The Prime Minister has acknowledged a town in rural Hawke's Bay suffering serious ongoing effects from Cyclone Gabrielle was let down by the Government and has promised to speed up efforts to get flood protection measures in place.

Christopher Luxon spoke on the Mike Hosking Breakfast about his trip to Wairoa, which was virtually unreachable for days after January's devastating Cyclone Gabrielle and is still struggling from widespread damage.

Hosking pointed out half of the residents have been waiting for Government support, many of whom are without homes and didn't have insurance.

Luxon, who also visited other parts of Hawke’s Bay, said the biggest issue was flood protection from the Wairoa River.

Luxon said the focus of conversation with the people of Wairoa was to get flood protection measures in place as soon as possible - then to begin talks about housing, roading and speeding up resource consent in the district to get things moving.

”We've obviously got other previous challenges of no insurance and that sets up some pretty dangerous precedents across the country there."

He said the coalition Government's goal was to get going with the commitments in its 100-day plan to ensure "people's lives aren't mucked around", but towns like Wairoa weren't ready.

Among the first 49 actions of the plan are to determine what needs to be "turbo-charged" and prioritised for the new year in Wairoa, then pass policies to allow councils to move consents quicker so infrastructure can start to be repaired.

"In opposition, we said this isn't a partisan political issue - we'll partner with you whether it's honouring your regulations, [passing] emergency powers and get down there [to Wairoa] to get things done," he said.

Luxon was also asked about 427 policy advisers the Government allegedly hired to assist with Three Waters, an allegation that Luxon couldn't confirm on the spot because he has not looked into the matter yet.

However, he said he understood about 400 staff were working on the Three Waters project and that Labour had spent a lot of money on it.

He repeated his desire to shut down the project.

"We'll repeal Three Waters co-governance energies and then we'll restore those assets to local council control," he said.

"Then the second part in the new year will be some pretty strict rules around water quality and investment in infrastructure and making sure it's going at a financially stable pace."

The Prime Minister called the Three Waters project and processes around it "incredibly frustrating" and said he'd signalled for a long time he wanted it scrapped.

"I haven't understood whether people have been actively recruited during that election campaign period [when] you'd expect everything would go on ice."

Hosking pointed out there would be a requirement, should hundreds of highly skilled workers be laid off, to pay out their contracts – and some are likely to be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The same went for Te Pukenga, which the Government confirmed will be disestablished. It has already begun halting several operations for the tertiary agency.

"We're discovering Labour has left a whole bunch of fiscal cliffs and holes, unfunded commitments or time-limited funding," said Luxon.

"I think there will be massive overruns - you've seen it in regards to transport projects."

Luxon alluded to the mini-budget announcement next week that will provide better insight into the Government's financial state, admitting the books were not looking good and would need serious attention.

He wasn't sure how much it would cost to buy out the contracts of workers needing to be laid off, but Hosking said the Government might be writing cheques for $800,000 salaries.

Luxon argued it could cost hundreds of millions extra if work was not stopped.

"A bit like gardening, you can keep trimming bits off the leaves or you can rip the roots of the trees out and stop the activity and that's what you need to do to focus the organisation and public service on what matters most."