Source: Radio New Zealand
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi says the government’s $1 million to reimburse marae that provided welfare in response to severe weather events is “not enough”.
He said, “We don’t need money for a response, we need money for resilience, and our communities need it right now.”
The first day back at Parliament saw parties responding to the government’s announcement on Tuesday it would top up the Mayoral Relief Funds with $1.2m for immediate support to those communities affected, alongside $1m for marae.
Christopher Luxon praised support from marae as “exceptional”.
“They have provided shelter, food and care to people in need, and I cannot speak more highly of them.”
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said Te Puni Kokiri would coordinate with NEMA on distributing funds to marae, “often Te Puni Kokiri are the ones with the relationships on the ground”.
“But of course, in all of these responses, it’s a matter for council, marae and emergency response to work together.”
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell also praised marae, saying they had stood up and provided support at “just about every event that I’ve been to”.
He said his emergency management bill that was in the house at the moment “actually formally codifies them having a seat at the table, because they are very good at emergency management”.
Luxon went on to say he and Mitchell had the privilege of visiting some of the marae in Northland over the weekend.
“I came away feeling incredibly proud and humbled by the manaakitanga shown by everyone there,” said Luxon.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at He Maimai Aroha on Monday after the Mount Maunganui landslide. RNZ/Nick Monro
But Waititi said it was “nice to be proud and humbled by it when you just visit for five minutes”, but those communities had “quite often” had to face severe weather and climate issues without plans to “build resilience”.
“It’s our little communities that are hit first.
“We’re the first to respond, but we’re the last to be given any type of resources,” Waititi said. He wanted the Prime Minister to reconsider “giving the right resourcing to the right communities”.
The recovery period would take “months and months and months” he said, “but we’re sick of response”.
“This has happened before. This is not an unprecedented issue anymore. It’s not one in 100 years. This is not once in a lifetime. These events are happening every year. We’re having these conversations every year.”
He pointed to Te Tai Rawhiti who were having to rebuild roads “all the time”, and marae there who had to respond all the time.
“But they’re responding on the smell of an oily rag.”
He acknowledged those who had lost their lives, “but how many more lives must we lose before we start looking at plans of resilience and not response?”
NZ First leader Winston Peters said Waititi had got up and “made a fool of himself”.
He said NZ First had given the most money to marae upgrades “because we know they’re sustainable institutions” and they demonstrated that during Covid-19 and the current crisis.
NZ First leader Winston Peters spoke at Rātana last week. RNZ / Pokere Paewai
His deputy leader Shane Jones brushed off questions about whether climate change was linked to last week’s storms.
Jones said he was not interested in a debate on climate politics but he was all about adaptation.
He had this response when asked if climate change played a part, “no – the volatility of the weather is something we must not take for granted, but taxing cows as they belch and emit from the rear end is something I’m totally disinterested in.”
Jones said he was the minister that found $200m for stopbanks from the Regional Infrastructure fund.
Labour’s Chris Hipkins also said marae should be valued “day in, day out, year round” not only in “times of tragedy”.
“Marae do amazing work when New Zealand’s faced with tragedy, when we’re faced with adverse situations.
“They throw their doors open. They welcome everybody.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Hipkins was broadly supportive of the government’s initial funding support, saying it was “clearly a start”.
“I recall when cyclone Gabrielle hit initial sums of money looked quite modest, and then we had to build from there.”
He didn’t want to rush and criticise the amount, “because it will take some time to identify exactly what support for rebuild and clean up is required”.
Luxon had outlined this during the post-cabinet media conference on Tuesday when announcing the package.
“The top up of Mayoral funds, which is a very tactical, practical, immediate piece of funding, that is not the ‘be all and end all’ here.”
Finance Minister Nicola Willis echoed this, saying the Mayoral Relief Fund was a “drop in the ocean”.
“Tthat’s just putting cash in local bank accounts to ensure that voluntary efforts aren’t stopped for lack of resource.”
Nicola Willis at the National Party caucus retreat on 21 January 2026. RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
Luxon indicated it was too early to say how much the total cost of recovery would be, but Gisborne District Mayor Rehette Stoltz told Checkpoint on Tuesday she estimated the damage caused to her region alone during last week’s storms will cost some $21.5 million to fix.
Willis said there was “hundreds of millions of dollars available across government for responding to this event”.
She gave the government policy statement on transport as an example, which specifically allocated funds for the rebuild of roads following natural disasters. There was $400m available for the rebuild of state highways and more then $300m for local roads.
The Greens also criticised the government’s $1.2m, questioning why the government had not implemented Civil Defense Payments, which was immediate relief and available under current legislation.
The Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick said the government was not doing enough – especially when it came to long term challenges.
She said the government had “knowingly and intentionally made decisions to make climate change worse”.
Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
“Climate change is not only devastating in terms of the loss of life that we see, but also in terms of exacerbating the cost of living crisis – so no, the government is not doing enough.”
The ACT leader said he was more in favour of climate funding going toward adaptation rather than mitigation.
David Seymour noted the government had spent “around a billion dollars on climate change adaptation”. He said the government had done deregulation work making it easier to “raise roads, to build drainage, to ensure that these things are less likely to happen”.
ACT leader David Seymour. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
“So are we there yet? Clearly not remotely close,” he said.
“But the government has done a major pivot away from really quite futile efforts to reduce global emissions towards practical improvements to what is on the ground in New Zealand.”
He said he didn’t want to “further politicise it” by pointing out who he thought was politicising it.
Hipkins said in response to whether mitigation or adaptation should be the focus, “we need to be able to do both”.
“The reality here is that without mitigation, the amount of money that we’d need to spend on adaptation would be unaffordable.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
