As a parent, I can’t shake it. And it matters because climate risk and cost-of-living pressure are colliding, and our choices will decide who copes and who falls behind.
Sustainability is still treated like a luxury – even as households face rates, rent, groceries, and uncertainty. But it isn’t. It’s harm reduction.
And it strengthens the social foundations that decide whether people recover when a crisis hits.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about shared accountability – for what we fund, delay, and leave to chance – with real consequences for households and communities.
When times get hard, short-term thinking shifts costs on to vulnerable communities and future generations. It’s like collectively cancelling insurance before the storm.
In Whanganui, climate risk isn’t theoretical. After the June 2015 floods, recovery costs in Whanganui were estimated at about $120 million, one of our district’s most significant flood events in recent decades.
Those floods previewed the new normal – repeated disruptions that wear households down.
Whatever we think about the politics, the impacts are already here, and they don’t land evenly.
After the floods, Whanganui showed up – but recovery wasn’t equal.
Some households repaired and returned quickly. Others faced months of instability, without insurance, secure housing, or savings.
The difference wasn’t just damage – it was buffers: somewhere dry to stay, money in the bank, and someone to call who would come.
The Reserve Bank has warned that as insurance becomes more risk-based over time, some high-risk properties may become increasingly unaffordable to insure.
Some may even see cover withdrawn – with knock-on effects for households and communities.
That’s not a distant policy problem – it’s a cost-of-living issue.
People say we can’t afford prevention. But we can’t afford late response.
And disaster risk research consistently finds that every dollar spent on resilience can save multiple dollars in recovery costs.
Fiscal tightening triggers prevention cuts.
Cuts increase exposure. Exposure drives recovery costs – and new pressure for more cuts.
Each turn hits hardest where resilience is already thin.
That’s how inequality becomes locked in. When crises stack up, people don’t just lose money; they lose energy, trust, capacity – and their mental health.
In community work, you learn this fast: the hardest part isn’t the first hit – it’s the third, fifth, or tenth, when people stop believing help will come.
And prevention isn’t only about sandbags and stopbanks.
We can’t adapt our way out of rising risk without cutting emissions.
Every tonne avoided is fewer premiums, fewer repairs, fewer disruptions – and fewer costs pushed on to households later.
And we need to plan now for where rebuilding will no longer make sense.
Cost-of-living pressure now dominates community conversations. Public debate shifts from ‘who needs help?’ to ‘who deserves help?’
It’s understandable – but hard times are when good decisions matter most.
Whanganui isn’t short on will. We’re short on scale.
And the same climate event lands harder where incomes are lower, housing is poorer, and health needs are higher.
A small ratepayer base can’t carry big-ticket climate infrastructure alone.
Small districts need national partnership, through risk-weighted co-funding, not goodwill.
Nationally, we’ve seen the cost of late recovery. After the 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, Treasury estimated total asset damage at $9–$14.5 billion – and insurance premiums surged.
It’s the kind of spend that makes prevention look cheap.
Resilience isn’t delivered – it’s built with communities. So what does prevention look like when we treat it like essential infrastructure?
Prevention means ring-fenced resilience funding, scaled support for small districts, and stronger emergency systems – including community response and coordinated Civil Defence planning.
Whanganui shows what effective prevention looks like.
Partnerships like Pūtiki Flood Resilience bring hapū, community, council, and agencies together with risk maps and climate projections.
Locally, we’re building ways to protect prevention funding, including the council’s Community Climate Action Fund, backing community-led action before risk becomes crisis.
Across Whanganui, we have upstream examples.
Sustainable Whanganui is growing low-waste, low-carbon, connected communities, and WISE Healthy Homes is helping create warmer, drier, more energy-efficient housing.
These aren’t ‘nice-to-haves’. They reduce future pressure on health, housing, and emergency response.
This isn’t just about property. It’s about belonging, culture, and continuity – and whether our systems let communities act early and fairly, without forcing people from places that hold identity and whakapapa.
Local knowledge should guide decisions – and relationships do what infrastructure alone can’t: reaching people early and fairly.
But no single group can deliver resilience alone. Equity is the condition: who gets support early, who gets left to cope alone, and who gets a say in what happens next.
When support doesn’t reach people early, it doesn’t disappear. It turns up later in GP visits, school absences, housing stress, and families burning out.
Covid-19 showed vulnerability at scale, and for a moment we acted with collective responsibility because wellbeing wasn’t optional. That was social sustainability.
Now, fatigue and fiscal tightening make prevention optional as climate risks accelerate.
But pressures aren’t shared evenly. Strong communities, and the basics that support them, speed recovery; without them, people fall behind and stay stuck.
Hope isn’t a plan. We get resilience by funding what we already know we will need.
If we can fund recovery, we can fund prevention. Cancelling insurance before the storm isn’t a savings plan – it’s a bill handed to people already under pressure.
Prevention is the premium we refuse to pay until it’s too late – yet it’s the surest path to long-term fiscal stability.
And if fatigue turns empathy into resentment, we’ll pay the highest price: a community that forgets how to look after one another.
That’s not the Whanganui I know and it’s not a future we should accept for our kids.
