National, Labour agree changes needed for weather-event buyouts

RNZ News

14-07-2025

Major flood damage during this week's downpours in the Tasman distrcit.
Photo:
Tim Cuff / POOL
The two major political parties want a bipartisan approach towards dealing with climate adaptation and property buy-outs during weather events.
Last week, an independent reference group made recommendations for climate adaptation legislation, including that people
should not expect the government to buy out
severely weather-damaged homes.
The group, set up by the Ministry for the Environment, recommended after a 20-year transition period, homeowners whose houses are flooded or damaged by weather events should not expect buyouts.
It said individuals should be responsible for knowing the risks and making their own decisions about whether to move away from high-risk areas.
no captoin.
Photo:
RNZ
The group also recommended that funding for adaptation measures, such as flood schemes, sea walls and blue-green infrastructure, should follow a 'beneficiary pays' approach in most cases.
While the government is yet to formally respond to the report, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in principal, the government
won't be able to keep bailing people out
.
He said Climate Change Minister Simon Watts had been working hard to get a bipartisan view on how to deal long term with these weather events.
"This is a long term issue. We need a proper framework in place to work out whether its landowners, councils, whether its central government, banks, insurers that actually have to create a framework for dealing with these weather events an how we handle them going forward."
Hipkins agreed that the frame work needs to be worked through on a bipartisan basis so the issue doesn't become a "political football".
"We have to be realistic. Government is not going to be an insurer by default, but there are decisions that governments has taken, whether it's local government or central government, where houses can be built and there is some consequences for that," Hipkins told
Morning Report.
"We have a share of the liability here, but it doesn't mean we have all of the liability."
While Hipkins would not say whether he agrees in principal to phase out the buyouts, he said whatever we come up with needs to be fair and consistent.
"Fairness has to be at the heart of it," he said.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
Photo:
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told
First Up
the government is working to ensure councils are clear about natural hazard risks when they allow people to build.
Willis said authorities must strike a balance between identifying hazard risks, and ensuring sufficient investment in infrastructure to prevent catastrophic damage.
"You come to this question of when people know that they are building on a flood plain, or they know that the area they're building on is at very high risk, is it fair to ask tax payers to always bear the costs of that? And those are some of the questions that this independent have been working through," she said.
Willis said extreme climate events are increasing and we can expect that to continue as a result of climate change.
She said it is going to be important for New Zealand that we carefully plan where housing development occurs, what kinds of infrastructure we build and what investment we make into adaptation such as stopbanks.
"We need to have frameworks as a country that work not just as an ad-hoc basis, but to the extent possible, can endure from one Parliament to the next because these are long-run issues, so long-run incentives are needed."
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