People in Vanuatu remain optimistic about their future after two destructive cyclones in two days left parts of the Pacific nation in ruins.

Authorities are yet to determine the full scale of the damage caused by the back-to-back severe tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin.

But those who had to endure the worst of the natural disasters last week believe demonstrating resilience is their only option.

“To have had two category four cyclones in less than a week is history in itself,” Vanuatu’s only female Member of Parliament, Gloria Julia King, told RNZ Pacific.

“[It’s] something that even the elders in our families haven’t seen before.”

She said her island nation has had its fair share of severe weather events, highlighting the destruction caused by Cyclone Pam in 2015 from which the country has still not fully recovered.

“A lot of our schools are still in makeshift classrooms, [children] still sitting on the floor without desks and chairs.”

Hopeful over challenges
But she is hopeful that the ni-Vanuatu people will get through the challenges in front of them.

“I have seen Vanuatu come back from Pam, I’ve seen Vanuatu come back from Harold, and I am positive Vanuatu will be able to bounce back from Kevin,” King said.

The country was hit by a category 4 TC Judy first on March 3, but just as people started to pick up the pieces, they had to rush to evacuation centres the following day as Kevin arrived as a category 3, intensifying to a category 4 and then reaching 5 over open water.

“People [were] carrying people with disabilities on their back to an evacuation building,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s advisor Shiva Gounden, who is in the capital Port Vila, said.

He said three to four families huddled in homes while properties around them were being wiped out.

“Roads are completely blocked or flooded. There’s no access for anyone to leave the village for any type of emergencies.”

‘No power, no water’
“There’s no power. There’s no water,” he added.

Gounden was in a village on Efate island helping people prepare for TC Kevin when it hit with a force much more violent than anyone was prepared for, he told RNZ Pacific.

He had to hold the doors of the house he was residing in for almost 10 hours in shin high water to remain safe.

“It was extremely strong,” he said, describing Kevin’s ferocity.

“I’ve seen and responded to several cyclones in my life and I felt Kevin was as strong as Cyclone Winston which wiped out Fiji.”

“I was trying to hold my door from 5pm till about 3am. I was using all my [strength] with my hands and my back and my legs to try and hold the door because if I didn’t, it would snap. There was water everywhere,” he said.

‘It’s a tough go for many’, says Vanuatu journalist
Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry, who has been on the frontlines documenting the disaster, visited vulnerable communities in the aftermath.

Taila Moses and her son Tom stand in front of what was once their home of 16 years. Countless houses in informal communities such as hers were damaged or destroyed. Cyclones dole put their damage indiscriminately, but society’s most vulnerable feel it more than anyone else. pic.twitter.com/cXBDuznMTz

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) March 5, 2023

He said people were living in “impromptu housing” in various parts of Port Vila.

“What I found was quite disturbing,” he said.

“It’s becoming obvious that the increasing reliance on a cash economy is creating inequalities in terms of people’s ability to cope with this kind of disaster cycle.”

McGarry said informal settlements up on the hillside in the capital were covered with clothing lines because everything had been soaked.

“There were tarpaulins pulled across roofs to provide some sort of temporary shelter.”

He has spoken with several residents and shared the story of one woman who has lost everything.

“She has no livelihood at the moment because her employer, of course, isn’t calling her into work,” he said.

“She’s lost everything and she is without the means to return it. It’s a tough, tough go for a great many people here in Port Vila,” he explained.

Climate crisis issue
Climate crisis is front of mind for Ni-Vanuatu residents as they start to rebuild.

“[Climate change] turns what used to be sort of periodical issues for Pacific island nations into chronic ones,” he said.

“In this case, we’ve had two severe cyclones in the course of a week an as New Zealanders have seen these weather systems are moving further south.”

He believes development partners of the Pacific cannot afford to walk away; a sentiment echoed by Gounden.

“We have the most resilient people, but there is a deep hurt that is within us,” Gounden said.

He said the “the hurt” stems from fossil fuels being burned across the world which exacerbates climate change.

“The people of the Pacific contribute the least to climate change, yet we face the greatest consequences of it all.”

“The biggest thing we can do is pressure world leaders right now to phase out [the use of fossil fuels.”

Meanwhile, Australia, France and New Zealand have been the first to send support to assist with emergency response.

“We will appreciate any help we can get,” King said.

“The biggest challenge now is just getting power and water back into full circuit around the country.”

Taking off for Vanuatu with assistance following TC Judy & TC Kevin. Australia has a rapid assessment team in Vanuatu & is delivering shelters & other items for communities.

We stand with the Pacific family #YugetaYumiStrong pic.twitter.com/IGYVrchew9

— Pat Conroy MP (@PatConroy1) March 5, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Political Roundup: The Horrific damage caused by forestry slash and vested interests

“Capitalists always want to privatise their profits and socialise their losses” – that’s the traditional socialist critique of how businesses are big fans of state intervention when it suits their interests. There seems to be a lot of that going around at the moment – many industries want government to help them be super-profitable, largely by reducing industry regulation and taxation, despite any damage they might cause.

