Wellington mayor calls minister’s ‘gold-plated’ climate letter ‘tone deaf’ after flooding
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
Wellington’s mayor has slammed a climate mitigation letter from the local government minister as “tone deaf”, in a city where a man died in flood waters and other residents scrambled for their lives mere weeks ago.
Local Government Minister Simon Watts’ letter to mayors, regional council chairpeople and council chief executives around the country started arriving in in-boxes about 6pm on Tuesday.
In it, he insinuated councils were “gold-plating” climate initiatives and building for worst-case scenarios at ratepayers’ expenses.
In Wellington, it arrived just months after a more than one-in-250-year downpour killed a man and caused extensive flooding. In Hawke’s Bay and Auckland, it is three years since Cyclone Gabrielle and associated weather caused extensive flooding and death.
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Wellington mayor Andrew Little, who has taken an increasingly bolshie stance against the Beehive, said Wellington was not gold-plating climate mitigation measures but taking necessary action to keep people safe.
The “surprising” and “tone deaf” email landed in a city where residents had only recently scrambled away from rising flood waters, he said.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown was also forthright in his views.
“I don’t understand the minister’s assertion that ‘every dollar spent on resilience measures is a dollar that can’t be spent on fixing roads and infrastructure and reducing pressure on rates,” he said in a statement
“Is the minister aware that every dollar spent on roads is for resilience?”
Brown said that he wasn’t sure what the the minister means by ‘gold plating’ measures to make Auckland more resilient, given the recent severe weather events and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary weekend floods.
“We’ve just closed out a $2 billion programme that was established to address the significant damage caused to the region’s infrastructure, roads and properties and guide Auckland through its recovery.
'This work repaired and built resilience into 797 roading projects. A lot of the $2 billion was spent on roads which are not only for access but are part of our stormwater system.
Brown pointed out the problem is only like to get worse. He’s been told on a recent trip to Singapore that in 2016, one in twenty cities had flooding.
Last year it was one in four, he said.
Hastings mayor Wendy Schollum said her council was not doing any unnecessary “gold-plating” and had affordability at the heart of all decisions. All spending was targeted and evidence-based.
“Cyclone Gabrielle showed us the devastating human and financial cost of extreme weather,” she said.
Wellington Central Green MP Tamatha Paul said, with two Wellington local states of emergency already in 2026, now was not the time to scale back climate mitigation measures.
“The minister thinks he is saving a few dollars for people alive today but it will be my generation that will foot the bill for this type of short-term thinking,” Paul said.
Asked for examples of problem initiatives, Watts’ office highlighted a Greater Wellington Regional Council regional flood hazard assessment, which produced a map showing where is prone to flooding risk. Areas severely flooded in April, such as Emerson St in Berhampore, were identified as being at risk.
“There's nothing tone deaf about making sure that we're using evidence-based forecasts to undertake planning of infrastructure, and the reality is we have to balance the challenges of infrastructure cost,” Watts told The Post on Wednesday.
“We shouldn't be looking to use forecasts that have been found to be not plausible and very high risk.”
Cases of gold-plated projects were anecdotal and he couldn’t immediately give examples.
His Tuesday evening letter said the Government was growing “increasingly concerned” that some climate-related council investments relied on high-end emission scenarios that imposed more cost on rate payers, businesses and communities.
Less likely, high-impact scenarios “should not automatically be treated as the central or most-likely future when making decisions that affect infrastructure investment, land use, property rights, or rates”, he said.
He said councils needed to prepare for future risks but New Zealanders “also expect councils to avoid unnecessary gold-plating, focus on practical solutions, and exercise discipline when spending ratepayer money.”
He called for councils to review climate spending considering his expectations.
Watts told councils he had ordered a “stocktake” of current practices and to look at whether additional national direction, reporting requirements or legislative changes were needed “to ensure climate-related decisions appropriately balance resilience, affordability and value for money for ratepayers”.
A variety of mayors around New Zealand, who have dealt with recent climate catastrophes, have been approached for comment.
Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick labelled Watts’ letter, “frankly embarrassing”, “beyond irresponsible” and “actively dangerous”.
“I've run out of words at this point for this Government's climate cookery,” she said.