July 31, 2025 • 7 mins
The Tasman mayor (and sheep and beef farmer) talks about the long recovery ahead for his region after the devastating floods and wettest winter on record.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our next guest has had a very high media profile
in recent times. That's because he's been fronting for the
Tasman region around the devastating flooding. He's obviously the mayor.
He's also a sheep and beef farmer. Tim King, great
to have you on the show now. Rowena my former
producer here on the country, Rowena Duncan ran into yesterday
(00:21):
and she said, you need to get Tim on the
show a talk about the recovery from the flooding. But
b she said, Tim that you love dams and no
one loves a good damn more than me. Shall we
come back to dams good as god? Yep, So dams
are the last thing you need at the moment because
water is not in short supply in the Tasman region.
But to take a more serious approach to this issue,
(00:44):
Rowena did mention wearing a FMG hat again of some
of the damage. You dodged a bit of a bullet
this week, but it's going to be a big recovery
that is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, the damage is pretty extensive and it covers a
large chunk of the region. Fortunately that means that it
hasn't affected kind of one industry to a massive extent,
a lot of individual properties across a whole range of
industries from dairy farm sheep and beef horticulture hops. So
small upside in terms of the industry wide damage, but
(01:17):
the devastation on individual properties is huge.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Obviously on some of that more fertile land, on lower
lying land near the rivers was the most badly affected.
Or did you, for instance, get slips? How major were
the slips on the hill country the grazing land.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, so not so bad this time. So the biggest
industry impact was the forest and the second event we
had a really strong wind after weeks and weeks of
heavy rain and there's about five thousand hectares of wind
throw and pine trees across the region. In terms of
the slipping, it was isolated to an area kind of
around the western part of Mortawacre, around Madahoe and Kaitei.
(01:57):
Not so much on farmland, just more on roads and
probably one large campground. It was badly affected. So not
too bad on the slipping front. Most of it was
erosion or salt gravel washing over properties.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
What about the infrastructure that likes are the roading infrastructure,
how's it fared?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah? The roading infrastructure has been absolutely thrashed in this event,
so there are hundreds and hundreds of individual sites that
have been damaged. The roading crews have done a phenomenal
job both between the two events and then post the
second event to get a lot of that back up
to at least being operational, although it probably is going
to need to be redone to a back to a
(02:38):
proper standard and due course, so there's been a huge
amount of work on the roading network. The second event
also lots of trees down over roads which involved including
the state highway networks, so at one stage I think
it's like three state highways. We're pretty much isolated as
a region in that for a couple of days there,
(02:59):
so big impact on the raiding network and big impact
on the river network as well.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Do you think you've had enough support from central government.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I'd have to say we've been really well supported
by a whole range of people. Actually, other councils from
all around the country, particularly the South Island and Canterbury,
but also North Island councils sending people in staff down
NIMA have been excellent in terms of their support NZTA,
so yeah, and the volunteer support of Federated Farmers have
been phenomenal. They've had a guy who I need to
(03:29):
give a rap to individually, Ben who came down here,
has been here for a few weeks liaising with farmers,
working on coordinating repairs, helping them with not kind of
the claim process and the money side of it, but
also organizing diggers and bulldozers, working with the council staff
over repairing rivers and bridges. So they've been great. So
(03:51):
I think the support across the board to this point
has been awesome. Still, we are going to need a
lot of support in the recovery phase. Government's making all
the right noises about that, so we just have to
wait and see.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
When it came to cyclone Gabrielle, which is the mother
of all recent storms. Anyhow, we know that it's years
rather than months in the recovery phase. Will it be
the same for the Tasman Nelson region.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I think it will. It'll be certainly the roading
network a lot of the final gating back getting things
fully back will probably take at least a year. In
the rivers, that will probably take longer to work through
all the damage and what's going to be done and
how that's all going to be worked through, and then
on individual properties. Certainly some of the horticultural properties you
(04:35):
know where they've lost lost crops, lost land, you know,
some of those will be years in the recovery and
getting back to production. So yep, certainly years and a
lot of situations.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Tim King with us Tasman Maha Sheep and beef farm
are also How have you fared because I felt sorry
for you at the height of this everyone in the
media wanted a piece of you. You obviously had your
own far to deal with.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, we've been pretty fortunate, so we were just on
that kind of the edge of the worst worst effect.
