Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says there will be more support to come for regions still dealing with cyclone recovery.
Speaking at Southern Field Days in Gore on the one-year anniversary of the cyclone, which devastated huge tracts of Hawke's Bay and Tai Rāwhiti, Luxon said his thoughts were with those affected.
"I've spoken already to people in the Hawke's Bay as well to say that, you know, it is an incredibly challenging time for those regions that have been impacted by the cyclone over the past year.
"We do think of the 11 people who passed and their families, who will be dealing with things in a pretty tough way today, we think about them.
"We are a government that is determined to actually make sure that they bounce back in the regions, we are determined to see regional growth. As a result we need to power up those communities that have actually been impacted."
He was asked if the government would be giving further support from the government to assist those regions through the recovery process.
"Yeah, absolutely," he said. "We are determined to accelerate the cyclone recovery and I've got a dedicated minister to doing that task which is Mark Mitchell."
He said the country had not been growing, and the government was focused on three things: The $62 million announced for cleaning up silt and woody debris; speeding up the recategorisation of damaged houses; and working on infrastructure around the country.
That last point particularly centred on roads, which he said had not been maintained properly.
"There's 56,000 potholes in this country, we need to go to work and actually get our roads repaired and so we are moving and writing right now what's called a National Policy Statement on transportation.
"The reason is to make sure that the pools of money that we have available are not being spent on expensive speedbumps and slowing people down with traffic, and actually doing lots of cycleways. We want a good investment in our roads, that's how people and Kiwis move around."
It comes as the government completed the Three Waters repeal this morning, and amid rumblings over Auckland's transport projects.
The government has ditched Labour's Three Waters programme with legislation repealing the project passing its third and final reading at Parliament on Wednesday.
Labour's plan had been to take control of water from councils and give it instead to 10 mega-entities. The government will now push ahead with two new pieces of legislation later this term allowing councils to set up their own merged entities if they want to.
Chris Luxon at Southern Field Days at Waimumu. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
In Auckland, mayor Wayne Brown has accused the government of "electioneering" and said there would be consequences for the city's residents in scrapping the regional fuel tax.
Brown has previously said the government's scrapping of the regional fuel tax could leave a funding hole of more than $1 billion over the next four years.
"That tax funds roads, it funds buses... it's electioneering, that's what they did, and they're entitled to do that," he told Morning Report on Wednesday. "But it has consequences and the consequences are if we haven't got the money we're not going to do those things."
