\u201cWe didn\u2019t need a state of emergency. When you make a call like that, it means you are under the pump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it takes away the importance of a state of emergency,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prime minister disagrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI’ll happily wear a woke label this time if it means that we didn’t lose anyone’s lives,\u201d Luxon said during his weekly post-Cabinet press conference in Auckland on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is something that was a pretty serious event, [a] pretty significant event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luxon emphasized that improving responses to adverse weather events is a personal priority, shaped by his observations of the Hurricane Katrina response during his time in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI lived in America through the period of Hurricane Katrina, and the capability was poor and the response was poor, and I watched over that ensuing 10-year period much more resilience being built. And that was my message in the last week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luxon said a key feature of the Sir Jerry Mateparae-led inquiry into Cyclone Hale, the 2023 Auckland Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle was the need for a more integrated system response to weather events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEach time we have one of these weather events the response gets better and better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The prime minister praised the work of marae, local government, rural support, first responders, and emergency management for their preparation and response to the cyclone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dismissed Hawke\u2019s Bay mayor’s concerns regarding the use of state of emergencies, stating a preference for being over-prepared for significant weather events. Wairoa Mayor Craig Little stated firmly on Monday that he declined the invitation to join Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Council, Napier, Hastings, and Central Hawke\u2019s Bay councils in declaring a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[225,996,113],"coauthors":[709],"class_list":{"0":"post-11993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-christopher-luxon","9":"tag-cyclone-vaianu","10":"tag-new-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11996,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993\/revisions\/11996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11993"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}