A slip blocks State Highway 2 in January. Photo / NZTA
By RNZ
The Deputy Prime Minister says it is up to local communities, not necessarily the Government, to decide whether they need to relocate as climate change worsens.
And a local iwi leader agrees, saying it will take a “whole of community approach” to make the hard calls required to create “peace of mind”.
Parts of the North Island have been repeatedly hit by extreme weather events in recent years, particularly the Bay of Plenty, Tai Rāwhiti/Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay.
The latest – Cyclone Vaianu – was not as destructive as feared, but still took out roads and flooded communities at the weekend.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Morning Report on Monday that iwi in the eastern part of the North Island were having conversations about relocating from areas vulnerable to wild weather and the effects of climate change.
“They’re having those conversations with the elders who have been very connected to those areas, and that’s been a really positive thing.”
As for the 14% – around 675,000 – New Zealanders who currently live in areas prone to flooding, Luxon said it was time to “confront the brutal facts of the reality that actually there are going to be areas of New Zealand that we’re going to have to rethink over time how we manage that”.
Asked whether we should be “pushing fast forward on those discussions” by First Up host Nathan Rarere on Tuesday morning, Deputy Prime Minister and Act leader David Seymour said it depended on who “we” are.
“It’s more important to break down who has each role. The Government has a role in this, and that is producing the national flood maps, producing the National Adaptation Framework, which sets out what the information is in each location and potentially what the options are in any location.
“It’s then up to the communities you mentioned to figure out what’s most important to them and what choices they’d like to make.”
Important roads around the Gisborne region – such as State Highways 2 and 35 – are frequently closed because of flooding and slips when big storms strike. Mayor Rehette Stoltz on Monday said she was not aware of discussions between Luxon and iwi regarding relocation, but some marae had already been moved and the council had bought dozens of “category 3” homes people could no longer live in.
She said there had been a lack of investment in the national roading network, which is handled by the New Zealand Transport Agency, not local councils.
Willie Te Aho, chief executive of Te Aitanga a Mahaki Trust on the East Coast, confirmed iwi had been making moves towards managed retreat since March 2023, in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.
“That’s led to the relocation of two of our marae, or a commitment to relocate two of our marae on either side of Te Karaka – Rangatira Marae and Takipu Marae,” he told Morning Report.
“It wasn’t the overall result that I personally wanted, because I put the question to my people what they wanted, and they said ‘peace of mind’, and I said, ‘You will not have peace of mind staying in this area.’
“And so we’ve had to look at other alternatives, including the raising of roads, the moving of flood protection, the raising of houses, to basically compensate for an alternative decision, which was to stay in the same place. But we have two of our marae, our people have made the decision to relocate two of our marae to higher, safer ground.”
He said they were ill-prepared when Gabrielle hit, but had learned a lot since then – including the importance of some form of managed retreat.
“We’re never, ever going to have full peace of mind unless we look at managed retreat ourselves, how we work that through with local government, insurers and central government.”
Te Aho agreed with Seymour’s assessment that central government would not lead any managed retreat.
“I don’t think the Government, any government, has the funding to do that on a wholesale approach. And accordingly, we’ve got to look at how we do that long-term through our own individual ownership, through our hapū and iwi, through local government, through central government, and through insurance companies …
“And so, we need to have a whole of industry, a whole of community approach to looking at a better future because this is going to happen again. The issue is not if it’s going to happen, it’s going to be when it’s going to happen.
“I have nannies from the 1948 Waipauwa flood just beside us. I had people, the same people in Cyclone Bola in ’88, the same people in Cyclone Gabrielle in ’23. They’re saying that the timeframe between these severe weather events is shorter and they’re more severe.
“And so as our world temperature [rises], the reality is that this is going to happen more, in a timely manner, within the next 20 years. So, we’ve got to make the hard decisions about [sustainability] and resilience, and we’ve got to consider managed retreat in these areas that are vulnerable, like ... Te Karaka.”
Seymour said there had been a lack of investment in infrastructure for up to 60 years.
“It’s always easier to defer some maintenance, balance the Budget this year and put physical problems into the future. And we see that in hospitals, school buildings and so on.
“I’d like to think this Government is actually doing a bit to improve the accounting and capital asset maintenance.”
He played down the importance of reducing emissions.
“We’ve invested an awful lot of resource in trying to reduce emissions, when in reality that won’t change the picture for New Zealand because the rest of the world will drive emissions whether we do or not.
“What we can change and have in our own power, so far as climate change and New Zealanders, is the ability to ensure we do adaptation. Now, I sympathise with the mayors ... I also point out that since Gabrielle in early 2023, the investment in the highway in Hawke’s Bay has been done precisely to future-proof it against those challenges.
“That doesn’t mean it’s been done everywhere. But yes, there is a couple of historic problems in our policy approach. This Government, I believe, is rectifying those. But it’s also true that some work has been done. So there are problems, but not everywhere.”