Leaving Politics Out of Weather Planning

Nigel
Satire/Parody: Pavlova Post blends real headlines with made-up jokes – not factual reporting.

New Zealand politics has discovered a bold new strategy: politics out of weather planning – which is like asking a seagull to keep its opinions to itself while standing next to a hot chip.

According to RNZ, party leaders have called for the politics to be taken out of planning for severe weather events, with Christopher Luxon saying infrastructure shouldn’t be political and Chris Hipkins saying it shouldn’t be something the parties “compete on.”

Yeah, nah. This is Wellington. If two politicians agree on something, it’s usually because a camera is pointed at them and someone’s holding a clipboard marked ‘Optics’.

We at the Post are based in Temuka, so we understand ‘planning’ as a concept you mostly do in your head while walking to the ute. But even we know you can’t ‘take politics out’ of anything that involves:

money
blame
and the word resilience getting repeated until it means ‘we’ll deal with it later’.

The New National Game: ‘Unity’, But Make It Competitive

The public has heard this before. Every time a flood or slip turns someone’s driveway into a river, the country gets the same three-stage performance:

We must work together.
Here’s why the other lot didn’t.
Anyway, budget constraints.

RNZ reports Hipkins criticised the government cancelling the climate resilience fund, while Luxon says the government is building resilience into rebuilding work and wants it handled independently.

Which means we’re back in the classic Kiwi sport: watching adults argue about whose spreadsheet is morally superior while water climbs the fence line.

Extended Fictional Stakeholders: People With Wet Boots And Hot Takes

To help the nation process the concept of ‘de-politicised weather planning’, we interviewed several highly qualified New Zealand experts: locals who have been personally betrayed by drainage.

1) “Brendon From Procurement” (Wellington) – Thinks Resilience Is A Subscription

Brendon works in an office near Thorndon and speaks fluent government.

“Look,” he says, “we are absolutely committed to resilience. We’re exploring a multi-year resilience roadmap, delivered in tranches, with stakeholder alignment.”

Then he pauses.

“That means we’re buying sandbags… but we’re calling them modular flood barriers so it sounds like innovation.”

Brendon says the key is not to politicise weather – but does admit he’s already created a new Outlook folder named: Floods (Comms) – Do Not Reply All.

2) “Karen From Hawke’s Bay” – Has Receipts, Trauma, And No Patience

Karen has watched enough press conferences to last three lifetimes.

“We don’t need unity,” she says. “We need decisions. Like: what gets moved, what gets rebuilt, and what gets abandoned before the insurance companies do it for us.”

This is awkwardly close to RNZ’s reporting that Hipkins said some infrastructure may need relocating or decisions about whether to keep investing, and that communities need conversations about managed retreat.

Karen’s translation: “Stop saying ‘managed retreat’ like it’s a yoga class. It’s people’s homes.”

3) “Gav The Tradie” – Says The Weather Is Political Because Everything Is Political

Gav has a ute, a radar app, and one rule: if it leaks, it’s someone’s fault.

“You can’t take politics out of weather planning,” he says. “That’s like taking cheese out of a pie. Sure, you can say you’ve done it – but nobody’s buying it.”

Gav’s solution is simple:

fix the drains
stop postponing maintenance
and stop commissioning reports that contain the phrase pathway forward.

The Sub-Plot: Wellington Thinks ‘Managed Retreat’ Means Leaving Work Early

In Wellington, ‘managed retreat’ has been misunderstood as a workplace initiative where you slowly back away from your desk while your manager pretends not to notice.

But in the grown-up world, it’s about relocating assets and decisions around high-risk areas. Te Waihanga (Infrastructure Commission) notes climate change increases risks to infrastructure, including storms and floods.

So the grown-ups are basically saying: the weather is getting more feral and the pipes and roads are not.

Meanwhile, parliament is trying to communicate ‘unity’ while still functioning as parliament, which is a place where someone can say ‘we shouldn’t politicise this’ and then immediately weaponise the exact same sentence.

The Deep Dive: The Consultant’s Glossary Of “Non-Political” Language

To remove politics from weather planning, Wellington has proposed a radical alternative: rename everything.

Here’s what that looks like in the wild:

“Climate crisis” → “real climate challenges” (safe wording)
“We cancelled the fund” → “we’re budgeting prudently” (less punchable)
“No plan yet” → “we’ll set out priorities before the election” (eventually)
“Borrowing” → “a mature conversation” (sounds like therapy)

And then you have the all-time classic from the Emergency Management Minister:
“Let the science and the scientists work on that.”

Which is an incredible line, because it translates to: “I’d prefer not to say the words that summon Facebook commenters.”

Nigel’s Editor Note

If you want politics out of weather planning, you’re going to need to remove politicians from the weather, and I don’t think NIWA has the budget for that.

RNZ’s piece reads like a polite national plea: stop competing over resilience and just do the work.

And I get it. People are exhausted. Every new storm is another round of:

local councils scrambling
communities filling sandbags
and Wellington announcing they have ‘managed it well’ while refusing to define what ‘well’ means.

But here’s the problem: when leaders say ‘take politics out’, they often mean:
‘Stop making me responsible for the consequences.’

Because the weather isn’t political.
The response is.

Funding is political.
Maintenance is political.
And deciding whether a community gets rebuilt or relocated is political in the most human way possible.

So yes – take the petty politics out.
Take the scoreboard out.
Take the press-release ego out.

But don’t pretend ‘independent’ means ‘no one is accountable’. That’s just another Wellington magic trick where the rabbit is always missing and the hat is flooded.