Playing catch-up on flood damage compensation

The Mayor of Marlborough John Leggett has described the damage to his region from August's intense and prolonged rainfall as eye-watering. Photos: Twitter, Facebook

BY JAMES PAUL

Local Government NZ’s message is clear – one-off, competitive, and after-the-fact recovery funding from central Government is not a sustainable solution to give New Zealanders the flood protection they deserve. Last month’s atrocious weather saw parts of the country declare states of emergencies as immense rainfall across four days caused widespread damage, slips and evacuations. Among the areas hardest was the NelsonTasman region, which remains in state of emergency.

North Islanders weren’t exempt from the severe conditions either with some towns cut off by floods that swamped roads and homes. More than 500 residents of northern and central areas were forced from their homes after rain made some of them uninhabitable.

In light of the destruction, the Government made an initial contribution of $200,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund “to help communities in Nelson/Tasman following prolonged heavy rain, flooding and high winds,” the Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced on August 18. Financial support of $150,000 from Rural Communities Minister Damien O’Connor was also made available to help farmers and growers recover from the heavy rain across Taira -whiti and Hawke’s Bay, while the top of the South received $120,000 and the Far North was allocated $30,000.

It was only 13 months after the Government injected $4 million into relief funding to support flood-affected Canterbury farmers who were recovering from the damage of a historic one in 200-year flood, with an additional $100,000 provided to the Mayoral Relief Fund to support Canterbury communities.

All of which was in addition to the $500,000 committed by the Ministry for Primary Industries on 1 June 2021. Along with Enhanced Taskforce Green funding of $500,000 from the Ministry of Social Development, the Government committed more than $5m to communities for the severe weather event. travellers and freight, typically has around 24,000 vehicles per day going over it, including 2,000 trucks. Over 30,000 vehicles cross in weekends.

When it closed – due to concerns about structural stability – along with alternative routes south (including the rail line) thanks to flooding, this impacted supply chains to the whole of the lower South Island with significant but difficult to accurately quantify impacts on the economy.

That same 2021 weather event gave rise to over one billion dollars in damage to Crownowned assets located in the Ashburton district.

In a recent interview with media regarding this year’s August flooding, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden said that getting money to local areas was critical to ensure an immediate clean-up response. It was, however, not intended to for supporting the “extra work that’s needed such as infrastructure”.

A state of emergency was in place for Nelson and Marlborough, and some rivers in the top of the South Island have had their biggest floods on record, when significant rain fell in August.

However, supporting communities with much needed, and seemingly one-off, payments is not sustainable – especially in the face of the increasingly frequent and extreme weather events, says Local Government NZ. Therefore, Te Uru Kahika – Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa’s Chief Executive Officers Group is urging the Government to prioritise sustained co-investment in flood protection across New Zealand.

Recently releasing its Central Government Co-investment in Flood Protection Schemes Supplementary Report, the group says $1.5 billion is needed to protect New Zealanders from floods as a longer-term solution – like government investment support – is severely lacking.

“New Zealander’s lives and livelihoods are in very real danger from increasingly severe and frequent flood risks arising from climate change. The consequences of failing to provide supporting investment to fund critical flood protection across New Zealand are unthinkable,” the report states.

“Significant co-investment from Central Government simply cannot be put off any longer. The time to act is right now.”

Published in January 2022 but made public in April, the report is the second call from Te Uru Kahika for national leadership and urgent action to meet the flood hazard risks arising from climate change. facing similar challenges. For example, the United States and the United Kingdom have recently acted with urgency to significantly ramp-up their investment into flood protection schemes.

The report strengthens the findings of an earlier publication in 2019, which revealed that the combined $200m of regional and unitary council investment in flood protection schemes each year was falling short of what is required to meet flood protection needs by $150m per annum.

Convenor of the Regional Council Chief Executive Officers Group, Michael McCartney says it’s been nearly three years since the original report highlighted these alarming findings to the Government.

“Since our 2019 report, there have been ten more significant flood events around New Zealand, not to mention the substantial number of close calls where flood protection infrastructure has been pushed to within mere millimetres of its capacity. Any flood is a significant flood to the people that it affects,” says McCartney.

Director of Policy and Advocacy for Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ), Grace Hall says the funding issue lies with government and Waka Kotahi.

“Councils are concerned about the level of funding available for investment in resilience of the transport network, particularly given increasing frequency/ severity of extreme weather events.” “In July, there was a remit passed at our Annual General Meeting – that LGNZ call for an independent review, to commence within the next 12 months, into the way in which Government, through Waka Kotahi, fund transport investments in Aotearoa.

“This includes funding of new developments and maintenance programmes.

“There’s a real need for us to work with central government around funding – for both building resilience of infrastructure and what we can do about the infrastructure that’s in at-risk locations,” Hall adds.

“Until earlier this month [July], there has been no national direction around how communities deal with the impacts of climate change. So, councils have decades of experience in making their own decisions.

“The National Adaptation Plan was a good start and aims to make sure homes and infrastructure are built away from harm.

“We have previously been involved with joint central and local government work on community resilience. We’d like to see this work ramped up again and are discussing this with the Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government.

“The local government sector has been advocating for a long time to ensure that the Government uses managed retreat as the last resort. There are a number of other options such as building protective structures, nature-based solutions, and making buildings and structures safer and more resilient to save residents from the traumatic experience of retreating.”