Political parties have made their pitch on how they will deal with climate adaptation if they are part of the next government.

Speaking to the Aotearoa Society of Adaptation Professionals conference at Te Papa in Wellington, representatives from National, Labour, Opportunity, the Greens, New Zealand First, and ACT set out their party’s climate change policies and credentials, and addressed the looming questions, particularly around “who pays?”.

National says certainty matters

The climate change minister Simon Watts, a registered paramedic, was asked whether he could “resuscitate” collaboration across climate change policy.

“Not mouth to mouth,” he responded.

Watts said the recent report into the Tauranga landslide had put the matter of climate adaptation front of mind.

He said National’s focus was to ensure climate adaptation was practical, that there was planning ahead, and that New Zealanders had certainty about the future.

“Communities want to know what the risks are that they face, what those risks mean to them, and how decisions will be made moving forward. And that is why adaptation is a key pillar of our government’s climate strategy,” he said.

Watts pointed to the first ever National Adaptation Framework, which he said provided an enduring approach.

“It helps communities prepare for the impacts of climate change and also keep costs to society as low as possible. It’s obviously, whether you’re a homeowner, or a business owner, or a farmer, or investor, or part of local council, the certainty aspect really matters, and people deserve to understand the risks that they face and have confidence in the decisions that they’re looking at.”

If re-elected, Watts said National would develop national standards for river gravel extraction and other on-farm quarrying, which he said would make it easier to undertake practical resilience projects.

‘Who pays’ needs to be a mix — Labour

Labour’s climate change spokesperson Deborah Russell, who said she was a “climate nerd”, did not come to the table with any election policy, saying Labour leader Chris Hipkins would announce a climate adaptation policy “in due course.”

Instead, she offered a “steer” on Labour’s thinking, and what it had previously done in government.

Russell said when last in government, Labour had commissioned a report from an expert working group on managed retreat, which she said the current government had put aside.

Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure committee carried an inquiry into climate adaptation, which Russell said the government had more or less ignored, instead setting up an independent reference group.

She said the select committee’s findings, as well as the working group’s managed retreat report, were “the best direction” to head in.

Russell said the independent reference group had recommended that the beneficiary of any climate adaptation should pay.

Labour’s policy, she said, would be “a mix of the beneficiary pays, the exacerbator pays — those who exacerbate climate pay — the public pays — that’s central and local government — and we also need to be talking to banks and insurance companies about what work they can do with us as government to ensure that we help people to prepare for climate change”.

She confirmed that while it was “frustrating” the government had thrown out Labour’s resource management reforms, Labour would not “flip out” what the government was doing for the sake of it.

Opportunity calls for enduring framework

Kayla Kingdon-Bebb from the Opportunity Party said climate adaptation was exactly the kind of issue where rebuilding the political centre mattered, and it could become a model for evidence-based policy making.

She called for a multi-party agreement on the foundations of climate adaptation, embodied through a climate adaptation act that would survive changes of government.

“The decisions we make today about infrastructure, housing, and land will shape New Zealand for generations, and yet, as we’ve seen, our political cycle largely operates on a three-year time horizon,” she said.

Kingdon-Bebb said there was no shortage of climate risk assessments, hazard maps, or adaptation plans, but what was missing was an enduring framework that allowed difficult decisions to be made.

“We see adaptation not as a cost, but as an investment in resilience — protecting homes, businesses, ecosystems, and public finance, while strengthening New Zealand’s capacity to prosper in a changing climate. The greatest challenge we face is not technical capability, it is governance.”

On who pays, she said adaptation required a shared responsibility model, with central government contributing where risk exceeded local capacity or affected nationally significant assets, and local government continuing to invest in community resilience.

“Property owners should bear some responsibility where risks are foreseeable. Insurers should provide transparent risk signals, and infrastructure providers must embed resilience into long-term planning,” she said.

Greens decry ‘stupid partisan politics’

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said everyone wanted to see if parties could put aside “stupid partisan politics” and develop a cross-party framework, but the Westminster Parliamentary system was not set up for that.

Describing adaptation as a “ticking time bomb of a problem”, Swarbrick said the chopping and changing was only a recent phenomenon, and her first six years of Parliament had seen a “golden era of political consensus on climate action” with the establishing of the Zero Carbon Act and Climate Change Commission.

She said the current government had overseen the “systematic disestablishment” of both of those “foundational pieces” of climate infrastructure.

Swarbrick said good adaptation was also good mitigation, and there needed to be more integrated thinking.

“I know politicians love to talk about silos and breaking them down, but this is our opportunity, because at the end of the day, we are an incredibly beautiful country. And climate action, both mitigation and adaptation, when operating hand in hand can also deliver a lower cost of living, more resilient and sustainable infrastructure, cleaner air, cleaner soil, cleaner water, and healthier, happier, safer communities. And surely, that’s the very point of politics.”

She called for more green infrastructure, more meaningful relationships between central and local government, and a framework that recognised and actively embedded te Tiriti o Waitangi.

New Zealand First says economic development should come first

Representing New Zealand First, Shane Jones said he had not come to the conference to look for votes, and delivered the shortest speech of the morning.

“I accept there’s not a single person in this room who is likely to vote for Matua Shane,” he said.

To a smattering of boos, Jones said he was there to confirm attendees’ “worst prejudices,” and that New Zealand First’s belief was that climate should not occupy a position in the country’s political narrative over economic growth.

“We believe that climate narrative has assumed the resonances, the features, of a secular religion.”

He reiterated New Zealand First would campaign on taking New Zealand out of the Paris Agreement.

ACT declares climate emergency over

ACT’s Simon Court said he would not try and upset people the way Jones had, but declared the “climate emergency’s over, and slogans don’t create solutions”.

Court, who before entering Parliament was a civil and environmental engineer, said climate change was going to exacerbate some of the risks people who were exposed to them faced, such as those living near rivers, flood plains, and coasts.

But he said governments needed to be careful in how they responded.

“I’m really concerned about councils using extreme climate change scenarios to make decisions about people’s homes and communities and property, as though those scenarios are actually forecasts, or are actually fact.”

Court said adaptation should not be a reason to tell people what they could and could not do with their property, or hold them back through “fear and risk”, and councils should be looking at alternatives before reaching for the planning rulebook.

“Could coastal protection work, could roads and houses be raised? Could stormwater and stop banks be upgraded?”