However, there’s increasingly a public mood against the special pleading of such vested interests. This is evidenced in the criticisms now coming from across the political spectrum about the huge costs that New Zealand forestry businesses have been imposing on society, particularly with the multi-billion-dollar cost of “slash” debris that exacerbated or caused flood damage when Cyclone Gabrielle hit this month.

Even National’s leader Christopher Luxon echoed the socialist critique, when speaking about forestry last week in Parliament, describing it as “the only sector I know that gets to internalise the benefit and to socialise the cost”. He then talked about the need for further penalties and prosecutions of forestry businesses who fail to look after their own mess.

Although the timber industry isn’t unique in this regard, Luxon is quite correct to single them out. Forestry has become something of a case study in how vested interests have come to dominate the policymaking process, producing rules that favour the industry at the cost of society in general.

The role of slash in worsening the effects of the cyclone

The weather events of January and February have caused a horrific toll, yet much of it was avoidable. The destruction caused by the storms was made much worse by the way forestry operations have changed the land in places on the East Coast of the North Island.

One of the biggest problems is the litter foresters leave behind when they harvest pine trees. The industry terms the branches and debris left to rot on the hillsides as “slash”, and in large storms this litter is prone to be washed down rivers, causing mayhem. The debris forms dams and diverts the flow of water, flooding towns and farms, and knocking out bridges and roads. In Cyclone Gabrielle the impact of slash was enormous.

Illustrating this, a New Zealand Herald editorial complained on Friday that the word slash “is too gentle for the power and heft of avalanches of logs and branches that have again hurtled down hillsides on flood water, scouring out land and riverbeds, smashing bridges, roads and private property, endangering lives, cutting off communities and wrecking infrastructure.”

The Herald’s Fran O’Sullivan wrote in the weekend about the logging problem, concluding “what we have observed over the past fortnight simply puts New Zealand in the Third World category.” This is because in other developed countries, the slash problem is better regulated or even banned. It’s a problem that has been known about for many years, and yet in New Zealand the politicians have done virtually nothing about it, leaving society to pay for the damage caused by it.

The fact that the forestry companies can cause such great damage without being held accountable for the cost has astounded many. After all, citizens can be fined up to $5,000 under the Litter Act 1979, and if the litter endangers anyone, the fine increases and can include imprisonment.

Professor Anne Salmond likens it to deliberate vandalism: “If you were an individual and you took a bulldozer onto a property and destroyed their crops, knocked down their house and put lives at risk, you’d be in jail. And this is happening to hundreds of people, maybe thousands. This is not an Act of God, it’s an act of companies that put profit before environmental responsibility.”

Labour finally agrees to a ministerial inquiry, but will it do much?

Minister of Forestry Stuart Nash, has so far been highly supportive of the forestry industry, and has previously gone on record opposing a review of the slash problem. He suggested it is unnecessary, and that the forestry industry is best placed to self-regulate on this issue in conjunction with other stakeholders.

This stance has become untenable, and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has overruled Nash, announcing a ministerial inquiry on Thursday. It will be headed by former National Party minister Hekia Parata, and also involves forestry engineer Matthew McCloy and former Ecan chief executive Bill Bayfield.

The Government’s inquiry is already getting a lot of criticism. One Tolaga Bay farmer has labelled it a “Clayton’s enquiry” because it’s so limited. Clive Bibby says the review is unlikely to get to the truth of the matter “given the parameters surrounding the terms of reference and the limited time for submissions. This version can best be described as a Clayton’s enquiry – the one you have when you’re not having an enquiry”.

Bibby suggests the inquiry has been deliberately designed to avoid too much being revealed, as the Government itself could be blamed: “Nash will know that any enquiry worth its salt will implicate Government ideologically driven policy as one of the main culprits when apportioning blame. That is why he has done his best to limit the opportunity for this one to get to the bottom of what really happened”. He argues that “successive governments have supported the expansion of an industry that has unfortunately consumed everything in its path”.

Another local resident, Professor Anne Salmond, has also expressed her reservations about the independence of inquiry, saying: “It shouldn’t be run by the Minister of Forestry because there are vested interests in there. The minister is accountable to the people of New Zealand, not the forestry companies.” She says the inquiry needs to be able cross-examine expert witnesses.

Fran O’Sullivan argues Labour has made a mistake ordering “the quick turnaround of the Hekia Parata-chaired ministerial inquiry, when a more full-scale “Commission of Inquiry with all the powers attendant with that” better matches the scale of the disaster. She suggests there might be public suspicion about the independence and transparency of the review.

And, in fact, Stuart Nash emphasised yesterday that his Government won’t be bound by the recommendations of the inquiry.

How has the forestry industry become so dominant in the political process?

Professor Anne Salmond has called New Zealand’s regulation of forestry “third world”. And in the weekend, political commentator Max Rashbrooke argued that “The regulations governing their activities, and the penalties for their misbehaviour, have both been weak.”

