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NZ Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
Government can't be the de facto insurer of property after weather events
For example, the communities of Port Waikato and Bluecliffs have seen properties irreparably impacted by coastal erosion and sea level rise but have been treated differently to the properties impacted by single destructive events such as Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary flooding in 2023. Not having a clear policy on the Government's response after an event has created this unfairness in outcomes. Buyouts of properties most affected by Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary flooding cost central and local government billions of dollars. The future liability of the reactive approach from these weather events is large and growing, as development continues to happen in places that will be affected by the physical impacts of climate change. It is not sustainable for the Government and local government to be the de facto subsidised insurer of property values after significant weather events. This approach is effectively a subsidy encouraging people to stay in harm's way. We all need to be thinking about the impacts of climate change as we make decisions about how and where we live. We need clear and consistent information regarding the hazards and risk scenarios our properties face. We also need to know what plans are being made to address the hazards and risks. This is where clarity of roles and responsibilities comes in: local and regional authorities must be able to prepare adaptation plans, and many already are. To do this, they will use the Para framework – examining options under the different headings protect, accommodate, retreat and avoid. The relevant authorities will need to prioritise the proposed adaptation activities and determine how they will be funded. The question of how to fund preventive risk reduction is particularly challenging. This will require a mix of central and local government and property and infrastructure owners. We are proposing that contributions to funding investments in risk reduction broadly reflect those who get the most benefit from it. This must be subject always to consideration of ability to pay, so that those who can't contribute aren't simply left to their own devices. The Government's historical approach to property owners affected by a significant event should change. After a long transition period (20 years), hardship should be alleviated with reference to need rather than to property values. That is, there would be no buyouts following an extreme weather event that has damaged property. The Government would retain its role in alleviating hardship. The point is that this can be achieved in different ways than underwriting pre-event property values. One option, for example, would see a beachfront mansion owner and an owner of a small house in a flood-prone area be assisted according to need. If that need is established then they would receive the same capped amount rather than a payment based on the respective value of their properties. This has no impact on the role of central and local government during and immediately after an event, in terms of the emergency response. This proposal also doesn't represent an abrupt shift in policy today – it goes hand-in-hand with a long transition. This period enables the creation and ongoing update of hazard and risk information, and a timeframe over which people can make decisions in the knowledge of the future state that will apply. Banks and insurers are already starting to take these hazards and risks into account. Banks have the bigger challenge – typical mortgages are 20-25 years, while insurance contracts are annual. Insurers can decide each year the level of risk they are willing to take on and the price at which they will provide the insurance, whereas banks make a lending decision for a much longer period. Changes in lending and insurance practices will likely be the first way that people will experience the impact of climate change on property markets. A bank may require a much larger deposit or decline to lend at all on a particular property; or your insurance premium skyrockets; or the most significant hazard facing your property, flood risk, is excluded from your policy following a significant event. The numbers involved are large. A recent assessment of climate change and flooding problems in South Dunedin illustrates the scale of the potential problem. Seven potential adaptation futures were reviewed in detail, ranging from continuing as is to large-scale retreat. The different plans affect some 5800 properties and estimated costs of the different scenarios ranged from $2 billion to $7.1b – that's $345,000 to $1.2 million per house. For context, the current Dunedin City Council capital delivery budget is $200m annually for the entire city. Climate change adaptation involves hard questions for which there are no easy answers. That we are now having this conversation is a great start. The water lapping at the door doesn't care what we believe, and transparency of information regarding hazards and risks does not change those hazards and risks – events will occur and losses will be felt whether we understand that information or not. The fact that some who receive that information will have difficulty responding to it is not a good reason for not providing it. The approach we take needs to be enduring beyond election cycles. We have limited resources as a nation; we need to make sure we are using those resources effectively and not wasting them on short-term measures when we are dealing with a long-term problem. It is inevitable that people will have different views of the level of risk, and some may choose to buy, or stay, at a place despite the knowledge of the hazards and estimates of the risk. That's entirely up to them, but that shouldn't require the country to underwrite that decision. The reflexive response from those unhappy with this approach essentially says: a person buying, or choosing to stay in, a property today with the knowledge that it is at a higher risk of the physical impacts of climate change should expect to be made whole by the Government (ie the whole community) in 20 years' time, if those risks come to pass. To which it's worth asking: why?
