Meeting needs in disaster zone

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins arrived in Gisborne yesterday with the good news of a $2.75 million spend to stand up an emergency shipping route for this region and Hawke's Bay for the next three months — a huge boost for our many land-based businesses facing large extra costs to get their goods to market, without the regional highway connection.

At his side was just-demoted former Police Minister Stuart Nash, so the media scrum at Port Eastland showed only a fleeting interest in the new transport lifeline for our cyclone-damaged regions that doubles as a Government-sponsored trial run for coastal shipping for Tairawhiti.

Next stop was Wairoa, an overdue visit for Hipkins after two previous failed attempts in the days after the cyclone. With nothing to announce for the hard-hit township, the Government was shown up by post-settlement governance entity Tatau Tatau o Te Wairoa which announced it would underwrite $2.5m of urgently needed repairs on more than 300 flood-damaged homes.

The hope is that the Government will act fast now with significant investment and facilitation for the immediate housing needs in Wairoa and elsewhere.

The triumvirate of Tairawhiti and Hawke's Bay Ministers accompanying Hipkins — Nash, Kiri Allan and Meka Whaitiri — gave Wairoa Mayor Craig Little confidence that the township's recovery would stay front of mind for the prime minister and the Government.

Wairoa is impacted even worse than the Gisborne district by the broken highway to its south — still estimated to be about three months away from being ready to reopen.

The emergency coastal shipping route and vessel charter is a great intervention for the regional economies of the cyclone-ravaged east coast of the North Island.

It should also prove its worth into the future as another transport option providing much-needed resilience as well as greenhouse gas reductions, with ship freight emissions less than 10 percent of the road freight equivalent.

The concept was worked up by Eastland Port, which had already been investigating coastal shipping, and pitched to the Government. It's a credit to both that the service can start next week — even as the infrastructure to facilitate it is still being developed.

In a crisis situation, needs have to be met as soon as practicably possible. The good people of Wairoa and Te Karaka, among many others kept out of flood-damaged homes, deserve the same.