Louise Upston: Tourism Minister on extra funds to clean up Great Rides storm damage

The government is putting funds towards repairs needed on New Zealand's great bike trails due to storm damage.

It is expected that the Hauraki Rail Trail, that's been shut since January, the Waikato River Trail, and a connecting track on the Tasman Great Taste Trail will need approximately $800,000 to fix. 

"If you think about the Hauraki Rail Trail, it is absolutely spectacular, but it does mean that it is vulnerable to weather events, so there's a bit of a balance," Tourism Minister Louise Upston told Andrew Dickens.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
So the government is putting over eight hundred thousand dollars
of funds towards repairs needed on New Zealand's Great bike
trails because of the storm damage over over summer. The
Hodiki rail trail that's been shut since January, that's going
to cost three hundred thousand dollars to fix. Over fifty
kilometers of the White Cattor River Trail needs repair and

(00:37):
a connecting track on the Tasman Great Taste Trail will
also need about five hundred thousand dollars worth of repair.
So Louise Upston is the Minister for Social Development also
our Tourism Minister and is in charge of all this
and joins us our commodity of Louise.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Good morning Andrew.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
What kind of repairs are needed, well, it.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Varies depending on the three rides. If we look at
the Tasman the Great Taste Trail that had substantial damage
in the weather events in the floods year before last,
and this is the final section that will be reinstated,
and I know there's been there'll be great excitement about
the ability to then complete the trail again because there's

(01:17):
a large number of visitors who use that trail and
it returns something like sixty five million dollars annually to
the region.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yes, we've been hearing that over our news from tourist
operators who are losing money hands of a fist. But
here's the thing. The Tasmen Great Tastes trail. Already two
million dollars has been spent on fixing it, and there's
more to happen with it five hundred thousand dollars more.
Why is it so expensive?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, this, this investment of one hundred and twenty seven
takes the total to two million, and it is significant.
But one of the things that we need to take
into consideration is some of the locations the trail goes,
so where there are river crossings for example, and bridges
that have been damaged, that makes the repairs more expensive.

(02:06):
But one of the things we clear about is the
number of visitors that are attracted to Tasman who use
that trail literally all year round, and the return it
provides to those regional communities. So the investment's worth it.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Okay, So this money is coming from the tourism part
and not whether resilience infrastructure or climate change funds or
even the local councils. Why is that?

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, part of the Great Rides funding actually has money
set aside for weather events, so it is tagged for
weather events and that's what we're using it for. We
recognize that some of the parts of New Zealand these
rides go through are unique. If you think about the
Hodaki rail trail, it is absolutely spectacular, but it does

(02:53):
mean that it is vulnerable to weather events. So there's
a bit of a balance. Do we want to shut
people out of traveling through some of the most amazing
parts of New Zealand and protect them forever, or do
we want to continue to put money in this and
when there is damage to ensure that visitors can experience

(03:14):
some of these unique places.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
All right, and just so another issue of course, at
the end of last week you rejected sow GP's funding
application for the twenty twenty seven Orcand event, saying that
the proposal did not meet the Major Event Funds required
economic criteria. You talked about this with Mike on Friday,
and of course Wayne Brown, the mayor of Aucland, has
been going off about this all weekend long, with the
benefit of some hindsight, Was this a short sighted decision?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
No major events criteria have been set for quite some
time that there's clarity around what the requirements are in
terms of meeting the criteria. And as I've said, there's
a limited amount of funding every year for major events.
We want to spread those throughout the country and make
sure that they are delivering economic impacts if that's the

(04:01):
criteria that we're assessing them against.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Louis Upsent Tourism Minister, I thank you for your time.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
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