It seems that forestry businesses have successfully sheltered themselves from the application of tough rules for their sector. This is perhaps unsurprising since they constitute a $7 billion industry – and are therefore one of New Zealand’s true “big businesses”. And the industry is in a significant growth phrase. Newshub revealed last night that the rise in new forestry area had gone from 695 hectares in 2013 to more than 18,000 hectares in 2022.

With this economic size, they naturally have a lot of political clout. In arguing aginst further regulation of their sector, forestry points out new rules would reduce their productivity and profitability. And in their pleas against further regulation they also make a great appeal to how reliant the New Zealand economy is on forestry earnings and employment.

The lobbying power of forestry is therefore huge. As the Herald’s editorial said on Friday, “Critics suggest the sector, much of it foreign-owned, has got away with it for so long because it works ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and because it has deep pockets to lobby the Beehive and local authority politicians.”

One of those critics, Anne Salmond, has been reported as believing “Forestry has formidable lobbying power and deep pockets”. And last week, Herald agriculture journalist Andrea Fox argued that the “powerful forestry lobby was marshalling its forces” to prevent any sort of significant inquiry into their operations.

The politicians themselves are often very close to the forestry operators, too. For instance, the Minister of Forestry himself used to work in the industry, and is now in charge of regulating what his former colleagues do. In 2020, when he was appointed, Nash was able to boast of an “extensive network of contacts in the forestry sector”.

Stuart Nash also carries out much of his election fundraising in this sector. In the last three elections he declared large donations totalling $99,000, $27,500, and $49,504. In 2020 about half of it came from forestry and timber companies. One timber businessman explained his financial backing for Nash, saying “It is important to the economy that government has politicians who understand industry.”

Being a Minister of Forestry who has been bankrolled by the sector he regulates does not mean he has broken any rules or done anything wrong. But it does raise questions about conflicts of interest, and about whether Nash’s funding has fostered a highly-favourable orientation towards the sector his donors come from. The public might well suspect that he has become too close to this vested interest.

The public and media are now putting Nash under pressure for his pro-forestry business orientation. In fact, a Herald editorial on Friday celebrated the increased pressure on Nash, saying “it’s about time”.

Nash answered these criticisms yesterday on TVNZ’s Q+A, claiming, “I’m not an apologist for the forest sector.” But as the human misery and billions of dollars of damage mount from unregulated forestry practices, the public are starting to push back on the free ride that the sector is still receiving. And it won’t just be socialists on the left and Christopher Luxon on the right demanding that vested interests pay their way, but a wider public that is increasingly angry with how such unfairness contributes to human disasters.

Further reading on forestry

1News Q + A: ‘I’m not an apologist for the forestry sector’ – Nash on slash
Newshub Nation: Forestry Minister Stuart Nash says Government won’t be bound by recommendations from inquiry into slash
Zane Small (Newshub): The amount of farmland converted into forestry revealed
Esther Taunton (Stuff): ‘All was calm, then came the clear-fell harvest’: Experts weigh in on the scourge of forestry slash
Max Rashbrooke (Stuff): Forestry slash a perfect emblem of modern capitalism’s failings
Tess McClure (Guardian): ‘Like a tsunami’: the role of forestry waste in New Zealand’s cyclone devastation
Hamish Bidwell (Herald): Forestry Minister Stuart Nash rejects criticism of slash inquiry

Other items of interest and importance today

CLIMATE CHANGE
Jamie Morton (Herald): Analysis: Has this extreme summer really changed how Kiwis feel about climate change? (paywalled)
Jamie Morton (Herald): Explained: What is ‘managed retreat’ and how may it be used in NZ?
Rod Oram (Newsroom): The next election should be a referendum on climate
Liam Dann (Herald): Before we pay the price of climate change we need to agree on the bill (paywalled)
Gareth Hughes (Stuff): How prepared are our political parties for a climate election?
Steven Cowan: Climate Adaptation is climate barbarism
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): NZ Climate Change Polluters now cry adaptation rather than mitigation
Rod Oram (Newsroom): Why NZ must integrate nature and urban design
Jack Santa Barbara (Newsroom): Redesign before the rebuild: Dealing with the storms’ aftermath
John Morgan and Nicolas Lewis (Newsroom): Is this the end of the Auckland dream?
Aurora Garner-Randolph (Newsroom): We need adults to support us for the School Strike for Climate