The Spinoff
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Where do I send conservatives the bill for climate change?
In the 40 years since the world was first alerted to climate change, right-wingers have consistently been the ones most opposed to doing anything about it. And if there's one thing that conservatives like, it's personal responsibility. It seems almost impossible to believe, but until two years ago New Zealand's most expensive weather-related event, from an insurance point of view, was a big hailstorm in Timaru that cost $170 million. Now, of course, things happen at 10x magnification. The Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle each led to insured losses of around $2 billion. And – here's a cheerful thought – such events will only become more frequent and more expensive, as the planet heats and the atmosphere comes to hold more moisture. Which leads, inexorably, to my current preoccupation: where do I send conservatives the bill for climate change? In just one news bulletin this morning, two instances of soaring climate-change-related costs: the bill for repairing roads after the terrible Tasman floods is around $1 million every two days, and the damage those floods did to agriculture will drive up vegetable prices around the country. Yesterday a homeowner was on RNZ's Morning Report lamenting a landslip that had caused massive damage to their house: another cost. After each major flood, public bodies have to repair bridges, community halls, communication infrastructure, and so on: yet more costs. Heatwaves, too, cause droughts and losses to farmers: cost upon cost. Where, then, do I send conservatives the bill? Some will try to argue that weather is just weather: floods, cyclones and droughts have always happened. But the scientific consensus is clear: climate change makes all these events much worse. It renders them more likely to happen and, when they do happen, more devastating. A couple of years ago scientists, using a methodology called extreme event attribution, calculated that climate change was costing the globe $16 million an hour, and was set to cost up to $3.1 trillion – that's right, trillion – a year by 2050, as hurricanes, floods and heatwaves all worsen. Here at home, scientists in 2018 estimated that climate change had already caused at least $840 million worth of damage in a decade, and in truth probably much more than that. The Treasury, meanwhile, has calculated that climate change's worsening of extreme weather events could cost the state 3.8% of GDP by 2061, while GDP itself could be around 1% lower. Governments, families and firms will all have to spend billions of dollars repairing totally avoidable damage. Clearly, then, there is a bill to be paid. So where are the conservatives stepping up to accept it? I ask this because, for the 40 years since the world was first alerted to climate change, right-wingers have consistently been the ones most opposed to doing anything about it. As the documentary Hot Air reveals, in the early 1990s Simon Upton, the minister for the environment, wanted to introduce a carbon tax, but was thwarted by the likes of the New Zealand Initiative – in its former guise as the Business Roundtable – bringing in climate deniers to disrupt the debate. As Upton explains in the documentary, one of the Roundtable's 'experts' claimed that addressing climate change was a form of social engineering akin to – wait for it – eugenics. 'My eyebrows raised at that point,' says Upton, who tried to push on regardless. But this lobbying, allied to the usual right-wing campaigns by business and farming interests, derailed his well-laid plans. It could be argued that left-wing governments haven't always had a great record on climate change: emissions rose under Helen Clark, for instance. But her government did introduce the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and if she didn't go further, it was substantially because of opposition from – you guessed it – the right. Remember National MP Shane Ardern driving a tractor up parliament steps to protest against the ETS? That's the story of this issue, over and over: left-wing governments trying to do more in the teeth of right-wing opposition, and right-wing governments doing very little despite being urged to do more by left-wing ones. I return, then, to my theme: where do I send conservatives the bill? New Zealand right-wingers might argue that their actions, however unhelpful, have been essentially irrelevant, given that virtually all globe-heating emissions are created offshore. And that's fair enough. They can forward on a big piece of the bill to World Conservative Headquarters, which I imagine as a large and imposing edifice, albeit crumbling around the edges and with some increasingly lunatic fringing. I'm happy, in short, for Kiwi conservatives to pass on part of the bill – just as long as I know where to send it in the first place. Domestic right-wingers might feel this argument is a bit too sweeping. Hashtag Not All Conservatives, etc. And that's true, up to a point. Just look at Upton: he was a conservative, and doing his best. Ditto, at different times, Guy Salmon, Todd Muller and the like. It's such a shame, then, that – to reprise the old joke about lawyers – 95% of conservatives are giving the remaining 5% a bad name. There's a great irony here, in that conservatives are supposed to be strong in a couple of areas, including – you know – conserving things (the planet, for instance). Saving money, too. But although the costs of mitigating climate change have always been vastly lower than the costs of not doing so, this point has somehow eluded the ostensible fiscal conservatives among us. If there's one thing that I know conservatives like, though, it's personal responsibility. They're always talking about the costs that 'feckless' poor people impose on the rest of us, constantly attacking left-wing governments for treating taxpayers 'like an ATM'. And so, as the Tasman region reels from the devastation, as hundreds of homes are flooded each year, and as we face the prospect of this fiscal picture deteriorating with each passing decade, I'm sure that everyone on the right who has ever opposed or downplayed the need for climate action will step forward to take responsibility. And then, at last, I might know where to send the bill.
1News
14-07-2025
- Climate
- 1News
More slip troubles in Muriwai: 'We need to know how did this happen'
A landslip in Auckland's west coast settlement of Muriwai has residents reliving the devastating landslides of two years ago. Muriwai was hit badly during the 2023 Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, with large slips making some areas unliveable. The community was struck by another slip at the weekend on Motutara Rd. Fire and Emergency evacuated properties in the immediate area after Saturday's slip as a precaution. No one was injured, but the slip restricted the roads into town to one lane, and one resident says it has stirred bad memories. ADVERTISEMENT Longtime Muriwai resident Delwyn Shepherd told RNZ that the storms kept the community on edge. "I think for everyone in the community, whether you were part of the landslide zones one to five, or whether you just live within the community, there is a sense of anticipation, and definitely stress," she said. "I think you relive the event mentally, even though you know that you've moved forward." She wanted Auckland Council to do better with how it used data to warn west coast residents ahead of dangerous weather events. "As a local, I'm really disappointed, because our council is just reactive, they're not being proactive," Shepherd said. "There are plenty of smart people with good knowledge that could stop all these triggering events for people and their well-being." The latest landslip to hit Muriwai. (Source: ADVERTISEMENT Shepherd said the storms left Muriwai with an uncertain future. "There'll be more and more people, probably in the retired age, that no longer want the stress of it, that may end up selling before they intended to sell and move to a place that is not in any sort of landslide, hazard, or flooding zone." Another resident Clare Bradley said the weekend's slip happened on land that was categorised as safe to live on. "I guess the question that is upper-most in most people's minds is - the family who live in this property were thankfully away, but their home is damaged, and is the extent of the damage sufficient to have made it unsafe for them to have been living there?" she asked. "I guess that's a question that the council geo-tech team, and GHD who did the study report, will have to address to allay fears in the community that the rest of us who are living, and working, and spending our time in our category one homes are safe in the event of a future severe weather event." She said there were questions that needed answering. "We need to know how did this happen, was it avoidable, is there anything we should be doing or anything that council should be doing in order to improve stormwater runoff?" ADVERTISEMENT Auckland Council chief engineer Ross Roberts told Midday Report they were continuing their response from the 2023 storms, including moving residents out of worst-affected areas. "Along with that comes other community planning that's going on, and we're looking at what we can do in terms of infrastructure as well, but community planning and ensure that people have the understanding of the hazards and the ability to manage them is really what makes the difference here," he said. Auckland Council said the closed lane on Motutara Rd would reopen when it was determined safe to do so and once geotechnical assessments were completed.
Scoop
10-07-2025
- General
- Scoop
Taskforce Kiwi Deploys To The Tasman Region To Provide Flood Relief
Press Release – Taskforce Kiwi A team of 17 skilled volunteers is currently based out of the Riwaka Rugby Club, and have already completed work on eight impacted properties in the Motueka Valley, with a focus on the area around Ngtmoti. Taskforce Kiwi has deployed a disaster relief team to the Tasman Region to provide direct assistance to those impacted by the severe weather experienced by the region on the 27th of June. Taskforce Kiwi deployed community engagement teams into the region last week, and over the weekend began moving people, vehicles and equipment from both the South and North Island into the region to launch relief operations. This activity has been enabled by support volunteers based around Aotearoa. A team of 17 skilled volunteers is currently based out of the Riwaka Rugby Club, and have already completed work on eight impacted properties in the Motueka Valley, with a focus on the area around Ngātīmoti. A steady stream of support requests continues to be received, indicating the need that remains in the region. Many of those tasks have been received via the Rural Support Trust, who are actively supporting those impacted in the area. Tasks have primarily involved debris clearance tasks, removing flood debris by hand, tools, or chainsaw. Many of these tasks have been in support of those who do not have the ability to undertake those tasks themselves, due to the scale of the damage. About Taskforce Kiwi Taskforce Kiwi is an entirely voluntary charity organisation that exists to bridge the gap in disaster relief, providing skilled, organised volunteers to provide direct support to impacted communities before, during and after disasters. Founded in July 2022, Taskforce Kiwi has since recruited 720 volunteers nationwide, the majority of who have already serve their country and communities in the defence force or one of the emergency services, and as a result have the ideal skill and experience required for disaster relief work. Over the past three years volunteers have contributed over 14,000 hours of skilled work in the field, carrying out 19 operations. The majority of our work has been at home, including in response to the Auckland Anniversary flood, Cyclone Gabrielle, the 2024 Wairoa flood, bushfires and floods in Canterbury, and the Mangawhai tornado. Taskforce Kiwi volunteers have also deployed internationally, providing support to impacted communities in Australia, the US, Canada, Morocco, Vanuatu, PNG and Thailand. Taskforce Kiwi relies on the support of businesses, trusts and individuals to operate. For example, Mitsubishi Motors NZ and TR Group provide vehicles, Mitre10 supplies equipment, and the Rata Foundation provided the funding to get initial boots on the ground in Tasman.
Scoop
10-07-2025
- Climate
- Scoop
Taskforce Kiwi Deploys To The Tasman Region To Provide Flood Relief
Taskforce Kiwi has deployed a disaster relief team to the Tasman Region to provide direct assistance to those impacted by the severe weather experienced by the region on the 27th of June. Taskforce Kiwi deployed community engagement teams into the region last week, and over the weekend began moving people, vehicles and equipment from both the South and North Island into the region to launch relief operations. This activity has been enabled by support volunteers based around Aotearoa. A team of 17 skilled volunteers is currently based out of the Riwaka Rugby Club, and have already completed work on eight impacted properties in the Motueka Valley, with a focus on the area around Ngātīmoti. A steady stream of support requests continues to be received, indicating the need that remains in the region. Many of those tasks have been received via the Rural Support Trust, who are actively supporting those impacted in the area. Tasks have primarily involved debris clearance tasks, removing flood debris by hand, tools, or chainsaw. Many of these tasks have been in support of those who do not have the ability to undertake those tasks themselves, due to the scale of the damage. About Taskforce Kiwi Taskforce Kiwi is an entirely voluntary charity organisation that exists to bridge the gap in disaster relief, providing skilled, organised volunteers to provide direct support to impacted communities before, during and after disasters. Founded in July 2022, Taskforce Kiwi has since recruited 720 volunteers nationwide, the majority of who have already serve their country and communities in the defence force or one of the emergency services, and as a result have the ideal skill and experience required for disaster relief work. Over the past three years volunteers have contributed over 14,000 hours of skilled work in the field, carrying out 19 operations. The majority of our work has been at home, including in response to the Auckland Anniversary flood, Cyclone Gabrielle, the 2024 Wairoa flood, bushfires and floods in Canterbury, and the Mangawhai tornado. Taskforce Kiwi volunteers have also deployed internationally, providing support to impacted communities in Australia, the US, Canada, Morocco, Vanuatu, PNG and Thailand. Taskforce Kiwi relies on the support of businesses, trusts and individuals to operate. For example, Mitsubishi Motors NZ and TR Group provide vehicles, Mitre10 supplies equipment, and the Rata Foundation provided the funding to get initial boots on the ground in Tasman.
