The Government East Coast MP Dana Kirkpatrick recently claimed that the Government’s latest $27.8 million allocation to the Hill Country Erosion Programme (HCEP) is “particularly significant” for Tairāwhiti – but that claim is frankly offensive. Does she think Tairāwhiti residents are stupid?

First, this is not a new initiative. The Hill Country Erosion Programme has been running since 2007. This is simply another funding round of an existing national scheme. There is no new policy, no new framework, and no targeted response specific to Tairāwhiti’s uniquely severe erosion crisis.

Second, the headline number is misleading. The $27.8 million is spread over four years – less than $7 million per year for the entire country. That funding must be shared across councils nationwide. It is contestable. There is no guarantee Tairāwhiti will receive more than it did previously.

In the 2023–2027 round, Gisborne District Council received just $900,000 over four years – approximately $225,000 per year in Crown funding. Councils are required to match the funding dollar-for-dollar, meaning local ratepayers had to find another $900,000 simply to unlock that support.

For one of the most erosion-prone regions in Aotearoa, that level of investment is negligible. While any support is useful, this level is not material in the face of the problems the East Coast now faces.

Tairāwhiti’s steep mudstone hill country generates some of the highest sediment yields recorded in the world. As we all know, recent cyclones caused widespread slope failures, forestry debris blockages, stripped farmland and sediment-laden rivers. Infrastructure damage ran into the billions.

Against that backdrop, less than one million dollars spread over four years is not a transformative response. It is not even close.

Over the past 18 months, regional stakeholders – councils, iwi, farming representatives, forestry interests and community leaders – worked collaboratively on a comprehensive Land Use Transition business case.

That proposal sought $359 million over the next decade to:

• retire the most erosion-prone land from high-risk production

• establish permanent native cover at scale

• support diversified, lower-impact land uses

• plan at catchment scale rather than farm-by-farm

• reduce long-term disaster recovery costs.

It recognised a basic truth: a significant proportion of land in Tairāwhiti is fundamentally unsuitable for continued use as pasture or pine plantations in a climate-intensified future.

The business case was practical, cross-sector and regionally led. Last month the Government declined to support it.

In that context, presenting $900,000 over four years as “particularly significant” is disingenuous and dishonest, traits this MP and her colleagues are becoming well known for. 

The HCEP is a national, contestable programme. Councils must compete for a limited pool of funding. Every dollar requires local matching.

Tairāwhiti does not have the rating base of larger urban regions. Expecting ratepayers here to co-fund erosion mitigation at scale effectively caps what can be achieved.

The comparison is stark:

• $359 million over ten years requested for structural transition.

• No guarantees of getting anything, and likely less than $1 million over four years previously delivered through HCEP.

One addresses root causes. The other funds a fraction of incremental mitigation.

If the Government truly accepts Tairāwhiti faces some of the highest erosion risk in the country, proportional investment of a much larger total allocation to land use transition should follow. Instead, the region competes for a small slice of a national fund that averages under $7 million per year. 

The political framing suggests this funding will safeguard Tairāwhiti’s long-term resilience.

It will not.

The programme funds farm plans, limited planting and incremental stabilisation. Useful tools – but nowhere near the scale required to address systemic landscape failure.

Calling this funding “particularly significant” for Tairāwhiti creates the impression of decisive action. In reality, it maintains the status quo: modest, contestable funding rounds while rejecting the comprehensive transition plan developed by the region itself.

Tairāwhiti does not need headlines. It needs proportional, sustained commitment from the Crown to match local contributions as clearly outlined in the transition business case.

Until the scale of investment matches the scale of risk, these pathetic announcements are not solutions. They are political optics.

Manu Caddie is a co-founder of Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti, a group of Tairāwhiti residents that organised a petition in January 2023, prior to Cyclone Gabrielle, seeking Gisborne District Council support for stricter land use rules and an independent inquiry into land use practices in the region. He has subsequently been involved in the Transition Advisory Group established by GDC following the Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use in Tairāwhiti.