A campaign to get authorities to buyout homeowners in West Auckland after the floods in 2021 highlights the need for urgent detail that’s missing from our climate change adaptation plans, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.
No sleep in West Auckland when it rains
Two stories today that are a microcosm of one of the biggest challenges facing the country. Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne and Stuff’s Kirsty Johnston have both spoken to homeowners in West Auckland who are asking authorities to step in and buy their flood-affected properties, so they can leave. The West Auckland Is Flooding campaign is backed by Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford and was mounted after flooding in the area in 2021. Milne speaks to a couple in Massey who say they can’t go back to their home “knowing they’d never be able to sleep with the sound of rain on the roof.” The couple spoken to by Johnston describe continually checking MetService forecasts over the last 18 months. Both stories are worth a read.
Clock ticking on providing specifics
In Toby Manhire’s assessment of parliament’s first day and the opening speeches, it’s his last line that will resonate most with the people spoken to by Johnston and Milne, and everyone who is currently sitting in a holding pattern after the Auckland floods and the cyclone. Manhire writes “For the most part the prime minister’s opening speech reiterated the steps outlined already in the response. There is only so long that he and his newly assigned cyclone response minister and taskforce will be able to avoid talking specifics.” The specifics on home buyouts and managed retreat require adding an enormous amount of missing detail to the National Adaptation Plan and acceleration of the Climate Change Adaptation Bill.
No clarity about who bears risk and cost
Politik’s Richard Harman writes that it was the minister trying to get that bill accelerated, James Shaw, who tethered the House of Representatives back to the homes of the constituents they represent yesterday. Shaw said “At the moment, there are many New Zealanders who are very worried about the extent to which they understand what their share of the cost or the risk is here…there is currently no clarity about the share of risk and cost that is borne by the householder, their insurance company, their bank, their local authority, or central government.” All this will sound very familiar to Cantabrians which is why, as Newsroom’s Jo Moir writes, the government is looking to the Queensland flood response, rather than the much-criticised model deployed after the Christchurch quakes.
At some point, “the dynamite is going to explode”
We aren’t the only country dealing with the issue of what to do with homes in harm’s way and this stunningly simple analogy from Jake Bittle in The Atlantic, about coastal homes in the US, precisely captures the problem. “When humans began to warm the Earth, we lit the fuse. Ever since then, a series of people have tossed the dynamite among them, each owner holding the stick for a while before passing the risk on to the next. Each of these owners knows that at some point, the dynamite is going to explode, but they can also see that there’s a lot of fuse left. As the fuse keeps burning, each new owner has a harder time finding someone to take the stick off their hands.”
