Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Government will spend what it needs to spend as Cabinet meets to talk about funding and support for areas impacted by extreme weather events.
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.
Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking on Tuesday morning, Luxon said at Monday's Cabinet meeting, they would talk about funding and support needed to “immediately get out the door.”
“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.
Minister for Emergency Management Mark Mitchell told TVNZ’s Breakfast on Tuesday; “we’ve had three districts in two regions that have declared and gone into a local state of emergency,” Mitchell said, and he and Luxon were; “very clear eyed in our own minds in terms of what we need to do.”
Mitchell is taking a paper to Cabinet and providing a full briefing.
Mitchell said it was about making sure the central government was “very quickly” getting support out to communities hit by extreme weather events.
Asked whether the paper involves supporting businesses around the mountain that have been closed off, Mitchell said he was aware that businesses had to close right at the height of the tourist season, “that is something I’m very aware of and we need to look at”.
Independent Government inquiry?
Tauranga City Council has since announced an independent review into the landslide and a WorkSafe spokesperson told RNZ it was in a very early stage of assessing what its role may look like once the search and recovery phase was complete.
Speaking to TVNZ’s Breakfast on Tuesday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the country needed to be better prepared for extreme weather events.
And after these types of events, there always needed to be a full review, he said.
"Clearly, there are some big questions already about whether information that was received was acted on quickly enough,” Hipkins told Breakfast.
"I don't want to form judgement on that, I think out of respect to all of those who have been affected by these extreme weather events, particularly those who have tragically lost their lives or had their lives turned upside down."
"I think we owe it to them to not rush to judgement, to make sure that there's a thorough process in place. An independent government inquiry should be the minimum that they could expect that would give them the answers that they deserve," Hipkins 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.
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."
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