Govt starts Gabrielle response with $300m of funds

Public Policy / news

Cabinet decides on initial $250m top-up for road repair fund; initial $50m for discretionary grants to small business; Govt also considering rebuild work visa for affected regions

20th Feb 23, 5:59pm by Bernard Hickey

Broken roads in Auckland will be repaired with help from a $250 million grant from Government. Photo by Bernard Hickey for The Kaka.

Cabinet has decided on an initial $250 million in top-up funding for the NZTA's National Land Transport Fund to pay for immediate repairs to state highways, bridges and local roads, along with a $50 million fund for discretionary grants for small businesses in the seven regions hit by Cyclone Gabrielle last week.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced the Government's initial financial response Monday evening after Cabinet's first full meeting in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, which he and Finance Minister Grant Robertson described as likely to be the worst and most expensive climate disaster in a generation.

Hipkins said the Government was also considering issuing special visas for immigrant workers to help rebuild devastated areas, similar to those used after the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011. It would also offer exemptions for temporary overdrafts under the new Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Also, he announced Inland Revenue would offer support for affected businesses by offering interest write-offs, tax concessions for donating trading stock and an extension of Research and Development tax filing deadlines.

“As Finance Minister I have been clear that we have the fiscal headroom to support our people and we will do that as we have done through all the other disasters we have guided this country though," Robertson said in a statement issued with the news conference.

“Ministers will finalise the distribution of this funding in the coming week, but this will include support to businesses to meet immediate costs and further assist with clean-up. We will coordinate the allocation of this funding with local business groups, iwi and local government in the affected regions," he said.

Transport Minister Michael Wood said immediate short-term funding was needed for NZTA (Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency) and councils.

Elsewhere, Hipkins said the Government would extend the current national state of emergency applying in Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, East Coast and Hawke's Bay for a further seven days. It also planned to appoint a lead minister for each affected region, to work within a cabinet sub-committee chaired by new Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson.

A cyclone recovery taskforce would also be set up and be chaired by Brian Roche.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

67 Comments

by powerdownkiwi | 20th Feb 23, 6:07pm 1676869651

Funding? You mean debt-issuance, don't you?

As with the pandemic.

We are a society living beyond it's means.

And avoiding that by calling debt, funding.

by Foxglove. | 20th Feb 23, 6:37pm 1676871460

Cyclones happen. Cyclone Tracy took out Darwin nearly fifty years ago. Every year TV shows us townships, communities devastated in the USA by hurricanes, not to mention their tornadoes. Ditto for the like of the Philippines and surrounds from typhoons. The thing is NZ has neglected its defences. Damage being allowed to be repeatedly caused by forestry slash is just one example. On another note we had recently two Cook Strait ferries breakdown in one of the world’s most notorious waterways, think the Wahine disaster 1968. How many deep water tugs of sufficient power does NZ have available then. Same with the pandemic preparedness where NZ was ranked 39th. Surely the White Island tragedy highlighted a glaring deficiency in ICU capacity. But all the governments have sailed on blithely hoping for the best so when the worst comes we get the worst.

by False economies | 20th Feb 23, 7:10pm 1676873417

Because voters don't want to pay for it. They want a gold standard infrastructure but are only prepared to pay for Tin.

Two options: more debt or higher taxes (or both).

Short-sighted false economies...

by Hemi Ti Wire | 20th Feb 23, 7:20pm 1676874046

Get real!... Consumers pay platinum for it but the labour greenies morons stop it. ..

Take the Brynderwyns Whangarei road. Ready to go under national, stopped under labour

by HouseMouse | 20th Feb 23, 8:24pm 1676877868

Exactly!

by Noncents | 20th Feb 23, 8:37pm 1676878627

They want a gold standard infrastructure but are only able to afford to pay for Tin

Fixed it. The cost of Gold standard is many many many times what our country can afford.

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 12:33am 1676892833

Because this country is a housing market with an economy bolted on the side.

We need to tax capital (the best way would be a land tax), reduce income taxes and remove other distortions like the accommodation supplement.

