As parliament returns under the shadow of disaster, questions are being raised about resilience and preparedness – but not what went wrong on the Mount, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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Walking the line
Following the deadly landslide at Mauao, MPs returned to parliament yesterday conscious that the country was watching not just what they said, but how they said it. In the House, there was broad agreement that debate over climate resilience and preparedness could not be put on ice, even as families were still waiting for loved ones to be recovered. But there was also clear discomfort about crossing into blame, reports Jamie Ensor in the Herald (paywalled).
Winston Peters said it was “appalling that with the bodies of victims still to be recovered, some have rushed to be adjudicators based not on fact, but on emotion and hot reckons”. Act MP Cameron Luxton argued that even the climate conversation was too soon, accusing some of “hijacking [the disaster] for their own agenda”, and calling for a focus on “accountability, not ideology”. But Opposition leaders said the recent floods were a wake-up call the country couldn’t ignore. “We know that these are not one-off events,” Davidson said. “We know that we are going to have to be honest with ourselves the more and more that we know this stuff is going to come.”
Leadership in a crisis
How leaders perform in moments like this inevitably invites comparison, and Adam Pearse’s column in the Herald on Monday set Christopher Luxon’s approach against his Labour predecessors. While Hipkins “appeared to struggle on the doorstep of a flood-ravaged home”, few leaders could match Jacinda Ardern for her ability to empathise and emote authentically alongside members of the public. Luxon’s strengths are more modest, Pearse writes, but they were evident at Sunday’s candlelight vigil at the foot of Mount Maunganui, where he stayed until dark, sat on the grass in his suit, and spoke quietly with those who had gathered to remember the dead. Attending the vigil carried political risk, yet Pearse argued it worked. “It should serve as a lesson to the strategists planning their upcoming election campaigns that a little bravery and flexibility can pay off.”
The case for an inquiry
Beyond tone and symbolism lies the harder question of accountability. Yesterday Luxon stopped short of committing to a government inquiry, but acknowledged there was a “strong case” for one. In the Sunday Star-Times, Andrea Vance argued that only a government-level inquiry has the independence and reach to answer the questions now hanging over Mauao. Tauranga City Council has already ordered its own review, and there are specific issues it will need to explain, including how a FENZ call alerting it to potential earth movement was handled.
But, Vance cautioned, the council should not become a scapegoat: “Councils are already underfunded and overburdened, carrying climate risk on balance sheets never designed for it.” Central government decisions, from hazard mapping to funding frameworks, also deserve scrutiny, Vance said. “Either we interrogate this disaster fully. Or we accept that this will not be the last time we stand in the rain, counting the dead, and wondering why we were not ready.”
Fact-checking the online sleuths
That need for clarity has become more urgent as misinformation spreads. On social media, some have blamed the landslide on tree removal carried out on Mauao in recent years, with claims that decisions supported by local iwi destabilised the slope. Reporting by The Post’s Kevin Norquay has answered much of that speculation. Experts told Norquay that while trees can help stabilise shallow soils, the scale, depth and speed of this slip made other factors far more significant, including the mountain’s long history of instability and the sheer volume of rain.
Luxon has condemned the online commentary as racist and unhelpful. “We need to stay together and support each other and come together in unity – which is what this community has done by the vast majority exceptionally well. And the people on the margins with their rhetoric, they need to just frankly keep it to themselves.”