CYCLONE GABRIELLE, INFRASTRUCTURE
Andrea Vance (Stuff): It’s time for politicians to let go of infrastructure decisions
Stuff: After the storm, how can New Zealand bounce back?
Herald Editorial: A focus on funds for cyclone recovery fixes (paywalled)
Herald Editorial: Cyclone Gabrielle editorial: Our flimsy communication network exposed (paywalled)
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Cyclone makes Robertson’s Budget balancing act perilous
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Grant Robertson outlines how cyclone business support package will be spent
Alison Mau (Stuff): When Kiwi spirit shines, but bureaucracy fails the test of human kindness
RNZ: Flood recovery: $25m in initial grants to be locally led – Robertson
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Come on NZ, we need a new Ministry of Works and you know it!
Katie Kenny (Stuff): Cracking the code of catastrophic floods in New Zealand
Terry Baucher (Interest): Te wiki o te tāke; Facing up to some very big short and long term challenges
Rob Stock (Stuff): Bank emergency overdrafts should not be ‘default’ option for cash-strapped cyclone victims, mentors say
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Crackdown: Pawnbrokers and payday lenders target cyclone victims
Susan Botting (Local Democracy Reporting): Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says building post-cyclone State Highway 1 resilience will potentially take years
Imran Ali (Northern Advocate): At least $120m needed to fix Northland roads damaged by cyclone; Mangawhai sees 350mm of rain in 24 hours
Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Bulk of Hawkes Bay fruit growers’ crops uninsured 

THREE WATERS
Claire Trevett (Herald): National’s counter policy to Labour’s Three Waters carries big question marks (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herlad): National unveils Three Waters policy: No co-governance, but no big cost savings
Bernard Hickey: National chooses to think just as magically as Labour on water infrastructure, taxes and debt
Luke Malpass (Stuff): National begins the big Three Waters sales pitch
RNZ: National pledges to scrap Three Waters and ‘deliver local water well’
1News: Luxon: National will scrap Three Waters, set strict water rules
Adam Hollingworth (Newshub): National will scrap ‘undemocratic and unworkable’ Three Waters if elected
Brent Edwards (NBR): National’s plan for investing in three waters infrastructure (paywalled)
Lois Williams (Newsroom): Councils say Three Waters erodes flood response
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): 3 Water fish hooks – The Dragon and the Taniwha redux

PARLIAMENT
Richard Harman (Politik): Nats turn green (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herlad): Todd Muller on his journey back to the frontline (paywalled)
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): National party reiterates head office downsizing will help pay for tax cuts (paywalled)
Shane Te Pou (Herald): Public servants deserve thanks for their mahi (paywalled)
Peter Wilson (RNZ): Week in Politics: Luxon’s ‘low energy’ speech and the first head-to-head
Claire Trevett (Herald): Beehive Diaries: Chris Hipkins joins Maureen Pugh in the reading room after blunder, and what happened to Jacinda Ardern’s whisky stash (paywalled)
Herald: Chris v Chris: Who won the week? Hipkins or Luxon? (paywalled)
Jacqui Van Der Kaay (Democracy Project): Scandal and stretching the truth
Phil Smith (RNZ): Democracy on the cheap: Skint Parliament to turn off the radio
Herald: Former MP Chester Borrows battling terminal cancer, family called to bedside
Victor Billot (Newsroom): An Ode for .. the new Prime Minister

MEDIA
Hayden Donnell (RNZ): Climate minimisation still has a foothold in media
Colin Peacock (RNZ): Claims and counter-claims on post-cyclone crime spike
Karl du Fresne: A few more thoughts on Luxon, Pugh and the media – oh, and press secretaries too
Herald: Ask Me Anything: Barry Soper talks to Paula Bennett about politics and being a new dad
Dita De Boni (NBR): Power steering TVNZ through macro-economic thicket (paywalled)
RNZ: TVNZ’s profit drops as advertising revenue falls, costs rise

MAUREEN PUGH
Damien Grant (Stuff): Why we need to stand up for the Maureen Pughs of the world
Steve Braunias (Herald): The secret crucible of Maureen Pugh (paywalled)
Andrew Gunn (Stuff): ‘Who knew that talking about the weather could get you in trouble!’

HOUSING
Dick Bellamy (Herald): Housing intensification plan for Auckland should be dumped due to flood risks
Janine Starks (Stuff): Why ‘insurance retreat’ will drive our housing market away from flood risk
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): Doug Fairgray on the Labour-National push to enable greater housing density across our five biggest cities
Brendon Harre (Interest): Deceit, speculation, and mistrust has long characterised New Zealand’s approach to land-use
Brian Easton (Pundit): Minsky And The Housing Market
Greg Ninness (Interest): Number of first home buyers getting into a home of their own at an eight year low
Miriam Bell (Stuff): First home buyers dream of snapping up houses, not apartments
Brent Melville (BusinessDesk): Affordable housing levy sparks fear and loathing in Queenstown (paywalled)
Federico Magrin (Stuff): National MP calls for use of Tekapo military camp to solve worker accommodation shortage
Carmen Hall (Herald): Meet the landlords who say owning residential rentals is ‘almost unviable’ (paywalled)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Devika Dhir (Newsroom): A move to shred our social fabric
Dale Husband (E-Tangata); Mayor Moko: ‘Do you think you’re old enough to be doing this?’
Tommy de Silva (Spinoff): Beautiful karakia tradition continues at Kaipara council
Paul McBeth (BusinessDesk): Christchurch settles with Aon over $320m quake claim (paywalled)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Oscar Jackson (Today FM): Nania Mahuta’s secret mission: Prepare for a China/Indo-Pacific diplomatic minefield
David Farrar: We should help Ukraine more
Benjamin Plummer (Herald): Kiwi held hostage in Papua New Guinea safely released