You know, if you go five kilometers south of us,
it's absolutely chaos in a lot of the small valleys
up the Whitey Valley and behind Wakefield. So we've just
got a lot of minor damaged floodgates, few slip through fences,
a lot of trees down in the second event, nothing major,
just another long list of chores to add to the well,
(05:23):
they're always longest of chores. Who've got on a farm?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So are you standing again in this year's local body elections?
Tim King for tasmand Maha. I'll get a shameless spig
in for you, Tim, because with your profile in recent times,
you're going to Bolton.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Aren't you. You never know, gosh politics these days, you
know you're a brave man to bet on the outcome
or at any level of politics, from national to international
to local books. So I have checked my name back
in the ring for and I have I have made it.
I've done this a long time say, I've made it
clear to those who have asked me to do it
that this will be the last time win or lose.
(05:56):
But yes, I have put my name and for this
round of elections.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It's from me. We were going to talk about dams.
You've got the y Mare Dam there. We need more dams.
We need Shane Jones to build more dams.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I think we definitely do need more dams. I
think water security is going to be a huge issue
right around the country. I know we've built two dams,
one small dam and the Kainui Catchment supporting the Wyde
Valley and then obviously the more recent and high profile
one in the wym On the Wymere planes or supporting
the Wymeir planes. And as I mentioned, last night at
(06:29):
the event Rowan I were at. One of the big
challenges is the funding of these things and particularly who
carries the risk, and they are risky projects. I don't
think there's any way around when you start building large
scale infrastructure, geological issues, timing in our case COVID, so
all sorts of things can impact on it. And obviously
(06:50):
it's been well documented this dam cost a lot more
than it was anticipated to and what that's resulted in
is particularly for irrigators and landowners who are paying fifty
percent of the cost or forty nine percent of the
total cost. Now I've not got so much capital tied
up in water security that that limits their ability to
invest on their properties to actually deliver the outcomes that
(07:12):
both the region and the country needs in terms of
that productivity on the land concerned. So the way they're
structured and the way they're financed, I firmly believe needs
to change and there has to be a greater role
for central government investment.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Well that's what Shane Jones is for. I'm fine to
saying Tim King, you can never have too many sheds
on your farm, you can never have too many dams
around New Zealand. Thanks for your time, Go well on
the elections.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
No worries you more than welcome. Jamie always happy to
catch up
Our next guest has had a very high media profile
in recent times. That's because he's been fronting for the
Tasman region around the devastating flooding. He's obviously the mayor.
He's also a sheep and beef farmer. Tim King, great
to have you on the show now. Rowena my former
producer here on the country, Rowena Duncan ran into yesterday
(00:21):
and she said, you need to get Tim on the
show a talk about the recovery from the flooding. But
b she said, Tim that you love dams and no
one loves a good damn more than me. Shall we
come back to dams good as god? Yep, So dams
are the last thing you need at the moment because
water is not in short supply in the Tasman region.
But to take a more serious approach to this issue,
(00:44):
Rowena did mention wearing a FMG hat again of some
of the damage. You dodged a bit of a bullet
this week, but it's going to be a big recovery
that is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, the damage is pretty extensive and it covers a
large chunk of the region. Fortunately that means that it
hasn't affected kind of one industry to a massive extent,
a lot of individual properties across a whole range of
industries from dairy farm sheep and beef horticulture hops. So
small upside in terms of the industry wide damage, but
(01:17):
the devastation on individual properties is huge.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Obviously on some of that more fertile land, on lower
lying land near the rivers was the most badly affected.
Or did you, for instance, get slips? How major were
the slips on the hill country the grazing land.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, so not so bad this time. So the biggest
industry impact was the forest and the second event we
had a really strong wind after weeks and weeks of
heavy rain and there's about five thousand hectares of wind
throw and pine trees across the region. In terms of
the slipping, it was isolated to an area kind of
around the western part of Mortawacre, around Madahoe and Kaitei.