Labour took a bold step in the right direction by removing interest expense write-offs for rentals, but we need 5 steps forward, not just 1.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 21st Feb 23, 7:53am 1676919197

What a dumb opinion

Without the incomes generated by the housing market most kiwis would be .poor

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 9:01am 1676923264

Thank you for clearly demonstrating your lack of intellectual rigour.

by CrispyKahawai | 21st Feb 23, 9:32am 1676925120

Textbook Dunning-Kruger right here, folks.

by kiwikidsnz | 20th Feb 23, 9:00pm 1676880026

wrt the open water tugs, not quite. This safety gap had been repeatedly highlighted for the Cook Strait ferrys for years however MBIEs blameshifting & straw man response as recently as a couple of weeks ago was to say it would be too expensive to do for NZs entire coastline - which no one had ever suggested.

by Pa1nter | 20th Feb 23, 11:55pm 1676890553

Funding? You mean debt-issuance, don't you?

NZ has around $60 billion in the bank.

And $60 billion in debt.

We earn 7% on our savings

And borrow at 4%

So about 3% on the spread

by powerdownkiwi | 21st Feb 23, 7:51am 1676919109

Pa1ter - too many assumptions in there; too many taken-for-granteds.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 8:04am 1676919892

Those are just the facts I realise, we have low govt debt, and can access more funds at a lower rate than our invested capital returns.

There's obviously some risk but borrowing makes more sense than raiding the kitty. The alternative is believing it's all ending tomorrow - although even in that case might as well just borrow up a storm anyway......

by Squishy | 20th Feb 23, 6:10pm 1676869806

Government was also considering issuing special visas for immigrant...

There's a shock.

Any idea where they will live? I mean a substantial number of people are already homeless.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 20th Feb 23, 6:16pm 1676870197

Fulton hogan will be loving this!

300 mil wasted.

They should be billing forestry for the damage!

by Advisor | 21st Feb 23, 12:00pm 1676934024

I thought the fast-tracking of visas for building tradespeople and engineering professional would've been enough to help with the rebuild.

by Roger the dodger | 20th Feb 23, 6:29pm 1676870993

5 years of stalling on infrastructure, finally they might get moving.

Highway to Whangarei surely must back on the cards.

by IT GUY | 20th Feb 23, 7:30pm 1676874643

the Wellsford road should have started as soon as the Warkworth one finished....

by Roger the dodger | 21st Feb 23, 1:02pm 1676937723

Absolutely, I agree.

And the next stage after that should have been well into the planning stages by now.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 20th Feb 23, 7:30pm 1676874621

Under labour..

roads gone for cycle ways.

More pine Forrest's for greens saving the planet at 0.02% at a time.... While India and china burn more coal.

Poor infrastructure traded for Maori control

Inflation for min wage increase

Poor health outcomes for Gay rights

More murders for gang funding

More beneficiary's for more debt

by IanME | 20th Feb 23, 8:29pm 1676878159

Takes a while to turn the ship once you’ve got the helm. Hard to blame National or labour exclusively for the aforementioned woes. Most of them are decades in the making.

by Foxglove. | 20th Feb 23, 9:00pm 1676880008

The first Labour government in 1945 set up EQC or in modern language the National Disaster Fund in 1945. Ironically at that time there was a quasi coalition government with what became National Party mps, in the War Cabinet. So all of them knew something was required. That drew private money from insurance policies to build provision for disasters. Unfortunately I have lost a web site that detailed how much successive governments pillaged from those private funds and spent on other government projects, but I remember it was a more than quite a lot. If those supposed surpluses had instead been dedicated to improving vital infrastructure as relative and relevant, NZ would likely be a heck of a lot more resilient than it is now.

by GV 27 | 21st Feb 23, 6:42am 1676914927

Yet they were quite happy to carp on about nine long years of neglect in opposition. Hell, some of them are still trying to use it as an excuse now.

We're now five, almost six years in and they've managed to do even less. They've also missed their own, self-imposed policy targets they campaigned on.

by HouseMouse | 21st Feb 23, 7:19am 1676917149

Not only missed, but made almost zero progress on a number of them…

As much as I like a Hipkins, I can’t shake the fact he has been a core member of a poor government….

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 9:03am 1676923416

We're now five, almost six years in and they've managed to do even less.

Yeah, if you just ignore the 1 in 100 year pandemic that we were amongst the best in the world in dealing with, and which the government had to divert billions of dollars towards - including time and attention.

by refactornz | 21st Feb 23, 10:30am 1676928655

"1 in 100 year pandemic"

"we were amongst the best in the world in dealing with" - Debatable.

"the government had to divert billions of dollars towards" - Completely overdone by the Government and not spent wisely.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 10:54am 1676930051

"we were amongst the best in the world in dealing with" - Debatable.

