That was the message from Labour leader Jacinda Ardern during a visit to a flood-damaged home in South Dunedin yesterday.
"They [the Dunedin City Council] are desperate for us to work alongside them with their infrastructure issues and that is a good start, but they also need us at a national level to start making an effort to reduce the effects of climate change by taking our role and responsibility seriously."
Labour’s climate change policy would do this, but Ms Ardern also called for a Ministry for the Environment report on the June 2015 floods to be made public.
"The Government knows where the pressure points are.
"That report should have been released, there should have been some transparency about it, and they should be working to make sure these communities have some sort of security around their future."
Ms Ardern believed most New Zealanders would be worried about climate change issues like sea-level rise in South Dunedin.
A week out from election day it was important Labour addressed the issue regardless of whether it increased votes, because they had a "responsibility of care" to the people of South Dunedin, she said.
Health was an issue that was consistently raised when she visited Dunedin, Ms Ardern said.
"When you have 90-year-old individuals sent home who then die from a bowel obstruction, that is something all New Zealanders would be ashamed of."
Greater investment in healthcare was needed and for the past nine years the Government had failed to provide that, Ms Ardern said.
The Labour Party would continue to focus on issues surrounding healthcare and housing as it went into its last week of the campaign, she said.
