Mark Mitchell

And I've been doing this now for two and a half years, trying to anticipate and make decisions around it.

It's really difficult because you've got to make decisions 80% and not 100%.

But the MetService people, they work round the clock and they do all that they can with their modelling to try and give us the best information that they can.

So I'm sorry, but I'm going to stick up for them.

That's fine.

You're allowed to.

But you would side with the MetService that tells me, one, we're not sure yet, but this is what we think is going to happen.

And by the way, change your holiday plans, tie down a trampoline and run for your life.

They're allowed to say that, are they?

Well, I just think that, yes, they are allowed to say that because...

You know, the counter to that is that we start losing lives.

And in this year, I've had two weather events where we've lost people.

People have died.

So, you know, we've got to protect lives.

We've got to protect property.

And by the way, if you do not get these responses right, they have a direct impact on the recovery, and it costs us billions of dollars as a country.

And we cannot afford it.

We can't afford it.

Yes, so in relation to Craig, I work very closely with Craig in Wairau.

But the fact of the matter is the last big weather event we had through there, the communities were very upset because they felt like there wasn't quick decisions made around the management of the river entrance.