Where Lotto’s fund for cyclone victims went – and why it took over a year to allocate

Kotemāori School in Hawke's Bay was impacted by the cyclone and received a $30,000 grant as part of the appeal. Photo / Paul Taylor

A $14 million pool of money largely donated by Lotto players to help Cyclone Gabrielle-hit communities has now been fully allocated, after sitting unspent for more than a year.

The Government’s Cyclone Gabrielle Appeal Fund received $11.7m from a special Lotto draw in March 2023 – a month after the cyclone – and was bolstered by a further $1.7m in donations (such as from overseas) as well as interest.

The process to allocate that money drew criticism last year as none of it was spent or allocated a year after the cyclone.

However, all $14.5m has now been spent, with 563 project grants distributed by October 31 last year.

That included $4.8m for the hardest-hit region of Hawke’s Bay.

Cyclone Gabrielle Appeal Trust trustee Barbara Arnott said there was good reason the trust took over a year before seeking grant applications.

Arnott said people needed to get their personal lives together before they could see what their communities were missing “and what they needed for their people“.

“The timing was perfect because it gave communities time to get themselves together, to talk and see what they were going to do,” she said.

“From my experience, from the communities I met, once they got their lives stabilised after the cyclone they thought about ‘how can we do better for our communities in the future’.

“The communities were looking at the future so were saying, for example, our playground got absolutely munted and we don’t have enough funding to sort it out, or let’s do the fencing, or let’s put up some solar panels on our marae.”

The funds were specifically for communities as opposed to individuals.

“Although there is no doubt that individuals needed help, if you can help the community then the community can in turn help individuals when they need it.”

The 174 grants across Hawke’s Bay varied from as little as $2200 for the Wairoa Orchid Society to fix a storage area to up to $130,000 for Whaakirangi Marae Wairoa to relocate its ablution block.

A full breakdown of the funding can be found on the Cyclone Gabrielle Appeal website.

Other regions to be helped by the funding included Northland ($3.6m), Tairāwhiti ($3.5m), Auckland ($1.8m), Waikato ($400k), Tararua ($190k) and Bay of Plenty ($180k).

Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.