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18 Feb 2026 11:37:44

Party leaders call for politics to be taken out of planning for weather events

Posted: 17 Feb 2026

Chris Hipkins has accused National of doing little to deal with the impacts of severe weather events, but will not commit to replenishing the disbanded climate resilience fund or even laying out a detailed adaptation policy before the election.

But the prime minister says the government is doing "very well" putting resilience at the core of all infrastructure rebuilding work, but stopped short of calling the cumulative effect of years of worsening weather events a climate crisis.

Read more on RNZ News.