Chris Hipkins makes a down payment on some very hard cyclone decisions to come

ANALYSIS: The Government’s announcement on Monday of interim relief for areas hit by Cyclone Gabrielle was very much a case of doing something in the very short term, while other stuff gets sorted out.

The dreadful reality of the cyclone clean-up and recovery is now becoming apparent.

An extra $250 million is being pumped into the National Land Transport Fund to help with emergency road repairs, some $50 million is being set aside for “interim emergency business and primary sector support”, while the state of emergency in the seven affected localities has been extended for another week.

At a post-Cabinet press conference on Monday it was unclear exactly how the $50 million will be doled out, but decisions will be made on that in the coming week.

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To date, there has been no wage subsidy scheme, which despite being used to good effect in Covid-19, actually dates back to the Kaikōura earthquake in 2016. In that event, it was announced four days after the quake.

This event is clearly different and the Government is so far not attempting a one-size-fits-all approach at this point for the simple reason that within Hawke’s Bay, Tairāwhiti-Gisborne – and elsewhere – the topography of any given town or property dictated how badly affected people, property, businesses and farms.

But some sort of wage support will most likely come in the near future.

“We want to work closely with them to give them some time. What’s needed here is some cash flow,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. And while, clearly, the Government will do what it takes to keep people in bread, it is vague at this point.

A new Cyclone Recovery Taskforce will also be established. It will be chaired by Brian Roche, the Labour Party’s Mr Fix It of choice for just about anything.

This new taskforce raises further questions about institutional design of the response. In the case of Christchurch, the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) was set up to govern and administer it.

However, if the Government is serious in thinking that climate change is going to cause more of these sorts of events, any new agency could be made more permanent to respond to future disasters – beyond the emergency matters managed by NEMA and Civil Defence.

The Queensland Reconstruction Authority, which emerged after disastrous floods in Queensland in 2011, would be a possible model for this.

“I wouldn’t rule out the need for some custom legislation,” Hipkins said.

Robertson will be the new Minister for Cyclone Recovery. This makes good sense. He was relieved of other portfolios and responsibilities save finance and sport after Chris Hipkins’ elevation to the prime ministership in January.

Clearly the recovery is going to be the new big fiscal story this year in addition to the broader cost-of-living pressure Hipkins has said he wants his Government to concentrate on.

So it makes sense for the man with the purse strings to basically have control over it – to start with at least. Many of the problems caused by it are also the keys to getting economic activity humming again in the region: roads, rail, supply chains and so forth.

Robertson will also chair a new Cabinet committee that will have ministers, responsible for the affected areas feeding into it.

There are also clearly some big changes coming slightly further down the line.

First, Hipkins indicated that beyond getting isolate areas connected and some roads back up and running, that the future of whole roads and potentially highways is on the table.

And when asked about rebuilding in places that perhaps are not that well suited for housing – due to being flood or disaster prone – Hipkins said that topic would be “one of the big conversations that we’re going to have in the next little while”.

In the same way that whole suburbs of Christchurch got abandoned by the Government and now no longer exist, there could well be communities that might not exist after the silt clears.

“They’re not going to be rebuilding in the next couple of weeks. So we do have time to work our way through this. But yes, those are going to be very live conversations in the next little while.”

For many people there will be a rebuild, for some it may be a rebuild elsewhere. The next few weeks and months will mean some very tough calls for a Government seeking re-election.