Mt Maunganui tragedy another deregulated Kiwi nightmare
So it now seems like everyone knew there was a landslide coming at Mt Maunganui and no one did anything.
I think one of our problems in NZ is that we see ourselves as a country when the truth is that we are 3 huge sparsely populated Islands.
A Country has functioning checks and balances, an Island is all on its own.
We think that we are a country with all the fabrics of society and state that combined ensure these sorts of events don’t occur, the truth is that we are a flint bare nation with none of the oversight or bureaucracy needed to keep us safe.
Bryce Edwards has been outstanding in his coverage:
SHOCK TURNS TO ANGER AT MOUNT MAUNGANUI
The Post newspaper’s detailed reconstruction by Mike White and colleagues today lays this out starkly: “the signs were there of a looming catastrophe”. A July 2025 landslide study, commissioned by Tauranga City Council and prepared by WSP, used detailed terrain mapping to identify high‑risk slopes on Mauao. The mountain was the case study for the wider project, and the report “clearly flagged the danger across Mount Maunganui”.Yet for some reason the mapped hazard boundary stopped at Adams Ave, just short of the holiday park. As The Post reports, experts suggest this was “likely because there are no permanent properties there requiring LIM notices”. In other words, because there were tourists rather than ratepayers, the risk effectively fell off the map.The history of instability on that slope was not unknown. A 2014 scientific paper mapped landslides on Mauao back to 1943, including a major slip in 1977 in almost the same area behind the campground and hot pools. Andrea Vance notes that this long record of instability was precisely why the council started its city‑wide landslide mapping in 2023.So this was not an invisible risk suddenly materialising out of nowhere. It was a known hazard, at a known site, in a week when MetService warnings and climate scientists alike were shouting about the severity of the incoming storm.
…he’s right, we knew this was a problem but no one wanted to be responsible…
Faced with this timeline, politicians have reached for a familiar script. Luxon, asked on site why campers were not evacuated after the first slips, replied that these questions would be answered after a “proper process”. The mayor likewise announced an “independent review” to establish “the facts and events leading up to the landslide” and to “ensure that in the lead‑up to this tragedy, everything was done that was appropriate”.
Reid Basher, an expert on disaster risk governance, has warned us about exactly this pattern. After every disaster, he notes, inquiries tend to “take a close‑focus approach and be preoccupied with finding out where laws were broken and who may have failed in their accountability. Too often the finger points at hapless, mid‑level functionaries who were tasked with too many responsibilities and provided with too little funding.”
He invites us to imagine an inquiry that instead “unveils the trail of accountability that reaches the very top”, exposing the “longstanding inadequacies in political commitment, laws, policies and public investment on disaster risk and its management”.
Tom Peters is more blunt about the likely purpose of the announced review: “Like countless other official inquiries following such tragedies, its purpose will be to make a show of ‘learning the lessons’ while deflecting calls for accountability.”
…no one will be held to account because the deal in NZ is that Government underfund social infrastructure and when it falls over the Government let the bureaucrats who implemented the underfunding a get out of jail free pass….
Basher talks about “the deadly combination of climate change and ongoing exploitative or thoughtless land‑use”. That phrase captures the wider pattern that ties Mount Maunganui to the rest of this summer’s disasters in Northland, the Coromandel, Tairāwhiti and beyond.We keep building and rebuilding in floodplains and at the base of unstable slopes. Councils, under pressure to grow their rating base and keep rates down, open up marginal land. Central government refuses to fix the chronic underfunding of local infrastructure or to set a serious, nationally coordinated framework for climate adaptation. Renwick has been calling for such a framework, instead of the current piecemeal council‑by‑council approach.
When storms come, ministers reassure us that “we have been aware that it’s coming” and that the country is “well prepared”, as Mark Mitchell told RNZ listeners the night before the Mount Maunganui slip. Local states of emergency supposedly give officials “the power to move people to safety”. And yet, as Peters points out, no one moved the hundreds of people camping directly below a sodden, historically unstable hillside.
Afterwards, we call it a “natural” disaster, even though both halves of the equation – the intensity of the weather and the exposure of people and assets to harm – are strongly shaped by human choices.
…no one will be held accountable just as catastrophic climate change forces its way into reality.
This Government has destroyed environmental protections while cutting $25million from Civil Defence and yet the Right Wing Hate Trolls blame Māori!
…the hateful Right will do anything and everything to blame Māori rather than climate change!
