KEY POINTS:
The Government will help pay for flood damage in Northland but it has yet to decide how much.
Mayors in the Far North and Whangarei districts have asked for the Government to make significant contributions to the estimated $80 million damage caused by the flood on Thursday last week.
Civil defence and emergency agencies said that estimate included about $20 million for damage to the local roading network, and the reinstatement of the Hikurangi Swamp Protection scheme was estimated to reach $20 million.
Civil Defence Minister Rick Barker, who visited the area at the weekend, said the Government would follow its "well-worn formulas" for paying for flood damage, but any contributions above this would not be decided until Cabinet met today.
Mr Barker said the Government would reimburse councils for money they spent in housing, relocating people temporarily and anything to do with public safety.
Government-owned highways operator Transit New Zealand would pay the full cost of restoring its roads and would pay a proportion of repairing council-owned roads.
"What the councils are saying to me is that the damage that has occurred is so significant that the Government should consider upping that amount of the proportion that they pay," he told Radio New Zealand today.
"I said to (Far North) Mayor Yvonne Sharp that I heard the message loud and clear ... and I'd pass the message on.
"The matter of how much damage has been sustained by the councils, its size, the situation the councils are in, all of that will be taken into account."
Mr Barker said he could not say how much the Government would hand to Ms Sharp's district because she did not have a figure for the damage yet.
Mr Barker said suspensory loans for individual farmers might also be considered, particularly for the Hikurangi Swamp area , which was prone to regular flooding.
He said the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) believed last week's event was a reasonably normal flood in that area, but Whangarei District Council told him it was higher and staying longer than normal.
"I've gone back to (Agriculture Minister) Jim Anderton over the weekend and said that I think his staff need to look at this again.
"If it turns out that it drains away as you would normally expect in the flood which occurs in this area from time to time I don't think there's any issue, but if it stays here much longer, is much more extensive, then we have to re-look at it.
"What that means in the end I'm not quite sure yet, but I have raised the question on behalf of the farmers with MAF."
Repairs to sewage lines were a council matter and should be covered by insurance, he said.
Mr Barker said Civil Defence staff and residents handled the flood very well.
"We could reasonably have expected a loss of life in this situation but we haven't," he said.
"Some would put that down to luck but I would put that down to good planning and resilient communities who are aware of these dangers and have self-evacuated, helped others, put other people up, flagged motorists down when they were heading towards impassable roads.
"They've done everything they should and could have."
Prime Minister Helen Clark confirmed that government money would be made available.
"The standard formulae on roading for example would see the Government picking up around 56 per cent of the total cost," she said.
"There is never any question about paying out according to the formulae, we make the money available."
In addition to this Taskforce Green workers would be available to clean up, she said.
Helen Clark said the emergency phase had been handled well by local authorities in Northland.
The clean-up continued in Northland today, with some roads still cut off, water supply still off in Paihia and public health officers warning people not to swim in the Far North until after Easter or eat shellfish from the area.
Nearly 120 insurance claims had been made by people whose properties were affected by slips with the Earthquakes Commission.
- NZPA