Yeah, depends if you're talking about mortality and economic outcomes, or upsetting people who don't want to be told what to do.

by JimboJones | 20th Feb 23, 8:41pm 1676878883

Which roads are gone for cycleways?

by nzforall | 22nd Feb 23, 9:29am 1677011384

Now speed humps seem to be the name of the game. The UK got rid of theirs as it was found they caused more carbon

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 12:37am 1676893060

Poor health outcomes for Gay rights

Er, what?

Labour is the party that began funding PrEP when they entered office, and just recently extended the eligibility criteria for it.

I mean ok, sure they could spend more on health for the rainbow community, but health in general just needs more funding. They certainly haven't made anything worse.

by GV 27 | 21st Feb 23, 6:45am 1676915133

Yea I genuinely don't get what this is about either, did the adoption reforms happen post-marriage equality? I thought that all got covered off.

Between PrEP and the conversion therapy ban, I'm not sure this is considered a go-to shortcoming for the government.

by dumbthoughts | 21st Feb 23, 7:37am 1676918251

You're reading the comment wrong (I think).

Don't shoot me as this isn't my position, but I *think* what the commenter is saying is that the government has prioritised gay rights over healthcare, as that is what the other sentences are implying (having sacrificed X for Y)

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 9:04am 1676923441

The whole comment is moronic and very poorly worded.

by IanME | 21st Feb 23, 9:51am 1676926313

He’s consistent, I’ll give him that.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 21st Feb 23, 3:18pm 1676945892

Bingo 😁 dumb thoughts... You got it... Unlike the other two moronically moronic morons. 🤙

by dollar_bill | 21st Feb 23, 1:07pm 1676938075

Cycleways were one of National's and John Key's better initiatives, as was the fibre rollout, as was the UNDRIP. I'm voting Labour just to spite this sort of whinging and moaning nonsense from sore losers.

by structural engineer | 20th Feb 23, 7:46pm 1676875610

Chump change compared to the 9 billion Robinson and Orr lost NZ on the bond market.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 21st Feb 23, 7:55am 1676919358

More than that if you consider the amount lost by not investing in the right markets

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 9:00am 1676923230

Yeah, lets just ignore the $28.3B (and counting!) that 'financial wizards' John Key and Bill English cost the country by pausing contributions to the superannuation fund after the GFC, when assests were at depressed prices around the world.

https://www.nzsuperfund.nz/about-the-guardians/purpose-and-mandate

by GV 27 | 21st Feb 23, 11:39am 1676932765

Offset it against the $9b (and counting) bath we've taken in direct losses from RBNZ's Covid intervention? The one that you're so keen to dish out credit for just because other people made a bigger hash of it than we did?

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 12:39pm 1676936396

Once again, you mistake me for someone who is pro-Labour. I am not. I am, and always have been, anti-National.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 21st Feb 23, 3:23pm 1676946187

WTF... John and bill needed that 28billion to pay for Hellen and Michaels cluster Forks!!!!

Lest we forget... labour wastes it National pay it back.... And forward

by CrispyKahawai | 21st Feb 23, 10:13am 1676927634

What is it with tribal whiners and getting politicians’ names wrong?? It’s Robertson FFS. Same with “John Keys” and “Jacinta Arden”.

by GV 27 | 21st Feb 23, 11:40am 1676932842

Never understood why Hoskins Sotutu is some sort of boogeyman for the left tbh.

by elmoboy12 | 21st Feb 23, 8:23am 1676921029

What about the $1,500,000,000 that Mahuta gave to Pacific Island officials to deal with climate change? If that has not already ended up in the private bank accounts of Island officials, it should be re-directed to help those affected in NZ by the cyclone.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 8:29am 1676921379

I see $20 million was pledged, please evidence where $1.5 billion got handed over.

by redcows1 | 21st Feb 23, 9:06am 1676923587

Evidence

"What about the $1,500,000,000 that Mahuta gave to Pacific Island officials to deal with climate change?"

Quoted from the net therefore true.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 9:13am 1676923985

More like, heard it on Hoskings show, therefore gospel.

