Finance Minister Grant Robertson says “this is a Budget that’s appropriate for a time where people are struggling” at his annual photo opportunity Wednesday morning. Video / Mark Mitchell / Adam Pearse
Cyclone victims in Hawke’s Bay have more accommodation and livelihood support on their Budget 2023 wishlist, but they also want to see existing funding better utilised first.
Dee Southall andher partner Brendan were left homeless after their Pakowhai rental property was ruined in the flooding.
She said it would be good to see more government support for accommodating displaced people after disasters like the cyclone in Budget 2023.
“When we were initially homeless, Cookie Time [their employers] found us a place to stay and paid for that. Then we had to find somewhere else to go,” Southall said.
Southall had contacted the Ministry of Social Development for help at the time, but she was told that all the motels and evacuation centres were full.
“They had no answer... I rang around motels asking if they had rooms until I finally found one,” Southall said.
She told MSD that she found a place, but they told her they couldn’t subsidise the cost because it was not one of their registered accommodation providers.
“I just don’t understand what their solution was going to be if they had nowhere for me to go and they couldn’t give us an answer.”
Dee Southall and her partner Brendan. Southall's home was red-zoned in the 2011 Christchurch Earthquakes and now she and her partner have lost everything in Cyclone Gabrielle.
She said they were lucky a real estate agent found them a rental, but they were never compensated by the Government for their search for accommodation and lack of support.
Southall said another thing she would like to see in Budget 2023 was more funding for the Cyclone and Flood Recovery Fund for businesses affected by Cyclone Gabrielle.
She and her partner run a Cookie Time franchise and applied for a grant, but were not given the maximum $40,000 they could apply for despite having lost more than that, which Southall believes could be due to the currently limited funding.
She said she wasn’t ungrateful for the assistance, but she believed that others in less affected areas had received the full amount.
“We lost $50,000 worth of stock and we had to pay an extra $20,000 for our van over and above what ours was insured for because there was a shortage of vans prior to the flood,” Southall said.
“You have insurance, but it never covers everything.”
She said that while it would be nice to see more for those affected by the cyclone in Budget 2023, she was also concerned that there were existing funding and donation pools that hadn’t been utilised properly yet by the authorities in charge.
“There just needs to be accountability on where all this money is, where it is going and who is getting it.”
The cover of Budget 2023 is a photo taken by Grant Robertson from Mataruahou Bluff Hill, prior to the cyclone, overlooking Napier and the Hawke’s Bay coast.
It could be an indication that actions addressing the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on Hawke’s Bay and other regions will be a centrepiece of the Budget.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson with the front cover of his Budget 2023, a photo taken from Mataruahou Bluff Hill in Napier, on Parliament steps on Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
