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Summarised by Centrist
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon brushed off criticism over the government’s response to Cyclone Vaianu by saying he would “happily wear a woke label” if it meant no lives were lost.
The remark was aimed at Wairoa Mayor Craig Little, who said “We’re becoming woke as a country when it comes to states of emergency.”
Little said that Hawke’s Bay did not need a local state of emergency and warned that repeated declarations were cheapening the term. “I think it takes away the importance of a state of emergency.”
Luxon rejected that, insisting Vaianu was “a pretty serious event” and saying he would rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.
Many people saw the storm as more fizzer than disaster, opening it up to claims that the threat was overplayed.
Moving beyond defending the government’s emergency response, Luxon effectively pitched managed retreat as part of the answer to future flooding, saying iwi were already having “conversations” about relocating from vulnerable areas.
Even as critics such as Little argued the cyclone response had been overcooked, Luxon said New Zealand had to “confront the brutal facts of the reality” that about 675,000 New Zealanders live in flood-prone areas and that some parts of the country would have to be managed differently over time.
In Northland, where flooding, slips and road closures still hit parts of the region, locals and Civil Defence volunteers said early warnings gave people time to evacuate and prepare, and warned against treating alerts as “crying wolf”.
Read more over at The NZ Herald, Stuff, and RNZ
