In early 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand was hit by two separate extreme weather events. The Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle caused widespread catastrophic flooding across large parts of the North Island, devastating communities and businesses in affected regions. Fifteen people were killed, and thousands of people displaced from their homes. The events caused widespread damage to land, infrastructure, and services; particularly power, communications and roading.
In response, the Government has announced funding to clean-up, rebuild and aid long-term recovery, as well as to support local communities with temporary accommodation, mental health services, and food security.
Allocation of funding directed towards initiatives responding to the North Island Weather Events (NIWE)
Funding directed towards the recovery or response following the North Island Weather Events includes the two funding packages announced to date (set out below), reprioritisation within appropriations and support provided through automatic mechanisms, such as Civil Defence Payments.
The two funding packages were:
- Immediate funding decisions in the aftermath of NIWE ($883 million total operating, $1.5 million capital) to make urgent infrastructure repairs, assist with temporary accommodation, and provide business and community support.
- Budget 2023 NIWE Response and Recovery Package (Beehive website) ($941 million total operating, $195 million capital).
Monitoring and reporting
Any agency which receives funding directed towards initiatives responding to the NIWE is required to monitor and track spending (excluding support provided through automatic mechanisms, such as Civil Defence Payments). The Treasury has collected the first set of NIWE expenditure data on initiatives $10 million or above, for the quarter ending 31 March 2023. Agencies reported against $664 million of NIWE-directed funding, from which $138 million had been spent. Note that these figures represent the amount available for agencies to spend and therefore there may be some differences to the announced funding packages, which represent the fiscal impact.[1]
The reporting is focused on initiative-level insights, broken down by vote, appropriation and category (if applicable). For each initiative these results show the expenditure and performance for the year to date, alongside forecasts for the next three quarters, together with the baseline appropriation.
This approach is similar to the monitoring and reporting processes for the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and provides an additional layer of scrutiny for special purpose funding.
Results are available below:
- NIWE Financial results (PDF 511 KB)
- NIWE Performance results (PDF 376 KB)
This data can be accessed in an open-source format here, alongside a data dictionary. Users of the data should note that this data is still subject to audit.
The next set of results, for the three months from 1 April to 30 June 2023, will be available in late-2023.
Note
- [1] The fiscal impact figures represent the expected amount of impact the initiatives have on key fiscal indicators (operating balance and net debt). The figures that agencies are reporting against are the amount that is available for expenditure and includes fiscally-neutral adjustments (for example, when existing funding has been re-directed towards the NIWE response and recovery).