Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will on Thursday afternoon make his first visit to the Coromandel since recent storms and two cyclones badly damaged the region's infrastructure.
The peninsula has recorded just over two metres of rain since the beginning of the year.
Thames-Coromandel Civil Defence Controller Garry Towler said the roads in the area were in a very fragile state with slips still causing problems.
Two major state highways are closed due to slips.
Hipkins met with the mayor, Civil Defence and other key people involved in the response to Cyclone Gabrielle.
He drove up the Thames coast to Tapu to see the damage to roads and houses for himself.
"Being on the ground here helps me to get a good flavour, a good understanding of what the community are grappling with, what the concerns are," he told reporters in a media stand-up afterwards.
"The effects of the recent extreme weather we have whether it's the floods or the cyclone, it is uneven," he said, noting same areas were hit far worse than others.
A range of support was being offered to businesses on the east coast of the region, Hipkins said.
However, there was no firm number on costs yet for repairing Coromandel roads, he said.
Asked if he will commit to rebuilding State Highway 25A, which suffered a major dropout, he said he was waiting on the formal advice from Waka Kotahi.
"Let's get the advice first," he said.
However, speaking on RNZ's Checkpoint later, Transport Minister Michael Wood said the government was committed to restoring the road connection across the Coromandel Peninsula.
"There's a staged process," Wood said.
"This month contractors are effectively creating access... In April, they'll be able to do the work to assess what the options are for rebuilding it. And it could be that we look to rebuild in that location, or it could be that we have to find an alternative route.
"It's not necessarily going to be exactly the same road as the one that we've lost."
Thames Coromandel Mayor Len Salt said the road closures around Coromandel "create challenges on every level".
"There are people who come to the Coromandel peninsula because they are visiting ... Those people have probably a bit more flexibility, but the people that live here, they still have to go to school, to hospitals," he said.
"Those issues are really challenging on a daily basis and there is a level of anxiety that exists now across our district.
"There's a lot of effort going into just taking the pressure off people right now."
Asked about managed retreat, Hipkins said he was looking at communities and how to have conversations around the realities of climate change.
With winter coming, the weather had shown a number of vulnerabilities throughout the country, he said.
"We could be facing some further challenges ahead, including more washouts, more slips.
"There's no question we have to be more prepared for extreme weather events.
"We're not going to forget about the big rebuild job," he said, "we're going to be here and see this through."
Salt said the level of support the region had had was helpful.
"The other thing we've asked for was a conversation about the longer-term resilience" of the roading network and housing in Coromandel, Salt said.
"We're in the era of climate change. ... We've seen that hit our district very very hard and we've got to mark smart decisions and preparing for a resilent district and a long-term future."