(01:57):
Not so much on farmland, just more on roads and
probably one large campground. It was badly affected. So not
too bad on the slipping front. Most of it was
erosion or salt gravel washing over properties.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
What about the infrastructure that likes are the roading infrastructure,
how's it fared?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah? The roading infrastructure has been absolutely thrashed in this event,
so there are hundreds and hundreds of individual sites that
have been damaged. The roading crews have done a phenomenal
job both between the two events and then post the
second event to get a lot of that back up
to at least being operational, although it probably is going
to need to be redone to a back to a
(02:38):
proper standard and due course, so there's been a huge
amount of work on the roading network. The second event
also lots of trees down over roads which involved including
the state highway networks, so at one stage I think
it's like three state highways. We're pretty much isolated as
a region in that for a couple of days there,
(02:59):
so big impact on the raiding network and big impact
on the river network as well.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Do you think you've had enough support from central government.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I'd have to say we've been really well supported
by a whole range of people. Actually, other councils from
all around the country, particularly the South Island and Canterbury,
but also North Island councils sending people in staff down
NIMA have been excellent in terms of their support NZTA,
so yeah, and the volunteer support of Federated Farmers have
been phenomenal. They've had a guy who I need to
(03:29):
give a rap to individually, Ben who came down here,
has been here for a few weeks liaising with farmers,
working on coordinating repairs, helping them with not kind of
the claim process and the money side of it, but
also organizing diggers and bulldozers, working with the council staff
over repairing rivers and bridges. So they've been great. So
(03:51):
I think the support across the board to this point
has been awesome. Still, we are going to need a
lot of support in the recovery phase. Government's making all
the right noises about that, so we just have to
wait and see.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
When it came to cyclone Gabrielle, which is the mother
of all recent storms. Anyhow, we know that it's years
rather than months in the recovery phase. Will it be
the same for the Tasman Nelson region.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I think it will. It'll be certainly the roading
network a lot of the final gating back getting things
fully back will probably take at least a year. In
the rivers, that will probably take longer to work through
all the damage and what's going to be done and
how that's all going to be worked through, and then
on individual properties. Certainly some of the horticultural properties you
(04:35):
know where they've lost lost crops, lost land, you know,
some of those will be years in the recovery and
getting back to production. So yep, certainly years and a
lot of situations.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Tim King with us Tasman Maha Sheep and beef farm
are also How have you fared because I felt sorry
for you at the height of this everyone in the
media wanted a piece of you. You obviously had your
own far to deal with.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, we've been pretty fortunate, so we were just on
that kind of the edge of the worst worst effect.
You know, if you go five kilometers south of us,
it's absolutely chaos in a lot of the small valleys
up the Whitey Valley and behind Wakefield. So we've just
got a lot of minor damaged floodgates, few slip through fences,
a lot of trees down in the second event, nothing major,
just another long list of chores to add to the well,
(05:23):
they're always longest of chores. Who've got on a farm?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So are you standing again in this year's local body elections?
Tim King for tasmand Maha. I'll get a shameless spig
in for you, Tim, because with your profile in recent times,
you're going to Bolton.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Aren't you. You never know, gosh politics these days, you
know you're a brave man to bet on the outcome
or at any level of politics, from national to international
to local books. So I have checked my name back
in the ring for and I have I have made it.
I've done this a long time say, I've made it
clear to those who have asked me to do it
that this will be the last time win or lose.
(05:56):
But yes, I have put my name and for this
round of elections.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It's from me. We were going to talk about dams.
You've got the y Mare Dam there. We need more dams.
We need Shane Jones to build more dams.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I think we definitely do need more dams. I
think water security is going to be a huge issue
right around the country. I know we've built two dams,
one small dam and the Kainui Catchment supporting the Wyde
Valley and then obviously the more recent and high profile
one in the wym On the Wymere planes or supporting
the Wymeir planes. And as I mentioned, last night at
(06:29):
the event Rowan I were at. One of the big
challenges is the funding of these things and particularly who
carries the risk, and they are risky projects. I don't
think there's any way around when you start building large
scale infrastructure, geological issues, timing in our case COVID, so
all sorts of things can impact on it. And obviously
(06:50):
it's been well documented this dam cost a lot more
than it was anticipated to and what that's resulted in
is particularly for irrigators and landowners who are paying fifty
percent of the cost or forty nine percent of the
total cost. Now I've not got so much capital tied
up in water security that that limits their ability to
invest on their properties to actually deliver the outcomes that
(07:12):
both the region and the country needs in terms of
that productivity on the land concerned. So the way they're
structured and the way they're financed, I firmly believe needs
to change and there has to be a greater role
for central government investment.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Well that's what Shane Jones is for. I'm fine to
saying Tim King, you can never have too many sheds
on your farm, you can never have too many dams
around New Zealand. Thanks for your time, Go well on
the elections.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
No worries you more than welcome. Jamie always happy to
catch up
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