While the people of Westport continue the clean-up from significant flooding, government proposals to protect against similar events in future have gone on ice
Plans to beef up flood protection efforts across New Zealand have been significantly cut back, after the Government decided against funding the full work programme.
News of the “resource constraints” come after several communities across the country have been hit by severe flooding in recent months, forcing residents in Canterbury and the West Coast from their homes.
The cutbacks were revealed in a preface to a newly released Cabinet paper outlining the proposed flood resilience work, which included a greater role for central government in directing local efforts, as well as a new funding model to alleviate the financial strain on local government.
The paper said the risks and impacts of natural hazards and climate change were increasing in complexity and cost, with local authorities – which are primarily responsible for handling the issue – asking central government to take a stronger role through greater guidance, direction and funding.
National direction on natural hazard and climate change risk management was “a missing pillar” at present, which limited councils’ ability to act against development in high-risk areas.
The Government had spent over $11.4 billion on natural hazards throughout the last decade – but the majority of the spending was on response and recovery, with only a quarter going towards risk reduction.
Many existing flood schemes protecting towns and cities were old, unreliable and not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change, the Cabinet paper said.
Central government did not directly contribute to funding flood protection schemes, despite the protection they provided for nationally significant infrastructure like roading, rail networks, and energy and telecommunications links.
While ministers had approved $211m for the most pressing flood protection projects from the Covid-19 shovel-ready infrastructure fund, “a fundamental shift in approaches to flood risk management will be required to develop long-term sustainable flood resilience solutions”.
Among the work proposed in the Cabinet paper from April – and subsequently agreed to by ministers the same month – was to further develop options for the Government to provide greater national guidance to councils, as well as a new national funding model for flood risk.
“We believe it's far more cost-effective to actually put the fence at the top of the cliff, or the stopbank next to the river if it needs to be protected, rather than deal with what we're dealing with in Buller and elsewhere at the moment around cleanup."
However, an “update” added to the paper before its public release last week said that while Cabinet had agreed to the work programme, its delivery had been dependent on securing funding through this year’s Budget.
“As a result of decisions in Budget 2021, the programme has been scaled back due to resource constraints.”
Work would now focus on changes to the land information memorandum [LIM] system, to ensure potential property buyers had more information about the natural hazard risks for a property. Progress to date in the other areas to be “progressed where appropriate” through other government programmes.
Horizons Regional Council chief executive Michael McCartney told Newsroom that while regional councils were aware of the funding pressures the Government faced, central funding for flood protection was a “sensible and economically viable option”.
While flood protection infrastructure around the country cost about $2.3b, the value it provided to the country was closer to $200b.
“We believe it's far more cost-effective to actually put the fence at the top of the cliff, or the stopbank next to the river if it needs to be protected, rather than deal with what we're dealing with in Buller and elsewhere at the moment around cleanup ... the economic, and probably equally important, the social implications of disruption that's caused down there.”
McCartney said regional councils had “done an exceptionally good job of sweating their assets” in recent years, but the quality of infrastructure was uneven and dependent on the ability of a community to fund work through rates.
Local politicians also needed extra teeth through legislation and other means to deal with the issue of managed retreat from vulnerable areas, he said.
While the changes to LIMs would be useful, their effectiveness still relied on people accessing them and taking proper heed of any natural hazards warnings.
ACT leader David Seymour said the Government’s funding decision reflected its questionable policy agenda, with core priorities like disaster management neglected in favour of other initiatives.
“It’s one thing to declare a climate emergency in Parliament, but if there’s an emergency coming you’d think they’d be prepared to do basic things to prepare for it - they didn’t and it’s here now.”
Seymour said there was an active debate to be had about who should fund the response to natural hazards and climate change, with a number of examples of governments legislating responsibility onto councils without an associated revenue stream.
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who led a grouping of ‘community resilience ministers’ which developed the flood proposals, told Newsroom there were always trade-offs in the Budget process but the Government remained committed to working with regional councils on the issue.
“We’re under no shadow of a doubt that one in 100-year events are happening more frequently ... we’re not shying away from the challenges of addressing these issues.”
Mahuta said ministers had chosen to focus on “practical work” related to LIMs, and some of the other work could be picked up through Resource Management Act reforms or the national adaptation plan being developed by Climate Change Minister James Shaw.
The issue of flood protection funding remained “a live issue”, and she would continue to advocate for an improved funding framework.