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 12:41pm 1676936477

He is quite preachy.

by Hemi Ti Wire | 21st Feb 23, 3:27pm 1676946435

What about the trillion bucks debt this lot will leave National to sort out.

chumpkins is a interim spender put in to lose the next erection,👍 then the Maori caucus will take over with mahuta?

by WestieAJ | 21st Feb 23, 9:40am 1676925635

500 wheelbarrows and 500 shovels = $160,000

500 people earning $30hr full time for a year = $31,200,000

500 people earning $62,400 a year and paying PAYE = $5.870,000 tax paid

Actual people doing actual work. That sounds like value for money to me.

Rather than consultants billing $200 an hour to achieve nothing.

by JimboJones | 21st Feb 23, 9:55am 1676926543

standards need to be pretty high these days, I’m not sure putting Jim on $30 an hour to design the drainage and structure would work out that well when the next 40 tonne truck goes past or it floods.

by WestieAJ | 21st Feb 23, 11:12am 1676931145

Why not pay him $30 an hour to chainsaw up forestry slash that can be sold as firewood. Instead of letting slash flow down the river. Creating a dam at the bridge until the force and weight of the water behind blows the bridge off its foundations. Then down the river to the next bridge to do the same. Then out onto the beaches

by GV 27 | 21st Feb 23, 11:41am 1676932912

You don't want to burn the wood, do you?

That'll surely require another conference to talk about offsetting, which will in turn trigger the need for more offsetting and more conferences.

by Lanthanide | 21st Feb 23, 12:42pm 1676936542

Harvested wood already requires carbon offsets, and that will include slash.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 10:30am 1676928604

Hey the 1980s called, it wants your estimating figures back.

by WestieAJ | 21st Feb 23, 11:17am 1676931456

In 1985 the minimum wage was $2.50 an hour. 60k per year in Hawkes Bay would not be so bad. The unemployed in the area subsist on much less now.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 11:53am 1676933629

How much work do you think an unemployed person in 2023 is going to get through.

You need to be paying a wage of 35-40 for a decent manual labourer.

So over 50 including benefits

And you need an extra person to manage every 5-6 you hire.

by WestieAJ | 21st Feb 23, 12:51pm 1676937084

Beats paying them to do nothing. Wound not care if they only did an hour of actual work a day. Just maybe a few of them would feel the value of doing something valuable and getting paid reasonably well to do it. As for your hourly rate suggestion. Sounds like something a consultant would say. Take a look on Seek. Search Labourer and get a reality check.

This government have a PHD in pissing money away and there is no shortage of sycophantic hangers on who are willing to be showered with gold.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 1:06pm 1676938005

As for your hourly rate suggestion. Sounds like something a consultant would say.

It's what someone who regularly tries to hire labour says. If I want someone who turns up regularly and outputs more work in a day than they cost, I need to pay them closer to $40 an hr, or more.

You can drag someone to work for $30 or less, but they're not up to much. It's cheaper to pay them to do nothing.

by WestieAJ | 21st Feb 23, 2:08pm 1676941730

Why do you need to hire labourers regularly? You are paying $40 an hour . Equivalent to 83 grand a year. Market is 25-30/hr even in Auckland. Why would anyone ever leave your gainful employ?

by Pragmatist | 21st Feb 23, 3:37pm 1676947069

Maybe the work isn't consistent, project based etc. Which does effect things, offering someone $30/hour for a few weeks work is different to $30/bour fulltime/permanent. $30/hour via a Labour hire crowd and you better not expect them to do much more than hold the floor down, and maybe unload the odd truck when it arrives.

by Pa1nter | 21st Feb 23, 7:01pm 1676959260

I do a mixture of different sorts of projects, although I try not to take on too much as good people are really pretty thin on the ground. If I could hire reliable hard workers for $40 an hr I'd take 10 of them full-time.

Auckland's probably the worst market in the country for labour pricing as it's the country's migration capital - anywhere else expect to pay quite a bit more.

by SmoKey | 21st Feb 23, 11:24am 1676931892

A suggestion.

Obviously, the Insurance companies cannot quickly handle all claims. To mitigate the customers' hardship, how about the Insurance Companies make an upfront payment of 5 years premium paid, subject to adjustment in the final settlement ?

Quick and timely relief.

Can the Government influence the Insurance Companies to come to the party ?

by Kate | 21st Feb 23, 8:44pm 1676965445

Good idea but a bigger lump sum needed to really kick start someone who has lost everything.

Perhaps easier for EQC to just pay out the maximum cover in a lump sum?

by SmoKey | 22nd Feb 23, 6:36pm 1677044176

Without recourse to the actual damage assessment ? Not sure, they would come to the party like that.