Govt chips in with grant and jobs scheme

Press, 15 September 1988, Page 3

Govt chips in with grant and jobs scheme

A $50,000 Government grant for Greymouth’s regional relief fund, and a disaster recovery employment scheme for the area, were announced by the Minister of Civil Defence, Dr Bassett, yesterday. A similar scheme was used after Greymouth’s May floods. A number of people were employed for several weeks to clean drains and repair water supplies. Civil Defence officials are discussing the scheme with the region’s local bodies. A small team of Civil Defence officers from other parts of New Zealand arrived in Greymouth yesterday to help the regional organisation.

The Government has also decided to treat the two. floods, four months

apart, as one catastrophe for calculating Civil Defence costs. There would be a financial ad-, vantage from this method of calculation, Dr Bassett said. Social welfare officials, who. assisted in May, are also helping people affected by the floods. Dr Bassett said he would propose at Monday’s Cabinet meeting that an urgent inter-departmental study be made on flood-protection work in the Grey River catchment area. “The Mayor of Greymouth, Dr Barry Dallas, has indicated his support for such a study and if the Cabinet agrees to it I have no doubt there will be full co-operation between central and local authorities,” he said. A Red Cross emergency relief team from North Canterbury has

been sent to Greymouth, and was yesterday helping the Salvation Army with catering for evacuees and workers.

Greymouth Red Cross members have been providing flood evacuees with emergency clothing. Parliament’s Speaker and member of Parliament for West Coast, Mr Kerry Burke, and the member for Tasman, Mr Ken Shirley, left Wellington yesterday to fly in to the flooded region. The National member of Parliament for Papakura, Mr Merv Wellington, has called on the Government to re-examine its regional policies after the floods, and to arrange for fairer funding for catchment authorities, especially in depressed and devastated regions.