Ikaroa-Rāwhiti: Weather-fatigued voters want lasting solutions

On the East Coast of the North Island, Māori voters living in areas vulnerable to extreme weather say they need more than short-term relief.

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is an electorate on the frontline of the climate crisis. From the tip of the East Cape, right down to the Hutt Valley, the enormous electorate covers Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa and Wainuiomata – about a nine-hour drive from the top to the bottom.

A severe weather bomb in January isolated entire communities and several marae across Te Tairāwhiti and Hawke's Bay are now being relocated to safer ground. But locals say it’s only a matter of time until the next major storm comes and some fear the infrastructure won't cope.

For communities living on the East Cape, the climate crisis keeps many up at night. Te Araroa, a small settlement 175km north of Gisborne, was one of the worst hit after the freak downpour earlier this year.

Resident Trudi Ngawhare said the impact of the storm, debris, silt, and mud changed the whole landscape.

"The houses were all just destroyed. It was like a war zone, like something had blown up. Like a nuclear bomb had gone off," she said.

Tash Wanoa said it was the worst she’d seen in her lifetime. "It was one of those moments where you just realised that your life was about to change and that your landscape would never be the same."

Multiple slips from surrounding hillsides cut off road access, isolating the community from the rest of the region. Six months on, it's still a work in progress.

"We have 50- to 100-year-old native trees that were completely wiped out. This was the biodiversity mecha for us, a source of pride. It's quite sad because it was wiped out overnight," said Wanoa.

Te Araroa’s Hinerupe Marae opened its doors for displaced whānau, providing shelter, kai and water. In the aftermath, they received a reimbursement from the government, and ministers visited the area bringing buckets of KFC.

"It was quite a nice treat, but we need more than that,” said Ngawhare.

"We appreciate that koha but we don’t want them to come here and… use us as a political football, I guess is what I'm saying. I mean, come if you're gonna do something concrete for us."

She said they received some "good" funding but it’s ongoing funds to support resilience is what they need.

Wanoa believes the infrastructure and roads will not cope if severe weather and environmental degradation continue.

"There's some factors of the fact that we just live on ground that's like porridge, but ultimately, we don't have good investment into our roading systems."

Further down the highway at Te Karaka, 30km northwest of Gisborne, the fallout from Cyclone Gabrielle saw Rangatira Marae destroyed by flooding.

Dave Pikia said the water reached under three metres – right up over the doors.

"It was just like coming over and seeing your marae being in a washing machine whirlpool and that, because, I mean, it was a mess, absolute mess."

Pikia said they had to navigate and climb their way through debris, silt, logs and round hay bales to get to the marae the next day, and the view was confronting.

"I mean, we had 20-foot ablution block being lifted and carried away. We had a 20-foot container with a lot of our stuff - cutlery; we had some of our old whāriki (carpets) in that; taonga in there as well - so much stuff in there. Everything in our wharenui was just gone."

The damage was done, and in the recovery period following the floods, the wharenui was demolished.

"It was just devastating," said Pikia. "Devastating, but it had to be done, and you wouldn't know what that feeling would be like until you go through that."

Rangatira Marae is one of five in Te Tairāwhiti to receive government funding to relocate, and construction at the new site has already started.

But while the rebuild is underway, they hold no illusions of a fair-weather future.

"Yep, it’s only a matter of time, we're gonna get hammered again, yeah, without a doubt. After Gabrielle, we've had over a dozen weather events, and it’s that emotional anxiety as well," said Pikia.

Following the extreme weather events in 2023, the Ministry of Health commissioned research into the impacts on the health and wellbeing of affected communities.

The report recommended investment into weather- and climate-related mental health and wellbeing, saying that people who experienced anger, grief, fear, hopelessness, and anxiety are at risk of enduring mental ill-health.

"Little support has been available, even months after events, even though trauma is still being dealt with," it read.

Te Araroa is an isolated rural settlement, with Ōpōtiki and Gisborne a two-hour drive away on either side.

Wanoa said their community gets cut off "all the time" when a storm hits.

“Every time it rains we're like, OK, we're pretty much going to be cut off so we all stock up. We're kind of like doomsday purpose on 100 at the moment.”

She said for small rural communities on the East Coast, it has been their reality for a very long time, and they are left to wonder how frequently they can expect weather events to occur.

When asked if their infrastructure can cope with the pressure, Wanoa was adamant.

"No," she said, adding that they need "better" investment, "outside of the box" solutions and long-term thinking.

"We need to start approaching things and start looking at localised solutions as well. There's nobody that knows our whenua better than us.”

Ngawhare said one good thing that came out of the experience was whānau and the civil defence team living at the marae for three weeks while they were under state of emergency.

She said reconnecting with each other during that strenuous time was a comfort.

"We want to connect with each other when things sort of go bad, even the comms go out. We just want to be able to get beside each other and that's our way of knowing 'if you're all right, I'm all right'."

For her, resilience training is key. She said they were "yearning" for more knowledge – "anything to help us be more resilient".

She said they rely on central government funding due to being "ratepayers poor".

"We live here because we love our way of life being isolated, but yeah, resilience is big for us. And we want to be independent. So just resource us to be independent, I guess. Give us the training,"