People, power and communication

with Todd Muller

National Party Spokesperson for Agriculture

As National’s Agriculture spokesperson, naturally I have a particular interest in the welfare and recovery of the primary sector but by my way of thinking, until there’s a full assessment of the damage, there is only one division: those who need help, and those who can help.

Emergency services, lines companies, council workers, helicopter pilots and others have been putting in enormous efforts in the recovery, and we can all be grateful for that effort, as well as for the actions of unsung heroes.

People in Canterbury understand the trauma that comes with a natural disaster. I know that Canterbury readers, especially those with family or friends in the affected areas up north, will be offering what they can.

People in the worst affected areas will be traumatised by what they have seen and experienced – compounded for many by the days they went without communication or information. The Ministry of Primary Industries’ website has useful contacts for various means of support, and the Rural Support Trust can be contacted via www.rural-support.org.nz.

In an era in which people have never been more easily connected, the cyclone reminds us that we have also become more vulnerable to communication lines going down. Who, nowadays, could reach for a battery-operated transistor radio?

I agree with Federated Farmers that in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, it’s people, power, communications and access that are the priorities. However, quickly communities will move on to big questions about land use, insurance, the resilience of infrastructure and who pays for it.

Cyclone Gabrielle will be the reminder no-one wanted about the importance of agriculture not only to New Zealand’s economy and regional economies, but also to

New Zealanders’ standard of living.

Most of us saw images of horticultural workers stranded on the rooves of their cabins during the floods, and it was good to quickly learn that those people were soon rescued and safe. But laden apple trees have been uprooted and washed away – and with them the expected income of those growers, and the jobs of their workers.

The implications of this disaster will continue to become apparent over the coming weeks and months and all of us will see the effect on produce prices at supermarkets.

The scale of losses is enormous. The Insurance Council of New Zealand has already said that the expected insurance bills for the Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle will top the whole of 2022’s claims – and that was the highest year’s claims on record. All of this is compounded by inflation and worker shortages.

As my colleague and National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis has said, the Government must respond to Cyclone Gabrielle with a focus on delivering targeted support and replacing critical infrastructure in a timely manner.

I agree with her that the Government is likely to struggle to meet the challenges of the recovery. For too long, the Government has spent too much money unproductively. It raided funds that were ear-marked for Covid and that could instead have been set aside for emergency purposes.

Finally, while rural households tend to have a greater degree of self-sufficiency than those in cities, in the wake of Gabrielle let’s all ensure that we assess our own family’s emergency provisions and procedures.

The recommendation is that you have enough supplies to last three days if cut off. Many remote households are used to going far longer than that, but let’s all be prepared.