Source: Radio New Zealand
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says those sharing racist rhetoric about the role of iwi in caring for the maunga where six people remain missing after a landslide should keep it to themselves.
Luxon was on Monday at He Maimai Aroha, where a community care centre has been set up in Mount Maunganui to support those grieving after last Thursday’s landslide at Beachside Holiday Park.
Recovery efforts were paused on Sunday because of the risk of further slips at the site, but resumed Monday.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says iwi have been a critical part of the response to the slip at Mount Maunganui. RNZ/Nick Monro
Questioned about comments circulating online, the prime minister said he was aware of misinformation but the focus needed to be on recovering those still missing in the landslide.
“There always is, in circumstances like this, and that’s why we want to make sure right here right now we are doing everything we can in recovery mode to make sure we recover six people,” he said.
“Right here, right now we need to stay together and support each other and come together in unity – which is what this community has done by the vast majority exceptionally well.
“And the people on the margins with their rhetoric, they need to just frankly keep it to themselves.”
Iwi had been a critical part of the response to the recent storms, Luxon said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at He Maimai Aroha on Monday after the Mount Maunganui landslide. RNZ/Nick Monro
“I’ve been so impressed by how everyone has worked together and iwi have been a critical part in the conversations about how we do response and recovery, and need to be at the table going forward bigtime – and we’ve made sure that’s the case, that will happen,” he said.
The government was working on providing what support it could, he said, but regional authorities needed to stay focused on the immediate recovery efforts.
“We’re a government here that wants to help. We will help but we need the assessments to come back to us really quickly, and in fairness while we’ve got response going on it’s really unfair to ask a region ‘what else do you need’ because they don’t know what they need at this point in time,” he said.
“But we’ve spoken to all the mayors multiple times, we have very dynamic relationships, we all have our numbers, we talk very dynamically with everybody and we will pull together a plan and a support package.
“We have incredible weather events and natural disasters that hit this country, we’ve got to control what we can control. What we can control is our response to these events and our recovery from these events. And ultimately how we build more resilience into our core infrastructure is ultimately what we’ve been doing.”
The Hawke’s Bay Expressway was being built to withstand twice the level of flooding that the previous road had been, he said.
“So there’s some big questions that we’ve got to do about risk management, about adaptation, we’ll have a national flood plan in place by the end of this year, we’ll have more resilient roads and infrastructure.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
