The govt has struck a blow for flood resilience down south – but the funding was announced by Shane Jones back in 2020
According to RNZ, the minister of climate change- Simon Watts, if we recall correctly – released the Climate Change Commission’s first report assessing the progress of the government’s national adaptation plan.
But there is no mention of the report’s release or what Watts might think of its contents on the government’s official website.
The national adaptation plan was first released in 2022 and the commission is expected to provide reports assessing it every two years.
The first report, which finds New Zealand is not adapting to climate change fast enough, includes nine recommendations. Seven of these are focused on helping the country shift from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. The other two focused on improving national adaptation planning and monitoring.
Commission chair Dr Rod Carr said the report showed urgent action was needed to address the impacts of climate change on New Zealanders’ lives and livelihoods.
“The current plan is short on measures and short on time frames and lacks some of the focus that we would hope to see in a plan,” Carr said.
While the Government’s official website registers no response from Simon Watts to the commission’s critique, it does provide evidence that at least something is being done to address the impacts of climate change – albeit with funding provided by the previous Labour government.
Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson has opened a new pump station that provides flood resilience and increased protection for the Invercargill Airport.
It has been co-funded, with $5.1m of government funding, with the balance of the project funded by Environment Southland
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Matt Doocey might argue that the government is doing its bit to reduce the impacts of climate change in his portfolio patch, too. He has opened a fund to establish e-bike charging stations for New Zealand’s Great Rides “so as many people as possible can experience our incredible cycle trails first hand.”
Or rather, he called it a fund. Point of Order is apt to regard this sort of thing as a trough.
Doocey made no mention of the amount of money in this trough, or fund, nor provided any figure to enable us to evaluate the cost of the publicly provided slops.
He did say Great Rides’ governance organisations will need to co-fund 50% of the purchase and installation costs for the e-bike charging stations in their regions but communities can each determine how many charging stations to install for their cycleway.
But Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith may well attract bigger headlines after appointing Dr Stephen Rainbow as the new Chief Human Rights Commissioner as part of three major leadership changes.
Dr Gail Pacheco was named as the next Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and
Dr Melissa Derby will become the new Race Relations Commissioner.
Anyone ready to put her to the test by bringing some of the Māori Party’s inflammatory and divisive rhetoric to her attention?
The first report, which finds New Zealand is not adapting to climate change fast enough, includes nine recommendations. Seven of these are focused on helping the country shift from a reactive approach to a more proactive one. The other two focused on improving national adaptation planning and monitoring.
Commission chair Dr Rod Carr said the report showed urgent action was needed to address the impacts of climate change on New Zealanders’ lives and livelihoods.
“The current plan is short on measures and short on time frames and lacks some of the focus that we would hope to see in a plan,” Carr said.
While the Government’s official website registers no response from Simon Watts to the commission’s critique, it does provide evidence that at least something is being done to address the impacts of climate change – albeit with funding provided by the previous Labour government.
Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson has opened a new pump station that provides flood resilience and increased protection for the Invercargill Airport.
It has been co-funded, with $5.1m of government funding, with the balance of the project funded by Environment Southland
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Matt Doocey might argue that the government is doing its bit to reduce the impacts of climate change in his portfolio patch, too. He has opened a fund to establish e-bike charging stations for New Zealand’s Great Rides “so as many people as possible can experience our incredible cycle trails first hand.”
Or rather, he called it a fund. Point of Order is apt to regard this sort of thing as a trough.
Doocey made no mention of the amount of money in this trough, or fund, nor provided any figure to enable us to evaluate the cost of the publicly provided slops.
He did say Great Rides’ governance organisations will need to co-fund 50% of the purchase and installation costs for the e-bike charging stations in their regions but communities can each determine how many charging stations to install for their cycleway.
But Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith may well attract bigger headlines after appointing Dr Stephen Rainbow as the new Chief Human Rights Commissioner as part of three major leadership changes.