Mt Maunganui tragedy another deregulated Kiwi nightmare.
It only gets worse from here on in.
This RNZ item is extremely good, detailed, with facts and this is a long comment with extracts of statements of fact and political players quoted. The whole item is one to have under your belt on this thorny matter when going forward .
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/585400/deadly-storms-expose-growing-gap-between-disaster-recovery-and-climate-preparation
One long-term economic analysis shows New Zealand has developed a pattern of spending heavily after disasters strike, while investing comparatively little upfront to reduce future risk.
“Our key problem is that we tend to respond to every disaster in an ad hoc way,” said adaptation expert Professor Bronwyn Hayward, from Canterbury University. “And we’re treating every disaster individually.”
Treasury flagged the same issue in 2024, warning there is an 80 percent chance New Zealand will experience another Cyclone Gabrielle-scale event within the next 50 years, and describing extreme weather as a repeat and growing fiscal risk for the Crown, rather than a one-off shock…
You end up paying six times more for emergency repair than you would if you’d actually planned ahead and planned the upgrades or planned a city,” says Emily Mabin Sutton, chief executive of the Climate Club, a group that organises climate action. “Basically – we can brush our teeth each day or get a painful root canal…and at the moment we’re going to the dentist screaming.”
The government has argued resilience investment continues, but through mainstream infrastructure and regional funding rather than ring-fenced funds…
Cabinet approved $2.2 million in immediate recovery funding, including for the marae which opened its doors to evacuees. Further support is expected as damage estimates are finalised. Gisborne District Mayor Rehette Stoltz estimated the damage caused to her region alone during last week’s storms will cost $21.5m to fix.
The money has already been criticised as “not enough” by opposition parties, who say there needs to be more funding for resilience, not just recovery.
“Aotearoa New Zealand needs to get out of the pattern of crisis and response. We know that climate change charged weather events are going to become more frequent and more extreme, and we need to plan accordingly,” said Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.
Since its election in 2023, the government has removed or reduced most forms of dedicated climate adaptation and resilience funding.
In Budget 2024, Finance Minister Nicola Willis ended the ring-fencing of Emissions Trading Scheme revenue for the Climate Emergency Response Fund. The government also dismantled a $6 billion national resilience fund created after Cyclone Gabrielle, arguing resilience spending should instead be assessed through standard Budget processes.
At the same time, scientific capacity has been reduced. NIWA has confirmed job cuts affecting climate modelling, physical oceanography and marine science roles, while the government discontinued Te Ara Paerangi – Future Pathways, a programme intended to strengthen the science system supporting long-term climate risk assessment.
The policy framework intended to guide climate adaptation has also been scaled back.
When the Ministry for the Environment released the first National Adaptation Plan in 2022, it was intended to translate climate risk assessments into practical decisions about where and how the country builds, protects infrastructure, and supports communities facing growing hazards.
At the centre of the plan were tools designed to help governments and councils move beyond ad hoc responses to extreme weather. These included guidance for central government policymakers on incorporating climate risk into decision-making, updated methodologies for local climate risk assessments, and a framework for councils to identify when areas should be protected, redesigned or retreated from as risks escalate over time.
An official addendum table published in January 2025 shows much of that work has since been stopped, leaving decisions about rebuilding and upgrading exposed assets largely to existing regulatory and funding settings.
Economic and social adaptation measures were also discontinued, including work on income insurance and welfare reforms intended to support communities facing climate shocks, as well as targeted support for Māori small-business resilience and sector-specific adaptation initiatives in areas such as tourism…
Mabin Sutton said the cuts had real-world impacts for communities wanting to make decisions about their futures.
“Over 65 percent of New Zealand’s population in major infrastructure sits within 5 kilometres of the coast. And we haven’t got a map yet of where is the most risky place to live or the safer places to live.”,,,
The government says it has not abandoned climate adaptation. In October 2025, the Ministry for the Environment announced a National Adaptation Framework, setting out 16 initial actions focused on improving coordination across agencies, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and establishing principles for adaptation planning….
It will also develop new national hazard datasets, and a requirement for councils to develop adaptation plans for priority areas.
But that framework does not include a dedicated funding mechanism, and it does not reinstate many of the delivery tools discontinued from the first National Adaptation Plan.
Drone images of Kāeo in the Far North on 22 January, 2026.
