Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will front media shortly after a public housing announcement in Christchurch.

It comes after Hipkins delivered a pre-Budget speech on Thursday where he said it would be a “no frills Budget” while also ruling out any new taxes.

Hipkins is in Christchurch today with Housing Minister Megan Woods where they opened eight new Kāinga Ora houses, marking the delivery of 1000 new public housing spaces since 2017.

Hipkins earlier met with Christchurch CEOs at a breakfast event hosted by Deloitte and then meet with Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger,

Yesterday speaking to the Employers and Manufacturers Association in Auckland, Hipkins also revealed Treasury’s costing of the damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods: “between $9 billion and $14.5b”.

“This is more than the Kaikōura earthquake but significantly less than the Canterbury quakes,” Hipkins said.

Hipkins said the Government would not be using a cyclone levy of another kind of tax to pay for this cost.

Instead, the money would be met from reprioritising existing spending, existing funding, and debt.

Hipkins said this approach would help avoid exacerbating inflation pressure, which might be the case were the government to simply add the rebuild to its current programme.