From left, Katie Nimon, Simeon Brown, Mark Mitchell, Christopher Luxon and Catherine Wedd hold a media briefing in Napier following a meeting with the region's leaders and mayors. Photo: RNZ / Kate Green
The prime minister has impressed leaders in Wairoa, visiting the struggling cyclone-wrecked town within his first fortnight on the job.
Christopher Luxon drove the crumbling State Highway 2 with a handful of MPs on Friday morning to reach the small Hawke's Bay town, gauge progress of its recovery, and learn what it needs from the new government.
A cornerstone moment of today's visit was the ceremonial exchange of a backpack, owned by emergency management and recovery minister Mark Mitchell, and left behind on his last trip to Wairoa.
Within it, some papers, and two pairs of gumboots - Red Bands, of course.
Wairoa mayor Craig Little had been keeping it safe since he visited in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone, when the National Party was still in opposition.
Little was hoping for more government support for his town to come out of this visit.
He told the prime minister flood protection was top priority - right now, the town did not have any.
"We've got to nail that first, and then we've got 130 homes still unliveable, and nowhere near liveable, and half those are not insured - so it means there's no way that those people can wake up in the morning and know what their future looks like."
He said there was no point building back houses without flood protection to safeguard them.
"What's very obvious to us is we need work around flood protection, that's job number one, so we don't have this event happening over and over and over again."
Mark Mitchell is reunited with his backpack, left behind on his last trip to Wairoa. Photo: RNZ / Kate Green
The prime minister also got to experience crumbling, slip-ridden, pothole covered SH2 - and he said it was time to speed up Wairoa's recovery. Buzzwords of the day included "turbo-charge", "action mode", and "speed-up".
"We want to work on the work of the previous government," Luxon said. "We want to support everything, meet all those obligations, we're not here to change everything, but we do want to turbo charge and accelerate the delivery and the recovery here. Ten months after the events, we think things have been moving a little bit too slowly."
But he stopped short of promising any cash to move things along.
"There are some really big things for us to do," he said.
"Yes, some of it is money, but a lot of it is actually action and decision to get on and get some things done, and some of it is actually regulation, that actually says well hang on regional council, hang on central government, we need you to actually unblock some things and get some things done."
Little was confident the Prime Minister had listened to their needs: "He gets it. That's why he's here."
"I can honestly say that it was quite heartfelt by him."
Deputy mayor Denise Eaglesome-Karekare, who was one of the residents displaced from their homes and one of the handful now back in, was equally thrilled.
"He actually talked about, 10 months, and you're still talking, and everything's going really slow. I loved to hear that. Because that means that he's actually determined to get some rungs on the ladder, and say, let's get make things happen in Wairoa, that community have waited long enough. And we have."
