PM unaware of SH25A fix costs despite Waka Kotahi estimate
Thursday, 9 March 2023
Chris Hipkins is likely getting rather used to tours like the one he was given on Thursday around the west coast of Coromandel.
As the Prime Minister toured slips filled with viridian canopies attached to still moving earth, he remarked that calling the cleanup along in the Peninsula in the wake of Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, a big job “would be an understatement to say the least”.
Some clarity about time frames and cost estimates came from his visit, although the news was not delivered by him.
Instead, a Waka Kotahi staffer revealed that early estimates from contractors for the fix of essential cross-range route State Highway 25A are between $30m and $100m. A likely midpoint would be $60m, he said.
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As Hipkins toured the property of pensioner and 95-year-old naval veteran Dennis Raines, he was struck by the fact that many slips in the region are simply still moving.
That, he said, was one of the reasons more definite schedules could not yet be revealed.
“One of the reasons we can’t give specific dates, is because the damage is still being done.
“I haven’t got any [estimates] at this point, but being on the ground to get a good flavour of what communities are grappling with, what concerns are, so when I do go back, and we’re having those conversations I can make sure I’m feeding good information in.”
Asked why he was not aware of the Waka Kotahi estimate, shared inadvertently, he said: “We don’t have a number yet at this point. Ultimately, the cost is going to be determined by what is going to be done with the road.”
He added that Waka Kotahi is considering various options.
“It might include significant rerouting, or minor rerouting, or designing the road in a different way.”
The options currently tabled are a rebuild in situ, a bridge over the slipped portion of land or a newly erected diversion skirting the slipped area entirely.
Hipkins conceded that Waka Kotahi “may well have designs or an estimate they have shared with the minister of transport. But it has not come through to cabinet or to me”.
At pains to stress that more financial support was coming to affected regions, Hipkins said that support to date had been tailored to “immediate here and now”.
To date, some $55m worth of support has been allocated. Of that, some $17.4 m had already been paid out for more than 2846 applications, at a rate of about $1.5 m a day
Hipkins also told reporters on Thursday that while the pandemic may have defined much of Jacinda Ardern’s latter term, Hipkins was willing to accept that “extreme weather events” will likely colour much of his term.
”Yes I do think that’s going to be a defining challenge for us in the near future. As will continuing to mitigate the effects of climate change as much as we can.”
Although the New Zealand circumstance is unique for reasons of geography and logistics, Hipkins said he had had a conversation with his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte about the lessons learnt from extensive flooding in the low-lying delta nation in the past, and how they could be incorporated in New Zealand.
The Manawatū Gorge and the Kaikōura earthquake provide good domestic fonts of experience, he told. Albeit in the latter example, material had come onto roads rather than roads being undermined from below.
Equity, he said, would also play an essential role in helping communities to recover. While the contexts would differ, the responses would have to remain similar.
“We have to take a principled approach to how we do this, and the same principle has to apply across the country. Even if the effects of the weather are different in different parts. It would be unfair for example to compensate someone in one area in a way we wouldn't in another area.”