DEFENCE
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Defence Minister Andrew Little says military ‘under pressure’ as Pacific becomes contested
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Andrew Little on spooks, working with Australia, and speeding up the review of Defence (paywalled)

EMPLOYMENT
Sasha Borissenko (Herald): Is the Employment Relations Act fit for purpose? (paywalled)
Katie Harris (Herald): Would men take more parental leave if offered it? One Kiwi employer found out

ECONOMY
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Reserve Bank Deputy Governor: ‘You sort of live with a knot in your stomach’ (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): On the Tiles: Deputy Reserve Bank Governor Christian Hawkesby on the tight balancing act in fighting inflation
David Chaston (Interest): Did our banks get Orr’s message?
Hillmarè Schulze (NBR): Complex relationship between minimum wage and inflation (paywalled)
Warren Couillault (NBR): How long will the Reserve Bank’s economic squeeze last? (paywalled)

Political Roundup: Our politicians are competent firefighters, but terrible builders

The Labour Government has once again proven itself to be very competent in a crisis. Cyclone Gabrielle has allowed Prime Minister Chris Hipkins to demonstrate his impressive disaster management communication.

Labour is very good with the political firefighting required to deal with such disasters – as they have shown in the past with their response to the Christchurch mosque attack, the Whakaari White Island eruption, and the initial stages of Covid.

And, in fact, the last National Government wasn’t too bad at crisis management either. John Key and Bill English received plaudits for the way they dealt with the global financial crisis, the Pike River disaster, and the Canterbury earthquakes.

And yet, both Labour and National have proven to be atrocious at longer-term planning and investment in the things that really matter. The big problems of society never get the attention they deserve and, slowly but surely, those problems mount up, unaddressed, and actually start producing more and more crises – such as the disasters of the last month – which politicians are then forced to react to.

The Polycrisis exposed

We now have a “polycrisis” of problems blighting New Zealand, which our politicians seem unwilling or unable to properly address. The term “polycrisis” is being used around the world to denote simultaneous challenges that are often linked and reinforcing: climate change, infrastructure deficits, inflation, economic inequality, Covid, and war.

The Herald’s Thomas Coughlan highlighted last week that polycrisis had been the word most used at the recent Davos meeting of world elites, but he suggested “permacrisis” – the Collins dictionary “word of the year” – was more apt, which he defined as “the sense of living through an unfolding sequence of crises.”

New Zealand’s political polycrisis has been made worse by the weather events of the last weeks. The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive explains this, saying: “Because Auckland’s floods and Cyclone Gabrielle did not land on a country which was running smoothly. They dropped into one which was suffering through that debilitating modern phenomenon known as the polycrisis: interlinked crises covering inflation, housing, infrastructure, health and more, all operating against and influenced by the climate crisis.”

Labour and National’s infrastructure deficit

At the centre of New Zealand’s polycrisis is an infrastructure deficit in which roads, communications systems, stormwater infrastructure, electricity transmission, hospitals, schools, and so forth, haven’t been adequately funded and built for the requirements of the 21st century.

On top of the infrastructure deficit are other crises created by a lack of attention given to inequality, climate change, and housing. These are massive issues that the current Labour Government continues to pay lip service to but, in nearly six years in power, has done little about. Similarly, previous governments have allowed these crises to worsen.

The problem for the Government and the Opposition is that all of these huge but long-term problems are being starkly exposed –  especially by last week’s Cyclone Gabrielle. The risk for the politicians is that the polycrisis and infrastructure deficit will be blamed on them. These things threaten to upend current politics, producing something of a reckoning for our short-term focused political class.

Criticism of politicians is noticeably increasing. Across the political spectrum over the last two weeks there have been some thoughtful critiques made of the failures of successive governments. Newstalk’s Heather du Plessis-Allan has typified this in pointing the finger at Labour and National for constantly avoiding fixing our problems properly.

For instance, Du Plessis-Allan said last week Labour and National are too inclined to “do things on the cheap” with infrastructure, but this cutting of corners just produces more problems for our roading networks, electricity transmission, and so forth. She points out that even before the weather disasters of this month, the infrastructure deficit had reached $210 billion, which means politicians now have some hard questions to face.

Duncan Grieve of the Spinoff has also made a severe critique of the way that the current Minister of Finance Grant Robertson – along with his predecessors – have deliberately ignored investing in critical infrastructure merely so they can parade their low debt figures, and relatively low taxes, to business audiences and the like.

Grieve says it’s “embarrassing” that Robertson and other finance ministers are so proud of the fact that they have underfunded infrastructure in order to be able to boast of their financial nous. And he laments that whenever anyone advocates much higher infrastructure spending they are denounced by Labour or National as being “Muldoonist”.

