaps it will be boat access only. That is becoming a closer reality for the Marlborough Sounds. Probably hundreds of examples across NZ.
We used to have sign 1/2 way up our road, road not maintained by council after .his sign. Of course, we made sure the road after the sign was always in better condition than the council part.
Don't know what the outcome was in the sounds, where council, Waka kotahi, were saying some roads weren't economic to fix. Many people don't realize a paper road only has to provide pedestrian access, there is no legal requirement to allow vehicle traffic.
Kate - You're right: access is very vulnerable to weather, slips, road works delays and all the rest, and although the road was recently redeveloped at huge cost, it isn't noticeably more secure, and the speed limits were reduced (although they are almost universally ignored). The harbour is also heavily tidal with sandbanks showing through at low tide, so a ferry isn't really a practical option unless they go to a hovercraft. Time to buy an AMTRAC? :-)
Plus since the council is open to allowing groundwater flooding in the poor areas en masse the Peninsula will easily get cut off. But lets see have you thought about emergency exits e.g. you need surgery or urgent treatment for heart attack and cannot get access via road to city. The helicopter is not instantaneous, ensuring you are equipped for lifesaving care initially and if you have to have someone to help boat you then having a backup transport mechanism in case would not hurt.
Trust me the first thing that is going going gone is the medical access for emergencies in Otago before any power, water, food. Heart attacks do kill and having the prep to survive must be a long term plan of at least 10years of unknown injuries, illness and ageing. It is why the first people they evacuate and move out of town during a resource and natural event are those who are more likely to have an injury or illness e.g. retirement villages, young, those with poor connections to medical & living essentials. But given the number of kiwis who think sewage floodwaters are great to swim in I am guessing those likely to suffer injury or illness will be larger numbers than usual in future events.
In rural areas, the rescue helicopters are often here before the stressed ambulance/fire service. I don't know if they have better communication, or higher priority, but you often hear the helicopter before the siren, or just after, and it has come at least 80 k.m.
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