At his regular post-Cabinet press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the new Extreme Weather Committee met today for the first time.
Speaking about the Cyclone Gabrielle response, Hipkins said the national state of emergency would continue, particularly for Tai Rāwhiti and Hawke's Bay.
The government was looking to move other regions to a national transition phase as early as a few days time, he said.
"Cyclone Gabrielle has been our most devastating and deadly weather event in a generation. While we're through the worst of the emergency response phase, it's clear that the road to recovery is going to be a long one.
"The cyclone's estimated to have caused more weather-related disruption to businesses and the primary sector than any other event since Cyclone Bola in 1988...
"I'm committed and the government is committed to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the affected regions on that journey. We'll back them and we'll partner with them to lead their local responses."
The number of households without power sat at about 2900, mostly in and around Napier.
Just after the cyclone hit there were 296 schools and 477 ECE closed and there were now 25 schools and 62 ECE closed, he said.
The mobile network was largely back to normal, he said.
Eight sections of the state highway were currently closed, down from 21 a week ago. At the peak, 400km of state highway were closed and the number of sections of local road was expected to far surpass that, Hipkins said.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The roading network rebuild would be looked at in stages, Hipkins said.
There were 80 people sheltering in a civil defence centre. The death toll was unchanged and five people were still unaccounted for.
The recovery cost was likely to be in the billions of dollars, he said.
Decisions on how the cyclone response would be paid for needed to still be considered, Hipkins said.
Homes and community assets were hit hard too, and together with the damage from the January flooding, up to 9000 homes had to be assessed to see whether these were safe to live in, he said. As many as 1800 households in Auckland may need temporary accomodation.
Other solutions for temporary housing would need to be looked at as demand grew, Hipkins said.
More than 40,000 insurance claims were registered as of two weeks ago, with the number expected to rise. More than $51 million has been paid out to 94,000 in civil defence payments.
Decisions needed to be made over the next month or so when it came to insurance payouts and other things, Hipkins said.
Visa applications for skilled workers were being fast-tracked.
Fundraising efforts
Hipkins announced the launch of an international fundraising appeal and a special Lotto draw on 18 March to help support the recovery efforts.
"The appeal is modelled on the Christchurch earthquake appeal that raised over $94 million to assist the rebuild and revitalisation of Christchurch following the earthquake in 2011."
Hipkins said the government would be looking to attract international donations to supplement local donations.
The appeal would be overseen by a charitable trust, the Department of Internal Affairs chief executive Paul James, former Napier mayor Barbara Arnott and Ngati Porou's Selwyn Ngata would be the trustees.
The appeal will focus on medium-to-longer term recovery projects that ensure the region is "built back better and with greater resilience, better prepared to withstand the next extreme weather event".
Asked whether he was concerned Lotto tickets were sold disproportionately to low income households, Hipkins said people would be buying tickets regardless of the special draw.
Hipkins said 50 cents in the dollar would go into the cause from the Lotto draw. He said until now he had not looked at the wider distribution of Lotto funds.
"No gambling is great but compared to some of the other forms of gambling, where there are clearly bigger issues, I'm comfortable with a Lotto draw."
Facebook has offered to promote the appeal.
Hipkins said he would welcome other social media and media platforms to help promote the cyclone appeal.
"I feel a real sense of unity in the aftermath of the cyclone and it's heartwarming to see so many donations and other offers of assistance already. Every little bit does make a difference."
People who want to make a small donation immediately can text 'give' to 2454. All trading banks will accept over the counter donations.
Wage subsidy
Hipkins expected something would be brought before Parliament fairly soon.
"We will almost certainly need some form of legislative response to the recent disasters in terms of making sure that we can do what we need to do when we need to do it."
A one size fits all approach would not necessarily be the best outcome for businesses, he said.
Businesses needed to be supported based on their actual needs, he added.
One of the challenges of a wage subsidy was that there would be examples where some businesses were back in full swqing while others were not, he said.
The needs in each region were very different, he said.
Census to run as planned
Hipkins confirmed Census 2023 would continue as planned on 7 March.
Follow up activities for the region's most affected by the cyclone would be delayed until it was safe to do. The period for these had been extended by a further eight weeks, he said.
This would allow for 2500 census staff to remain out in the field with a focus on these regions.
The areas most affected by the cyclone were among the communities most underserved by the 2018 census, Hipkins said.
"That makes the data collection in 2023 all the more important and that's why we decided to extend the time period for those regions."