And yet much of our infrastructure is stuck back in the 1960s, well before Rob Muldoon’s time. As Josie Pagani wrote this week, “This web of pipes and cables is much the same as it was 50 years ago. Like the old ships we send across the Cook Strait, still breaking down like it’s 1968. As I write this, the traffic into Wellington is at a standstill. Trains aren’t running. It’s only raining. We’re not just falling behind in infrastructure. We are falling behind in the politics of sorting it out.”

So much of the tragedy that has been inflicted on the North Island in the cyclone and flooding is a result of political decisions – or failure to make decisions. For example, Herald political editor Claire Trevett gave one good example last week: “The cyclone is already highlighting issues that should have been dealt with by the government – and by governments before it: Tairawhiti residents have been calling for something to be done about slash from forestry for years now. Yet nothing has been done. Lo, the slash came down again and farms were hammered again.”

An Opportunity to focus on the polycrisis rather than political gain

Pressure now needs to be applied to New Zealand’s political class to break out of the infrastructure deficit in which low debt and low taxation rank as the most important metrics in evaluating their worth as political leaders.

There has been some progress in this regard. In the last week or so, politicians have suddenly woken up to the need to invest in the bigger problems.

For instance, Christopher Luxon said last week: “we need to invest now very strongly in climate adaptation and infrastructure… we can’t go rebuilding roads that keep getting wiped out and then get wiped out at the next event.” Similarly, Grant Robertson has spoken of the need to invest in infrastructure. But without any pressure applied on such politicians, these words are unlikely to go far beyond lip service.

Part of this means dealing with climate change – both in terms of mitigation and adaptation, with the latter being where the new infrastructure debate is heading. There are now many billion-dollar questions about how we plan and shape the physical environment to adjust to the reality of the changing climate.

Building houses will continue to be a major focus – or at least it should be. The current government, in particular, came to power on a campaign about the housing crisis but has turned out to be particularly bad at building houses. Despite the PR hype about a small amount of construction, it is negligible against the size of the housing crisis. Kiwibuild continues to be a farce, and state housing is tiny, contributing to the levels of homelessness and accommodation need.

The problem is we have plenty of brilliant disaster management politicians, but seemingly no politicians who are good at forward-thinking and with the courage to do the right thing. Do-nothing conservatism won’t cut it anymore after recent weather disasters have exposed the extent of the crisis. And the politicians can’t say that the media or public aren’t on board for grappling with the big issues. We have seen in recent weeks just how much appetite there now is for a focus on fixing things.

The Herald recently published an editorial about the cyclone recovery titled “Sticking plasters aren’t enough for these wounds” in which the newspaper explained that “the country faces problems that are decades in the making” but that there is an appetite to grapple with the costs involved, which might be huge. The editorial said, “Some solutions could be more expensive in the short-term but are better for the long term than constantly going through temporary fixes.”

Unfortunately, much of the political debate about the cyclone recovery is still more about how the current crisis might help or disadvantage the electoral position of particular parties and politicians. The expectation is that politicians will once again revert to type, making their calculations about what rebuild policies will help them win or lose the election. Or indeed about what hi-viz jacket and TV coverage will help in the next opinion poll.

That’s to be expected. And in a “bread and butter election” there will naturally be a need for politicians to give the public some immediate succour from their various cost of living crises. But there’s also a need to finally “think big”, even at the risk of being labelled a “Muldoonist”.

Other items of interest and importance today

CLIMATE CHANGE, CYCLONE GABRIELLE AND FLOODING RECOVERY, INFRASTRUCTURE
Matthew Hooton (Herald): It’s too late to avoid climate change – now we have to adapt (paywalled)
Toby Morris (The Spinoff): The Side Eye: A climate change reality check
Mark Blackham (Herald): Why Cyclone Gabrielle warnings went unheeded (paywalled)
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Cyclone Gabrielle has fundamentally changed the political debate: Building state capacity – who to tax & how
Gordon Campbell: The mauling of Maureen Pugh, Looting myths and
Banking on the cyclone
Brent Edwards (NBR): The Reserve Bank, the cyclone, taxes, climate change
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): The case for an NZ Reconstruction Authority
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Cyclone tax: Adrian Orr says there would be precedents for ‘levy’
Russell Palmer (Newsroom): Willis says tax cuts won’t require borrowing – but cyclone will
Eric Crampton: Paying for cyclones
Newshub: Cyclone Gabrielle: Windfall profit tax to support cleanup would make New Zealand ‘Sicilian mafioso country’ – David Seymour
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Will disasters like Cyclone Gabrielle widen the city-rural divide?
Ben Moore (BusinessDesk): Cyclone Gabrielle and the failure in communication(s) (paywalled)
RNZ: Health Minister details services for cut-off East Coast
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Please don’t profiteer: Rising prices worry builders in cyclone aftermath
Amelia Wade (Newhub): Cyclone Gabrielle: Chris Hipkins climbs down from criticised crime claims as roadworker says politicians are ‘covering backside’
Rachel Maher (Herald): Cyclone Gabrielle: Road workers who had guns pulled on them in Hawke’s Bay, dispute Prime Minister’s ‘third-hand’ information claim
1News: ‘Disinformation’ spreading about cyclone crime – Gisborne police
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Victim of attempted break-in at cyclone-damaged Puketapu house pleads for more back-up
Alex Lo and Faith Chan (The Conversation): NZ cities urgently need to become ‘spongier’ – but system change will be expensive
Newshub: Government announces new recovery visa for overseas workers to support Cyclone Gabrielle rebuild
RNZ: New visa set up to bring in specialised workers for post-cyclone rebuild
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): Cyclone recovery visa – is six months enough? (paywalled)
Gisborne Herald: Cyclone Gabrielle: Dispute over Genesis Energy’s role in Wairoa flooding
Waatea News: Hipkins says treaty approach needed for recovery effort
Rebecca Stevenson (Interest): Rockit Apple boss says growers need wage subsidy

