In his first post-cabinet press conference of the year, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Government will be providing $1.2 million to support regions affected by extreme weather events through mayoral relief funds.
This $1.2 million would be on top of the annual government contribution already made to these funds.
Heavy rain and floods have affected places like Northland, the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, the East Coast and Gisborne. Last Thursday, a landslide came down at the Beachside Holiday Park at Mt Maunganui - six people were reported missing and on Saturday, police announced the search for victims had moved into a recovery phase.
On Tuesday afternoon, Luxon said; “local authorities distribute these grants to help people, families and community groups get back on their feet”.
“Across government, assessments are underway in affected regions to establish further need and we are ready to provide further support as ongoing needs become clearer,” Luxon said.
A further $1 million will be reimbursed to marae that have provided support in response to weather events.
Luxon said there were also existing funds from the Natural Hazards Commission, the New Zealand Transport Agency, the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Primary Industries.
Alongside this, Chris Penk, who is currently Minister for Building and Construction, will become Associate Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery.
Luxon said Penk would support Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell by leading the coordination of the Government’s response.
“As part of his new delegation, I’ve also asked Chris Penk to bring advice back to Cabinet on the potential scope of a Government inquiry into the events at the Mt Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park last Thursday.”
Luxon said he believed there was a strong case for an independent government inquiry and they would talk to Tauranga City Council - which has already announced an independent review into the landslide - about this.
When asked about how the Government landed on $1.2 million, Luxon said: “This is about immediate money getting straight out to those five councils … and getting cash dispersed to immediate needs.”
Luxon said this was an immediate top-up to the mayoral relief funds.
“There is clearly a need for us to spend a lot more on investments alongside with councils going forward.”
The announcement on Tuesday afternoon comes after Cabinet met in the morning to talk about funding and support for areas impacted by extreme weather events.
'A continually evolving piece'
Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking on Tuesday morning, Luxon said: “It will be a continually evolving piece … initially we’ll have a plan about what we’re going to do in the short term,” he said.
“We will spend what we need to spend and we will work with the councils to do that, we’re building a good picture of what’s needed.”
When asked if insurance was expected to be held by impacted businesses or if this is on the Government, Luxon said he wasn’t sure and this is something they would discuss at the Cabinet meeting as to whether there was any support they could offer there as well.
“We’ll look at that but it’s not like a mass Covid period where it’s everybody and it’s for a long period of time, it’s very localised, very targeted support,” Luxon said.
Climate resilience fund
In 2023, the Labour-led government set aside $6 billion in initial funding for a national resilience plan to focus on building back from weather events - this came after the Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.
This fund was wound up (roughly half of the fund was spent), The Post reported, in Budget 2024 with the Government wanting that type of spending to go through normal Budget processes.
On Monday, Luxon told The Post the current government was spending this money but putting it through normal processes.
He said this was “entirely appropriate from a financial control point of view” and pointed out the Government had spent money on a regional infrastructure fund and rebuilds for areas impacted by the 2023 floods.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Luxon said they were “not in the business of creating a $6 billion resilience fund and saying, we'll just borrow that money for the future”.
“We want to run it through our existing processes and we have set budgets up and funds up that actually can deal with events like this.”
Climate adaptation framework
In October, the Government announced its National Adaptation Framework. The framework includes creating a national flood map and introducing legislation clarifying the responsibility of local government by requiring adaptation plans in the highest priority areas.
Documents on establishing a National Adaptation Framework were also proactively released, with a paper Watts took to Cabinet outlining proposals.
Alongside this was a Minute of Decision document from the Cabinet Economic Policy Committee. In this document, the committee agreed: "The Government's intent is to move towards an end state where the Crown no longer distorts risk signals and blunts incentive to manage risk by providing financial assistance where homeowners suffer significant losses after major events (especially in the form of residential property buyouts)".
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said when it came to Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, they were in a; "response phase and that's going to transition through".
"We don't have a clear assessment yet in terms of needs and requirements. We'll be discussing that later today."
"But in regards to the broader climate adaptation framework, it is important. We need a clear plan to deal with the impacts of climate change. We are seeing increased frequency and severity of these events," said Watts.
Watts said in regards to how you deal with specifics when it came to communities, that would be on a needs basis and they would work through that.
"But we're not at that point at this point," Watts said. "The focus right here, right now, is on the response and the recovery mode."
1 Comments
'Luxon said they were “not in the business of creating a $6 billion resilience fund and saying, we'll just borrow that money for the future”.
“We want to run it through our existing processes and we have set budgets up and funds up that actually can deal with events like this.”'
Yes that's National and the current coalition. Ignore GHS warming and its consequences. Don't do anything except raise more debt to pay for the increasing costs of damage. Let the homeless younger generation pay the additional future costs.
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