One of its central initiatives – a national flood-mapping programme – is not expected to produce its first public outputs until 2027, while decisions on cost-sharing have been deferred until the next parliamentary term. The Climate Change Commission has warned that the lack of clarity about who pays for adaptation remains a major barrier to progress….
The insurance sector is also beginning to reflect those risks from climate more explicitly. This week, AA Insurance confirmed it had temporarily stopped offering new home and landlord policies in parts of Westport because of flood risk, citing elevated exposure…
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said climate and resilience spending should be assessed through standard Budget processes rather than ring-fenced funds. Finance Minister Willis has cited flood protection works, stopbanks and transport upgrades as evidence resilience investment is ongoing, arguing such projects should compete alongside other infrastructure priorities…
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts told RNZ that adaptation involves “a significant fiscal cost” that will need to be shared across society over time.
“The work we are doing with the National Adaptation Framework will give us an enduring system that prepares New Zealand for the impacts of climate change, while keeping costs to our society as low as possible,” Watts said in a statement to RNZ…
He pointed to funding available through the $1.2b regional infrastructure fund, including $200m ring-fenced for flood protection, but has said councils will need to develop adaptation plans and then work with central government and other stakeholders on how costs are met ..
BUT CAN THEY WALK AND CHEW GUM AT THE SAME TIME?.
I see our Pm has said we won’t be starting work on the East coast roads until the buried people in the Mt Maunganui are recovered.
We are all saddened by what has happened, but we still need to continue with our lives this to me shows our PM is not capable of dealing with multiple issues at once.
The East coast roads and others deemed high risks need to be brought up to a high standard this will require a lot of investment to ensure these incidents do not continue to occur. We cannot sit back any longer as the band aide fix ups are costly, short cited and a danger to human lives. We need to put some of the non-urgent roading projects on hold and fix the existing roads and infrastructure we already know about but have neglected for too long.
The problem is not with the fact that we are an island nation, and whether those islands are sparsely populated is purely a matter of opinion.
The problem is with a culture that has given us Erebus, Cave Creek, Pike River, Whakaari and now Mauao among many others. Disasters which were predictable and can be put down to a cavalier disregard of the risk to the lives of others in the pursuit of profit. That pretty well defines colonialism. As a cultural manifestation it is visible at all levels of society, but the really serious damage comes from those who have power to act through the ownership of capital, and those who hold the power to regulate but deliberately refrain from exercising that authority.
The saddest thing is the people them selves had no idea of self preservation.Why did they not take action when mud was seen pouring into the ablution block way before the hill came down.This is much the same as the Esk valley during the cyclone when ample weather reports pointed out that there would be massive amounts of rain ,yet folk chose to stay with a disaster the result .Those that stayed then claim they were not given any warning which is not true .
Will the lowly council staffer get the blame for not ticking the box. Wasn’t Tauranga council under a special watch not so long ago. “When will we ever learn ever learn” sadly the flowers are long gone while Aotearoa lives in denial
Yes lets blame the victims for their own demise , let’s blame people on holiday who thought they were being looked after and where were the people of the east coast supposed to go when the land and roads around them were being demolished by the weather
Yes let’s blame people who don’t attempt wisdom and forethought. People whose brains are on holiday all the time so don’t look out for themselves. It should be a joint operation, government and people together.
People have left all the thinking and doing to the government too often. It has been clear that our governments haven’t been up to it for a while. And yet people believe and go on as they want to. My helpful builder said in tones of loathing, a derogatory comment about PM Jacinda and her ‘bads’. He has no idea of plagues, breakdown of health systems, and the possible fallibility of everything even vaccines.
Whatever, the people around me with money and brains are only half awake, dear people they are, but how to get through the glazed look in their eyes? We are older, and they want the best medical treatment so they can live out the years of life that apparently they were given a warranty for when young. (Terry Pratchett in UK found that there seemed a majority for the choice of euthanasia in an accepted legal system.) Meanwhile Palestinians die by the thousands, and others elsewhere, but that’s not my concern they chorus.
People are stupid, and have very short memories. It’s in part why our emergency services are so busy.
Quick to forget the big slips that have happened on the Mount and the many smaller ones after other heavy rain events 2005 is one I remember. Just like people chose to forget that the Esk valley had a history of catastrophic flash flooding (1938) and continued to develop in an area where a disaster was inevitable.
In Palmerston North you have Council ‘forgetting’ how high the Mangone stream went and approving concrete slab building in an area that had a metre of water through it in 1988 and again in 2004.
Idiots the lot of them.