Government extends assistance for drought-affected farmers
Photo:
RNZ / Robin Martin
The government is extending Rural Assistance Payments to farmers affected by drought in the North Island and upper South Island.
In a statement, Rural Communities Minister Mark Patterson and Social Development Minister Louise Upston encouraged farmers in affected areas to talk to their rural support trust to find out what help is available.
Eligible farmers would have the farm as their main source of income, and be finding it difficult to meet essential living costs due to the drought.
The payment amounts are equivalent to the jobseeker benefit, and can be lowered depending on earnings and any money or off-farm assets.
They will be available from next Monday 28 April to 28 October, in the following districts:
"We want to help eligible farmers whose income has been severely affected by drought-stricken conditions," Upston said.
"Droughts often have a sting in the tail with the cold tough winter months still to come. We know how hard it can be to recover from a drought, and we are here to support farmers through it," Patterson said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Tsunami alert glitches to be investigated
By Liu Chen of RNZ The National Emergency Management Agency says it will look into reports of apparent inconsistencies in how people received the latest emergency alerts. Tsunami activity threat for NZ extended One man reported nearly 50 of the alarms ringing out on his phone, while others said they did not receive an alert about the tsunami risk from the magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia on Wednesday. NEMA spokesperson John Price said the agency sent out two alerts - the first on Wednesday afternoon about 4.15pm and a second at 6.30am on Thursday morning. Price said they would be looking into why some people received 30 to 50 alerts to understand why that had occurred. "It could be different providers and different cell towers, there's a lot of possibilities." There was always room for improvement, he said, but NEMA was doing the best with what it currently had. "We will be working with the platform providers, with these telecommunication providers as well, to get to the bottom of why this may have occurred. "So yes, we are taking this seriously, and we will look into it to make sure that we can provide the best service for New Zealanders." Marlborough resident Terry Costello said he got the first alert on Wednesday afternoon. Then another ... and another. "By the time I went to bed at 10pm, they were still going on and there'd be 32 of them by then. And I turned my phone off at 10pm and went to bed. "I turned it on again at 7am this morning and since then I've had another 16. So that's 48 altogether I've had." Costello said it just kept going, he would get an alert and then another one a minute or two later. "Sometimes they give you a bit of a fright." Bodhi Twilley, who lives in west Auckland's Titirangi, said the alerts started when he was driving home with his son. "I kind of lost count, but it just keep happening." He got at least two alerts in the car and then another few once he got home - but also that was on two devices which added to the number of alerts. "So we're just constantly going off." Twilley said he received another two or three alerts when he got up on Thursday morning and then a couple more after he had left home. "The messages were so frequent that we just stopped reading them, basically because they were coming to all our devices and to everyone in the house, so they were just constantly going off." Others received no alert Donna Glass from Christchurch has received alerts before but unlike Costello and Twilley, she did not receive a single one this time. She did not understand why some were getting them and others not - even when they were all in the same space. "There were the seven of us at our book club last night in Christchurch and out of the seven of us, only one person had received a text, an alert text." Rosemarie Quax, who lives in Hamilton, said there were three cell phones in her household and none received an alert. She only learned about the tsunami warning through media reports. "I was listening to RNZ this morning and they were talking about some people getting numerous alerts and in the week they were getting woken up and I just said to my husband, 'well we didn't receive anything'." Price said the message was only directed to those people in areas that were deemed at risk and anyone who later entered an at risk area would receive the message at that point. Anyone in central New Zealand, for example, would not have received an emergency mobile alert because there was no need for them to get it, he said. People with their phones in flight mode or whose phones were turned off would not receive the alert, he said. Asked why if there were seven people in the same room only one got an emergency message on their phone, Price said the agency was looking into that. "I think the important thing is the message was received by some people there and therefore they have hopefully acted on the message." The system is tested annually across all of New Zealand and was last tested in May this year, he said. The tests have shown that the alerts cover about 90% of the country because there are some areas which do not have cell phone coverage, he said. Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ there appeared to have been a glitch and NEMZ was working with telecommunications providers to resolve it. "What I've been told is it can be people standing, changing over different cell towers and it's triggering another alert. So those are glitches that we need to work on. "I mean, the good thing is that, like I said, the system hasn't been used for a long time nationally. So it's good that that these issues have been highlighted so that we can get to work and fix them." However, Mitchell said he was pleased with the authority's response to the tsunami warnings. "We've been proactive and we're making sure that people get the information they need that they can make the decisions that they have to make. "There's nothing alarmist about it. It's quite something the best information that we have at the time." He urged people to heed the officials' warnings in an emergency like this to avoid putting themselves and others in danger.
Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Tsunami alert: NEMA to investigate glitches
By Liu Chen of RNZ The National Emergency Management Agency says it will look into reports of apparent inconsistencies in how people received the latest emergency alerts. Tsunami activity threat for NZ extended One man reported nearly 50 of the alarms ringing out on his phone, while others said they did not receive an alert about the tsunami risk from the magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia on Wednesday. NEMA spokesperson John Price said the agency sent out two alerts - the first on Wednesday afternoon about 4.15pm and a second at 6.30am on Thursday morning. Price said they would be looking into why some people received 30 to 50 alerts to understand why that had occurred. "It could be different providers and different cell towers, there's a lot of possibilities." There was always room for improvement, he said, but NEMA was doing the best with what it currently had. "We will be working with the platform providers, with these telecommunication providers as well, to get to the bottom of why this may have occurred. "So yes, we are taking this seriously, and we will look into it to make sure that we can provide the best service for New Zealanders." Marlborough resident Terry Costello said he got the first alert on Wednesday afternoon. Then another ... and another. "By the time I went to bed at 10pm, they were still going on and there'd be 32 of them by then. And I turned my phone off at 10pm and went to bed. "I turned it on again at 7am this morning and since then I've had another 16. So that's 48 altogether I've had." Costello said it just kept going, he would get an alert and then another one a minute or two later. "Sometimes they give you a bit of a fright." Bodhi Twilley, who lives in west Auckland's Titirangi, said the alerts started when he was driving home with his son. "I kind of lost count, but it just keep happening." He got at least two alerts in the car and then another few once he got home - but also that was on two devices which added to the number of alerts. "So we're just constantly going off." Twilley said he received another two or three alerts when he got up on Thursday morning and then a couple more after he had left home. "The messages were so frequent that we just stopped reading them, basically because they were coming to all our devices and to everyone in the house, so they were just constantly going off." Others received no alert Donna Glass from Christchurch has received alerts before but unlike Costello and Twilley, she did not receive a single one this time. She did not understand why some were getting them and others not - even when they were all in the same space. "There were the seven of us at our book club last night in Christchurch and out of the seven of us, only one person had received a text, an alert text." Rosemarie Quax, who lives in Hamilton, said there were three cell phones in her household and none received an alert. She only learned about the tsunami warning through media reports. "I was listening to RNZ this morning and they were talking about some people getting numerous alerts and in the week they were getting woken up and I just said to my husband, 'well we didn't receive anything'." Price said the message was only directed to those people in areas that were deemed at risk and anyone who later entered an at risk area would receive the message at that point. Anyone in central New Zealand, for example, would not have received an emergency mobile alert because there was no need for them to get it, he said. People with their phones in flight mode or whose phones were turned off would not receive the alert, he said. Asked why if there were seven people in the same room only one got an emergency message on their phone, Price said the agency was looking into that. "I think the important thing is the message was received by some people there and therefore they have hopefully acted on the message." The system is tested annually across all of New Zealand and was last tested in May this year, he said. The tests have shown that the alerts cover about 90% of the country because there are some areas which do not have cell phone coverage, he said. Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ there appeared to have been a glitch and NEMZ was working with telecommunications providers to resolve it. "What I've been told is it can be people standing, changing over different cell towers and it's triggering another alert. So those are glitches that we need to work on. "I mean, the good thing is that, like I said, the system hasn't been used for a long time nationally. So it's good that that these issues have been highlighted so that we can get to work and fix them." However, Mitchell said he was pleased with the authority's response to the tsunami warnings. "We've been proactive and we're making sure that people get the information they need that they can make the decisions that they have to make. "There's nothing alarmist about it. It's quite something the best information that we have at the time." He urged people to heed the officials' warnings in an emergency like this to avoid putting themselves and others in danger.
Scoop
8 hours ago
- Scoop
Tsunami Advisories Lifted Across Pacific Following Magnitude 8.8 Quake Off Russia's Coast
Article – RNZ There are now no formal warnings in the Pacific, but the threat of tsunami waves remains possible. RNZ Pacific Most formal tsunami warnings and advisories have been lifted in the Pacific region following a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the Russian coast. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says the threat of tsunami waves remains possible. Earlier, CNN reported authorities saying tsunami waves started to hit the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia around 10,000 kilometres away from the epicenter. Emergency authorities in the Northern Marianas cancelled the tsunami advisory for Guam and the CNMI at around 7pm Wednesday local time. Scientists at the US National Weather Service in Guam say they were fortunate the peak impacts occurred close to low tide, so wave gauges showed very small fluctuation in wave height. Parts of California and Alaska remain under tsunami advisory. Authorities say French Polynesia could be hit with waves up to four metres high, Reuters reports. They have revised their the tsunami alert for the Marquesas Islands archipelago, saying waves of up to four metres could reach the islands of Ua Huka, Nuku Hiva, and Hiva Oa overnight. A previous alert said waves of up to 2.2m could affect the islands. Earlier, the French Armed Forces in French Polynesia said they were 'on alert as a precautionary measure' to assist any potential search and rescue or medical evacuation operations.