FORESTRY SLASH
Herald Editorial: Beehive took far too long to tackle East Coast forestry waste trauma (paywalled)
Andrea Fox (Herald): Forestry waste: Slashed – Government announces inquiry, how East Coast lost its social licence (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Government orders inquiry into forestry slash after Cyclone Gabrielle
Hawke’s Bay Today: Chris Hipkins takes on forestry, before bad weather shuts down his Hawke’s Bay visit
RNZ: Inquiry into forestry slash announced
Kiwiblog: Policy on Forestry Slash

BACKLASH AGAINST MAUREEN PUGH’S CLIMATE CHANGE COMMENTS
Peter Dunne: Freedom of expression means hearing views that are outside the mainstream
Eric Crampton: Entrance tests for MPs?
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Maureen Pugh was ill-informed, but she’s allowed her opinion
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Labour minister Michael Wood regrets referring to Simon Bridges’ comments about Maureen Pugh being ‘useless’

PARLIAMENT
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Parliament debates Three Waters entrenchment: National’s Chris Bishop – ‘You’re making my head hurt’ (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Why National won’t panic as it did in 2020
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Luxon’s puzzling brain fade
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Tony Sutorius on politicians, documentary and ‘telling the truth about being dishonest’
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): Jami-Lee Ross, ‘Tex’, and the $30,000 Advance NZ donation
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Efeso Collins seeks Greens’ nomination, says Labour takes south Auckland ‘for granted’
Newshub: David Seymour calls Chlöe Swarbrick ‘by far the most sensible Green MP’
Audrey Young (Herald): Parliament’s debating chamber – updated seating plan (paywalled)

MONETARY POLICY, COST OF LIVING
Riley Kennedy (BusinessDesk): Reserve Bank’s Orr: Cutting OCR in light of cyclone ‘makes no sense’ (paywalled)
Michael Reddell: A couple of MPS thoughts
Arena Wililiams and Stuart Smith (Stuff): New Zealand’s prices have continued to surge at a painfully fast pace

HOUSING
David Hargreaves (Interest): RBNZ: Homeowners could be spending 22% of disposable income on mortgage interest by year-end
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Interest expected to eat up 22pc of mortgage holders’ disposable incomes (paywalled)
Greg Ninness (Interest): Big regional differences in median rent movements last year
Miriam Bell (Stuff): House price slide expected to continue into next year, survey shows
RNZ: Mortgage interest rates may be slowing but still high – CoreLogic
Tina Law (Press): Christchurch’s answer to Government’s housing density mandate makes almost half the city exempt
Erin Gourley (Stuff): How a suburban train line became the focal point for Wellington’s housing debate

AUCKLAND
Erin Johnson (Stuff): Auckland Council opposes Three Waters bills
Todd Niall (Stuff): Auckland Council weeks away from estimating cost of storm and Cyclone Gabrielle
Sam Brooks (Spinoff): Is $41 million in savings worth the decimation of Auckland’s community and culture?
Erin Johnson (Stuff): Plan for bike paths through central Auckland suburbs shelved
Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Ports of Auckland fighting to secure its future
RNZ: Auckland Airport delivers first underlying profit in two-and-a-half years

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Susan Botting (Local Democracy Reporting): Kaipara councillor vows to continue fight against mayor’s ban on karakia
Stephen Ward (Waikato Times): City growth strategy gets go ahead despite flood-related concerns
Janine Rankin (Manawatū Standard): Palmerston North proposed rates rise could be close to double figures
Nicholas Boyack (Stuff): Hutt City residents in line for 9.9% rate rise
Grant Miller (ODT): Dunedin City Council goes for 6.5% rates rise
ODT: Plans for ORC’s central city HQ finalised
Hamish McNeilly (Stuff): New plans for Otago Regional Council’s HQ revealed

