Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the response of New Zealanders has improved “each time we have one of these severe weather events”. Photo / Annaleise Shortland
By Russell Palmer of RNZ
Christopher Luxon says he’s happy to be labelled woke if it means New Zealanders are not losing their lives in the recent cyclone.
The Prime Minister held a briefing with reporters in Auckland on Monday afternoon after Cyclone Vaianu’s course shifted away from Hawke’s Bay late on Sunday.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Napier, Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay councils declared local states of emergency for coastal areas before midday on Saturday, but Wairoa Mayor Craig Little refused – saying “we’re becoming woke as a country when it comes to states of emergency”.
Luxon said states of emergency were not woke.
“No, they’re not. I love Craig, I’ve spent a lot of time with him given he’s had some major weather events in Wairoa over the last few years, and so I’ll happily wear a woke label this time if it means we didn’t lose anyone’s lives,” he said.
“This was a significant event with 10 local states of emergency actioned, and in a number of regions there were road closures, power outages and flooding.”
He said the Government had worked “incredibly well” with Little in the past, including supporting dredging at the harbour entrance, and “I’d sooner be prepared than talking to you about an event that we were underprepared for”.
He said the response got better “each time we have one of these severe weather events”.
“The join-up and the teamwork that we saw between local and central government, Niwa and civil defence, iwi and marae, rural support and first responders and emergency management is truly inspiring.”
The second iterations of Dunedin flooding and fires on the Port Hills had been much better handled than the first time around, but “sadly the same thing’s been happening with our weather events”, he said.
Luxon said it was incumbent on households to prepare for the worst.
“Think about an evacuation plan, make sure we have a container full of our key supplies, don’t go driving through floodwaters because that’s how we’ve been losing lives.
“I think New Zealanders are taking it more seriously, we’re getting better at responding, and that’s all good.”
He said he wanted to thank the New Zealanders who “heeded the call to take personal responsibility and actions to keep themselves and their family safe in this event”.
Luxon offered reassurance New Zealand had “sufficient” fuel after the latest official numbers from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, but it would take “a few more weeks” to finalise the Phase 3 and Phase 4 fuel prioritisations.
“One of the learnings out of Covid is we don’t want to do this to industry, we don’t want to be operating in a parent-child manner, we want to be operating in an adult-to-adult manner working with industry.
“And they have many of the solutions that we need in order to make sure that we could manage ourselves... if needed,” he said.
“We’ve just had the submissions come in, there are 2000 of them, we have a series of forums and groups we’ve worked with from day one, we’ve worked with diesel users, we’ve worked with importers, we’ve worked with big key CEO groups and we need to digest all of that.”
While fuel stock numbers were down on the previous update, it was within normal fluctuations, reflecting distribution around the country and “no material issues” with incoming shipments, Luxon said.
“We also do welcome the ceasefire and we hope seriously for constructive negotiations between the parties involved to stop this conflict, but we have all seen how volatile and unpredictable this conflict has been and how fragile this ceasefire is and negotiations are.
“We continue to call for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. The longer shipping in the strait is disrupted, the more it impacts New Zealanders here at home... it is urgent to find a diplomatic solution.”
He refused to confirm further targeted support for those struggling with high fuel prices.
“Our prices at the pump are really set by global prices, as you’d understand... price of oil today is probably $20 lower than what it was just a week ago, we expect those prices to flow through within a week or two.
“Equally, those prices can go up or down very easily based on what’s happening with the conflict.”
Luxon repeated comments that New Zealand could not afford untargeted spending to cushion the blow for all New Zealanders after “reckless Covid spending” had “used up the rainy-day fund and maxed out the credit card”.
He said he thought the Government had done well with its handling of the fuel crisis.
“I think we’ve done a very good job. We already had an essential treaties agreement with Singapore, for example ... I’ve spoken with the Singaporean Prime Minister again but also the South Korean President as well, where the vast majority of our supplies come from.
“Those refineries have been doing a good job of trying to find alternative feedstocks and that gives us great confidence and that’s why ... New Zealanders are reassured, they know that there is supply of fuel in the country and I think that’s because we’ve done some good work on it.”
Luxon batted away concerns about rising inflation after ANZ’s prediction earlier in the day of three Official Cash Rate hikes before the end of the year.
“By the ANZ’s own admission it’s pretty uncertain and there are a lot of economists with a lot of views about where inflation will go and where economic growth will go... our job from day one has been to make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of Covid.
“We want to be responsible economic managers so we actually protect the long-term economy for New Zealanders.”
Top exporters represented by Business NZ have also signed an open letter calling for all political parties to back the India free trade agreement Luxon announced at the end of last year.
The deal had not been supported by New Zealand First, so support from the Opposition will be needed to pass the related legislation.
Labour has not yet agreed, saying there were inconsistencies between National’s public statements about the deal and what the text of the agreement said.
Luxon said conversations with Labour about the deal were “very constructive and good”.
“It shouldn’t be about politics, I don’t think it is, we’re having constructive conversations with Labour – but [they should] get on board because it’s a bipartisan thing, trade.
“Very constructive and good conversations undertaken I think with a tremendous amount of goodwill, we’ve made our ministers and officials available to the Labour side in many meetings now, there’s been an exchange of letters and it’s just essentially alleviating their concerns... helping them understand why we think this is such a fantastic deal.”
He said India was the most populous country and the deal would be looked back on in the future as a good one.
“This is about benefiting regular, everyday New Zealanders. One in four of them have their jobs tied to trade, in a crisis like we’re experiencing now you want to create more opportunity so that our traders and our exporters have more markets to move product to.”
– RNZ