Making room for rivers
As the residents of Nelson clean up after flooding that will take years to recover from, there are questions about how we can help now and what needs to be done to reduce and adapt to more flooding.
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, August 22, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: changes to immigration caps to ease worker shortage; Shaw denies agri-emissions scheme is being scrapped; government may move on supermarket regulation this week; but first, a nature-friendly way to reduce flooding.
Nelson's flooded Maitai River from the Trafalgar Street bridge on 18 August, 2022. (Photo: RNZ/Angus Dreaver)
Widening of Maitai River mooted in 2021
The flooding in Nelson last week was a result of the Maitai River bursting its banks. Flooding is not new to the people of Nelson. This history of flooding in the Nelson Tasman region documents multiple severe flooding events from the time of Pākehā settlement up to last year’s floods in July when the Motueka River burst its banks. A letter to the Nelson Evening Mail on March 10, 1913 addresses the “great question of deforestation” in relation to water volumes in rivers. Flood hazard modelling for the Maitai River was done for the Nelson city council in 2013 and updated again in 2021. A range of options to tackle flooding in the city, including the widening of the Maitai River, were presented to Nelson city councillors in February 2021,
An alternative to engineering and human intervention
Widening the river is essentially river engineering, or human intervention in the course, characteristics, or flow of a river. For Nelson, these flood reduction interventions would be multi-million dollar engineering projects. There is an alternative viewpoint developing that recommends humans intervene less, and we make room for rivers. It’s the subject of this great piece from David Williams at Newsroom and a conference this year in November. Williams cites a €2.3 billion “room for the river” project in the Netherlands. Thank you to Tom, a regular Bulletin reader, for sharing some of this info with me last week. I’ve recommended this long read before, but a “Slow water” movement based on similar principles, led by landscape architect Yu Kongjian, is being embraced in parts of China.
Land buy back an urgent recommendation of flood inquiry in New South Wales
Looking ahead, these kinds of events are likely to become more frequent and there will be questions about whether people should be living in areas where flooding keeps occuring. The country’s new National Adaptation Plan is designed to address this but is short on detail about who will pay if whole communities end up permanently displaced or insurance won’t cover the cost of damage. In Australia last week, a scathing review into the handling of this year’s floods in New South Wales was released. One of the most urgent recommendations? A phased program to migrate people off the highest-risk areas through a significantly expanded land swap and voluntary house purchase scheme.
Mayoral relief fund open for donations
For the residents of areas hit by flooding last week, there are immediate and pressing concerns. So far, nine homes have been red-stickered, indicating they are uninhabitable, with residents unlikely to be able to return. Another 570 homes have been damaged. The wash-up of the damage caused is incomplete and residents met last night to ask for help. The residents of Nelson have also come together to help each other out, as demonstrated in this story from Stuff’s Amy Ridout. If you want to enter into this spirit of helping out, the Nelson-Tasman mayoral relief fund is open for donations.
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12,000 additional working holiday makers will be allowed to come to New Zealand
In a move that will no doubt come as a relief to many businesses struggling with worker shortages, immigation minister Michael Wood announced a range of “tweaks” to our immigration policies yesterday. In some sectors, businesses will be allowed to pay skilled migrant workers less than the new median wage requirements that were laid out in May. It is also doubling the Working Holiday Scheme cap for 2022/23 and extending holiday makers' visas. The Herald’s Liam Dann (paywalled) wrote yesterday morning that he thought the government had been getting it wrong on immigration and that “immigration can help us avoid recession and speed the path back to higher levels of growth in the coming years”.
James Shaw denies agricultural emissions scheme is going to be scrapped
Groundswell NZ issued a press release on Saturday morning saying the group understood climate change minister James Shaw ‘’has finally conceded the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) agricultural emissions scheme is terminally flawed and will scrap it”. Shaw has responded and said the government has no plans to scrap the scheme and that the government “is committed to working with the agricultural and horticultural sector to put in place a fair, effective system to reduce emissions.’’ The Groundswell NZ release claims the government is looking at other options to replace HWEN, which has been two years in the making and was presented to parliament in June.
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Government to make move on supermarket regulation?
Stuff’s political editor Luke Malpass is reporting this morning that the government is likely to make a move on supermarket regulation this week. Malpass also reports that finance minister Grant Robertson will make an announcement about the future ownership structure of Kiwibank this morning. Back in May, when the government responded to the Commerce Commission's review of the supermarket sector, it said the sector needed to “change at pace” or face regulation. Regulation was positioned as a backstop to force competition, especially in the area of opening up wholesale supply to rivals. Malpass writes that there could be movement in this area of regulation as soon as Wednesday.
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Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris share the latest on the monkeypox outbreak, and warn against stigmatising those most at risk; Voyager Media Awards columnist of the year Toby Manhire reports on why 238 candidates nationwide have already won their local election races; Duncan Greive meets the rich-lister bankrolling The Platform; Chris Schulz looks back on beloved alt-rock radio station Channel Z; Two anonymous female teachers share why they’re so worried about the influence of internet star Andrew Tate; and Toby Manhire talks to Chris Finlayson about life in John Key’s cabinet.
“They gave the game away by bonking the fake ones”
I loved this feature from Virgina Fallon at Stuff yesterday. Nigel was the gannet made famous around the world for falling in love with a concrete decoy bird, earning him the sad title of the world’s loneliest bird. He died a few years ago and Fallon has taken a look at his legacy and whether Mana Island will ever become a colony for real birds and not just the concrete one that stole Nigel’s heart.
Columnist of the year
Congratulations to Toby Manhire for winning columnist of the year at the Voyager Media Awards on Saturday night. As someone who has to riff on political news most weeks, it is always a relief for me to know that Toby will have quickly synthesised what’s happened and that by pointing you to his work, you don’t just bare bones reporting, but thoughtful analysis full of context and insight. Justin Latif also won community journalist of the year for his work while at The Spinoff and Spinoff regular, The Bounce’s Dylan Cleaver won sports journalist of the year. Congratulations to all the winners, runner ups and nominees.