Dr Gail Pacheco was named as the next Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and
Dr Melissa Derby will become the new Race Relations Commissioner.
Anyone ready to put her to the test by bringing some of the Māori Party’s inflammatory and divisive rhetoric to her attention?
Latest from the Beehive
16 August 2024
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is appointing Dr Stephen Rainbow as the new Chief Human Rights Commissioner as part of three major leadership changes.
Tena koutou katoa, nga mihi nui kia koutou.
A new pump station that provides flood resilience and increased protection for the Invercargill Airport was opened today by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson.
16 August 2024
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Matt Doocey today opened a fund to establish e-bike charging stations for New Zealand’s Great Rides so as many people as possible can experience our incredible cycle trails first hand.
Speech
15 August 2024
Kia ora and good afternoon everyone, and thank you for the warm welcome.
Point of Order draws readers’ attention to an earlier post, Christopher Luxon’s hawkish foreign policy address in Sydney, in which Geoffrey Miller digests the PM’s speech to the Lowry Institute.
For now, we head south and to Mark Patterson’s enthusing that the Stead Street Pump Station in Invercargill will improve the region’s ability to ride out severe weather events.
His statement gushed in terms which suggest his government deserves plaudits for this initiative:
“Our Coalition Government is firmly focused on rebuilding a more productive economy, and building infrastructure for growth and resilience is a key pillar of our economic strategy to get New Zealand back on track. Persistent underinvestment in resilience infrastructure is limiting our ability to respond to stresses and shocks when they happen and is holding us back from further development and growth, particularly in our regions,” says Mr Patterson.
But guess what?
The funding was announced in July 2020 when Shane Jones was Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Economic Department in the Ardern government.
New investment in flood protection measures in Southland and Otago will keep residents safer and boost their local economies, with funding of $30 million from central Government announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today.
The funding forms part of the $210m for shovel-ready climate resilience and flood protection projects being delivered through the $3 billion tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure.
Otago would receive $5m and Southland $25m.
Projects which may be funded (subject to due diligence and council prioritisation) included the pump station which now his given Patterson a platform for a burst of ballyhoo.
His press statement noted that Invercargill Airport supports 320,000 passengers each year, plus freight movements, and is critical to keeping Southland well-connected and productive.
The new pump station complements the wider network of stopbanks, drains and pumps in place, and improves flood resilience for the airport and nearby residential properties, and a key road connection.
Previously the airport has been impacted by flooding in 1984 when the terminal was inundated by three metres of water, and in 2016 when a major storm event spilled on to Stead Street, causing surface flooding around the airport and the closure of roads.
What about Matt Doocey’s finding an unquantified amount of money to toss into the Great Rides trough?
He said the Great Rides have been an effective partnership for more than a decade between central government, local government and the local communities that host the trails
But he justified his largesse more with economic arguments than environmental ones:
“Every year, more than one million people enjoy the Great Rides and bring with them an estimated $1 billion to spend in the regions. This investment will contribute to the Government’s goal of unlocking economic growth in the regions and supporting tourism operators to deliver world-class experiences,” Mr Doocey says.
“Demand for nature-based, low impact tourism experiences is expected to increase in the coming years, alongside the availability and popularity of e-bikes.
“We’re bringing cycle trails up-to-speed with modern and reliable e-bike infrastructure, this will help make them more accessible and more appealing to people of all ages and fitness levels.
“As international tourists and Kiwis seek out more environmentally conscious experiences and as e-bikes get cheaper and more advanced, the Great Rides will become even more important to New Zealand’s tourism offering and economic recovery.”
“This fund will also support more economic opportunities for Great Ride providers, councils and central Government to explore.”
And:
“The 23 world-class trails create jobs both on the trail and in the background, support businesses such as bike hire and tour companies, and attract hospitality and accommodation services to set up alongside the trails.“
Applications for funding open for two months from 18 August to 18 October 2024.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
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