In that short period, we are worried enough about the weather to care about discussing it. Then we stop worrying quite as much.
So Hipkins can’t be blamed for trying to seize the moment. Especially not when it is a debate we must have.
Regardless of whether you think the climate really is changing – or whether you think a changing climate was the reason for the slip – you can’t debate the cost. Climate change or not, we are forking out huge amounts of money to fix up what the weather is doing to this country.
Some $4 billion for the Auckland Anniversary Day floods and Cyclone Gabrielle within weeks of each other in 2023. $50 million in insurance payouts from just one insurer for the South Island storm in October last year. Now this.
If Chippy got anything wrong, it’s that he focused on the wrong thing. He wanted to debate emissions. That ship has sailed. New Zealand’s emissions will never change the planet’s temperature, and no government – not even one led by him – will ever pay the $24b-plus to plant trees overseas to meet our targets.
The debate is over how we use our dwindling finances to live in an inevitably warmer world.
Westport has just been forced to think about that. At the very end of last year – but only made public three days ago – AA Insurance wrote to Buller’s mayor to say it would no longer provide new cover for properties in the 7825 postcode, which includes Westport, Carter’s Beach and Cape Foulwind.
AA Insurance says it’s a temporary pause. Maybe they’ll resume issuing new policies if flood defences are built.
The recovery efforts for those lost during a landslip at Mount Maunganui continue around the clock, with teams working through thick, muddy conditions. Photo / Hayden Woodward
AA Insurance says existing policies will continue and can be transferred with the sale of properties. But let’s see if they jack the prices up so high that no one can afford to keep them.
This is most likely just the start. If your suburb has been flooded repeatedly, if there have been numerous slips, brace yourself.
Insurance is no longer a certainty.
Nor is the expectation that the Government will save you.
That’ll be a big adjustment for us. We’ve grown used to the Government buying red-stickered homes in Christchurch and flooded houses in West Auckland.
Those days are close to over.
In a paper released near the end of last year, Climate Minister Simon Watts wrote that very soon “the Government must begin to reset expectations of its role in providing financial assistance where homeowners suffer significant losses after a major event”.
An expert panel told the Government earlier in the year that the deadline for that should be 20 years. After that, no more buyouts when houses are flooded or damaged by weather.
We don’t have the money to do this every few years, if not multiple times a year.
And even though we all know that, it’ll be a shock to hear it said out loud for the first time after a future storm damage leaves fellow Kiwis – if not ourselves – without homes.
It’s a legitimate debate: whether we’re on our own and when we’re on our own. Moreover, it’s an urgent debate. Hipkins should not be criticised for raising it.
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