Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): The response by the Government to Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods I think signals an encouraging start to Chris Hipkins' prime ministership. It was principled clear and with our Ministers leading from the front and not shying away from the difficult long-term challenges that our country faces. I want to dedicate my contribution in this debate to the people that I know in my community who had their homes wrecked by the floods: Andrew and Annabel Konstantin and Elena Trushar Bex Natasha and Damien Derek and Elaine Rakesh Tracey and Mike Amrita and Rupinder Renate and Glenn and Mark and Robyn. Around a thousand people in my electorate had their lives turned upside down by the floods on Anniversary Weekend and I want to pay tribute to WAIF—West Auckland is Flooding—the organisation that they've set up to be a voice for those communities to ask for the Government the council banks and insurance companies to get together and find some practical solutions for them. They're now in the unenviable position of having to decide whether to rebuild and repair and wait for the next flood or to walk away and face financial ruin unless there is some assistance. Now within days of those extreme weather events at the very time the welfare centres were being stood up people were being clothed and housed and were getting income support from the agencies the Prime Minister acknowledged that there would need to be—in his words—difficult conversations about the build back. Grant Robertson appointed shortly after as the Minister for Cyclone Recovery spelt it out more saying that the Government was developing a response that recognised that in some cases—in some cases—it would be untenable for people living in high-risk locations to just build back without a serious effort to reduce the ongoing risk. Now this is very significant. With few exceptions in the aftermath of natural disasters in this country people are left to clean up to repair and to rebuild. It's something that they work out between them and their insurance companies. The Government by and large does not step in and get involved. What the Prime Minister and the finance Minister have signalled is that this Government recognises in the wake of the cyclone and the floods that climate adaptation is a now issue. It is not something for a year's time for five years' time or for 10 years' time; as a country we have to grapple with it now and a more thoughtful approach to resilience and risk reduction in the wake of natural disasters is what's needed now. The extreme weather events taught us a couple of things. The first is that climate change is making these mega-rain events a more frequent occurrence and secondly our cities and our communities are simply not set up and they're not planned and designed and built in a way that makes them resilient to these natural disasters. There is so much that we have to change. The work that we've been doing in West Auckland has shown that the urban flooding in something around a dozen flooding hotspots is caused in every case by a highly localised mix of local factors: fences and walls that have been built in flood paths culverts that are too small and blocked streams that have been damaged by slips land that's contoured in a way so that the water naturally flows into people's homes instead of away from them and of course too many homes having been built in the flood plains. Now Minister Robertson and Minister Wood who is the Minister for Auckland have said in recent days that they are working. The task force chaired by Brian Roche is working with the insurance companies and the councils to pull together the data and address the risk by location. They've signalled that they will have more to say in the coming days and I hope that that gives hope and confidence to the flooded home owners who are dealing with the agony of waiting and the uncertainty. I say to those people that you haven't been forgotten; the Government is fully aware of your predicament and help is on the way. I think that the way Prime Minister Hipkins and his Ministers have responded to the floods and the cyclone—this very challenging issue of climate adaptation—has been principled clear and compassionate and that augurs well for this country.