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
RNZ: Government announces further Russia sanctions on anniversary of invasion
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Supporting Ukraine against Vladimir Putin is about defending a world where might is not right
Josie Pagani (Stuff): ‘Whataboutery’ is cynicism. Support for Ukraine must continue
Robert Patman (Newsroom): Is New Zealand doing enough for Ukraine?
Bruce Munro (ODT): Global Insight: Will Hipkins take tougher line on Ukraine?
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Ukraine – A Year of War: How New Zealand responded – and what could be next for our support
Thomas Manch (Stuff): PM says NZ will never ‘turn our back’ on Ukraine, a year after invasion
Gill Bonnett (RNZ): Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainians in New Zealand seek certainty on visa extension
Anna Whyte (Stuff): New Zealand to make climate change pledge as Pacific leaders meet amid regional tension
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Carmel Sepuloni meets Fijian PM ahead of ‘important’ Pacific gathering

TRANSPORT
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Government spends $62 million on promotional, education campaigns to ‘support Road to Zero’
Jaime Lyth (Herald): Could Northland’s terrible roads be helped by rail? (paywalled)
Tom Taylor (RNZ): Auckland light rail ‘absolutely’ going ahead – Transport Minister
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Labour’s light rail at the end of the tunnel
Zane Small (Newshub): Auckland light rail survives policy purge, but completed plans still two years away
1News: National’s Simeon Brown takes aim at Auckland ‘light fail’ project
Conor Knell (Dominion Post): Bus fares rise by 6% across Wellington from April
Federico Magrin (Stuff): Aviation bill fails to protect passengers’ rights when ‘shirked’ around by airlines
Maia Hart (Local Democracy Reporting): Picton overflows as ferry passengers wait for a sailing spot
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): Greater Christchurch mass rapid transit corridors identified (paywalled)

HEALTH
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): The damning OIA that pits Pharmac against the Government
Rachel Smalley (NBR): OIA release timing reveals Pharmac’s broken culture (paywalled)
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): All I ask is for Pharmac to apologise for it’s mistakes
Krystal Gibbens (RNZ): Long Covid patients plead for better job, health protections
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): Pregnant Maori and Pacific women getting poor vaccine info, research shows
Hannah Martin (Stuff): Measles: Health body texting, emailing young people who may be undervaccinated
Hannah Martin (Stuff): Covid-19: Pfizer bivalent booster to be available for over 30s ahead of winter
RNZ: New bivalent Covid-19 vaccine booster to be available to over-30s

BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT
Brianna Mcilraith (Stuff): By the numbers: Who is eating all of our food if we make enough to feed 40 million people?
RNZ: Air NZ boss Greg Foran says cheaper airfares at least a year away, despite profit
Dan Brunskill (BusinessDesk): Air NZ could have made ‘even more profit’ – Foran (paywalled)
Anan Zaki (RNZ): How Air New Zealand went from crash landing to stratospheric
RNZ: Air NZ reports $213m profit as passenger demand rebounds
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): Kiwibank CEO says record first-half profit won’t be repeated in second-half of bank’s financial year as MP raises idea of bank levy
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): Kiwibank interim profit surges 53% to record high
Jenny Ruth (BusinessDesk): Kiwibank lifted 1H profit 53% as lending surged (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (NBR): Don’t be caught chillaxing when new Holidays Act comes to pass (paywalled)
Kate Hawkesby (Newstalk ZB): If a four day week increases productivity and employee happiness, surely it’s a win-win

MEDIA
Chris Keall (Herald): TVNZ profit slumps by two-thirds, CEO looks beyond abandoned merger
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): TVNZ interim profit drops by a third with ‘economic headwinds ahead’
Daniel Dunkley (BusinessDesk): TVNZ-RNZ merger plan ‘not a wasted exercise’ – Power (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): R16 or AO? MP’s question about Naked Attraction raises a point on media regulation

OTHER
RNZ: Law change to fix 501 deportees’ parole error passes under urgency
RNZ: Majority of Whakatōhea iwi agree to push on with Treaty settlement
Julia de Bres (Stuff): Semantic bleaching and the hijacking of ‘woke’
Christine Rovoi (Stuff): ‘Be fair’: Government urged to revisit Te Matatini funding
Spinoff: Yes, Harry Styles will have to do the Census
Bob Jones: A political agenda for New Zealand

Pacific Peoples Minister Aupito William Sio will attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s stead as she recovers from covid-19.

In a statement confirming the move this afternoon Aupito, who is also the Associate Foreign Minister, said he looked forward to the opportunity to talanoa with Pacific Island counterparts at the forum in Fiji next week.

“This will be the first in-person meeting of Forum Foreign Ministers since 2019,” he said.

“It has been challenging to bring all ministers together given the impact of the global pandemic and a number of national elections under way in the Pacific, but this talanoa is essential for our region.”

Mahuta said the forum was at the heart of New Zealand’s engagement with the Pacific, and this meeting came at a “critical time” considering the climate change challenge.

She confirmed over the weekend she had tested positive for covid-19, and would be unable to attend.

Aupito said the response to broader security challenges — including maritime surveillance and illegal fishing — economic resilience, and natural disaster response were also pressing issues that would be discussed.

The Forum will also be attended by heads of state, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Leaders’ meetings will take place from Monday to Thursday next week, July 11-14.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz