Cabinet has decided on an initial $250 million in top-up funding for the NZTA's National Land Transport Fund to pay for immediate repairs to state highways, bridges and local roads, along with a $50 million fund for discretionary grants for small businesses in the seven regions hit by Cyclone Gabrielle last week.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced the Government's initial financial response Monday evening after Cabinet's first full meeting in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, which he and Finance Minister Grant Robertson described as likely to be the worst and most expensive climate disaster in a generation.
Hipkins said the Government was also considering issuing special visas for immigrant workers to help rebuild devastated areas, similar to those used after the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011. It would also offer exemptions for temporary overdrafts under the new Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Also, he announced Inland Revenue would offer support for affected businesses by offering interest write-offs, tax concessions for donating trading stock and an extension of Research and Development tax filing deadlines.
“As Finance Minister I have been clear that we have the fiscal headroom to support our people and we will do that as we have done through all the other disasters we have guided this country though," Robertson said in a statement issued with the news conference.
“Ministers will finalise the distribution of this funding in the coming week, but this will include support to businesses to meet immediate costs and further assist with clean-up. We will coordinate the allocation of this funding with local business groups, iwi and local government in the affected regions," he said.
Transport Minister Michael Wood said immediate short-term funding was needed for NZTA (Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency) and councils.
Elsewhere, Hipkins said the Government would extend the current national state of emergency applying in Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, East Coast and Hawke's Bay for a further seven days. It also planned to appoint a lead minister for each affected region, to work within a cabinet sub-committee chaired by new Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson.
A cyclone recovery taskforce would also be set up and be chaired by Brian Roche.
67 Comments
Cyclones happen. Cyclone Tracy took out Darwin nearly fifty years ago. Every year TV shows us townships, communities devastated in the USA by hurricanes, not to mention their tornadoes. Ditto for the like of the Philippines and surrounds from typhoons. The thing is NZ has neglected its defences. Damage being allowed to be repeatedly caused by forestry slash is just one example. On another note we had recently two Cook Strait ferries breakdown in one of the world’s most notorious waterways, think the Wahine disaster 1968. How many deep water tugs of sufficient power does NZ have available then. Same with the pandemic preparedness where NZ was ranked 39th. Surely the White Island tragedy highlighted a glaring deficiency in ICU capacity. But all the governments have sailed on blithely hoping for the best so when the worst comes we get the worst.
Because this country is a housing market with an economy bolted on the side.
We need to tax capital (the best way would be a land tax), reduce income taxes and remove other distortions like the accommodation supplement.
Labour took a bold step in the right direction by removing interest expense write-offs for rentals, but we need 5 steps forward, not just 1.
wrt the open water tugs, not quite. This safety gap had been repeatedly highlighted for the Cook Strait ferrys for years however MBIEs blameshifting & straw man response as recently as a couple of weeks ago was to say it would be too expensive to do for NZs entire coastline - which no one had ever suggested.
Those are just the facts I realise, we have low govt debt, and can access more funds at a lower rate than our invested capital returns.
There's obviously some risk but borrowing makes more sense than raiding the kitty. The alternative is believing it's all ending tomorrow - although even in that case might as well just borrow up a storm anyway......
Under labour..
roads gone for cycle ways.
More pine Forrest's for greens saving the planet at 0.02% at a time.... While India and china burn more coal.
Poor infrastructure traded for Maori control
Inflation for min wage increase
Poor health outcomes for Gay rights
More murders for gang funding
More beneficiary's for more debt
The first Labour government in 1945 set up EQC or in modern language the National Disaster Fund in 1945. Ironically at that time there was a quasi coalition government with what became National Party mps, in the War Cabinet. So all of them knew something was required. That drew private money from insurance policies to build provision for disasters. Unfortunately I have lost a web site that detailed how much successive governments pillaged from those private funds and spent on other government projects, but I remember it was a more than quite a lot. If those supposed surpluses had instead been dedicated to improving vital infrastructure as relative and relevant, NZ would likely be a heck of a lot more resilient than it is now.
Yet they were quite happy to carp on about nine long years of neglect in opposition. Hell, some of them are still trying to use it as an excuse now.
We're now five, almost six years in and they've managed to do even less. They've also missed their own, self-imposed policy targets they campaigned on.
We're now five, almost six years in and they've managed to do even less.
Yeah, if you just ignore the 1 in 100 year pandemic that we were amongst the best in the world in dealing with, and which the government had to divert billions of dollars towards - including time and attention.
Poor health outcomes for Gay rights
Er, what?
Labour is the party that began funding PrEP when they entered office, and just recently extended the eligibility criteria for it.
I mean ok, sure they could spend more on health for the rainbow community, but health in general just needs more funding. They certainly haven't made anything worse.
You're reading the comment wrong (I think).
Don't shoot me as this isn't my position, but I *think* what the commenter is saying is that the government has prioritised gay rights over healthcare, as that is what the other sentences are implying (having sacrificed X for Y)
Yeah, lets just ignore the $28.3B (and counting!) that 'financial wizards' John Key and Bill English cost the country by pausing contributions to the superannuation fund after the GFC, when assests were at depressed prices around the world.
https://www.nzsuperfund.nz/about-the-guardians/purpose-and-mandate
500 wheelbarrows and 500 shovels = $160,000
500 people earning $30hr full time for a year = $31,200,000
500 people earning $62,400 a year and paying PAYE = $5.870,000 tax paid
Actual people doing actual work. That sounds like value for money to me.
Rather than consultants billing $200 an hour to achieve nothing.
Why not pay him $30 an hour to chainsaw up forestry slash that can be sold as firewood. Instead of letting slash flow down the river. Creating a dam at the bridge until the force and weight of the water behind blows the bridge off its foundations. Then down the river to the next bridge to do the same. Then out onto the beaches
Beats paying them to do nothing. Wound not care if they only did an hour of actual work a day. Just maybe a few of them would feel the value of doing something valuable and getting paid reasonably well to do it. As for your hourly rate suggestion. Sounds like something a consultant would say. Take a look on Seek. Search Labourer and get a reality check.
This government have a PHD in pissing money away and there is no shortage of sycophantic hangers on who are willing to be showered with gold.
As for your hourly rate suggestion. Sounds like something a consultant would say.
It's what someone who regularly tries to hire labour says. If I want someone who turns up regularly and outputs more work in a day than they cost, I need to pay them closer to $40 an hr, or more.
You can drag someone to work for $30 or less, but they're not up to much. It's cheaper to pay them to do nothing.
Maybe the work isn't consistent, project based etc. Which does effect things, offering someone $30/hour for a few weeks work is different to $30/bour fulltime/permanent. $30/hour via a Labour hire crowd and you better not expect them to do much more than hold the floor down, and maybe unload the odd truck when it arrives.
I do a mixture of different sorts of projects, although I try not to take on too much as good people are really pretty thin on the ground. If I could hire reliable hard workers for $40 an hr I'd take 10 of them full-time.
Auckland's probably the worst market in the country for labour pricing as it's the country's migration capital - anywhere else expect to pay quite a bit more.
A suggestion.
Obviously, the Insurance companies cannot quickly handle all claims. To mitigate the customers' hardship, how about the Insurance Companies make an upfront payment of 5 years premium paid, subject to adjustment in the final settlement ?
Quick and timely relief.
Can the Government influence the Insurance Companies to come to the party ?
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.