How to plug the gaps between all these crisis reviews

Opinion: This year was summed up for me by the insights and observations of the Chief Ombudsman, Peter Boshier, on the extreme weather events that slammed the upper North Island earlier this year.

I hope the Government takes the time to read his report, because not only does it highlight the vital nature of communication in the lead up to and aftermath of a crisis, but it also sets out in clear terms the significance of the role of the ombudsman. Using a real-time situation, and by talking to the affected communities, Peter Boshier has been able to signal to government agencies – both central and local – the roles and responsibilities they hold when responding to and recovering from an event like this.

I know the National Party promised during the election campaign to set up a cyclone and flood recovery ombudsman, but how about expanding the existing ombudsman’s terms of reference? That way they would minimise the back-office requirements, while achieving the purpose. The ombudsman is already saying all the things National was saying before the election – reinforcing the need to have systems and processes that support fair and equitable outcomes for homeowners and communities. The Office of the Ombudsman has considerable experience in this field, so it makes sense to use the expertise that’s there.

The report expresses the same frustration that I have over the years, and that is that we must be better prepared for future events. There really is no excuse given all we have been through. Why are the lessons we learned in Ōtautahi Christchurch after the earthquakes still being ignored? Why do we keep starting from scratch?

Not surprisingly the need for communication is highlighted – warnings before the event, what to do during the event, and what happens after that.  

Boshier also said concerns about timely and transparent communication were raised as people struggled to get information from local and central government, with phone numbers, webpages and information being hard to find. This is DisasterComms101!

People need to be able to access information and, more importantly, they need to be able to trust that it is accurate. In other words, there needs to be a single source of truth.

I’ve always found timelines to be a helpful way of explaining where things are up to and when additional steps are anticipated to be taken.

This has led me to search the relevant websites and I have to say it is hard to get a clear picture of what is happening.

Although that’s how I discovered that the ombudsman was not alone when it came to reviews. There are a large number of reviews that have been completed or are still progressing. It didn’t take long for me to work out that this approach meant there were going to be gaps. How on earth do we learn the lessons of what happened when our reviews are as siloed as our responses?

I have already written about the Auckland review of the calling of the state of emergency in the anniversary weekend floods. There are many lessons to be learned there, but I can’t help thinking that its focus on civil defence and the mayor’s office has missed the connections with the wider council.

There has been an internal review of the MetService warning. If you’ve read any of my recent columns, then you will know my reaction to their statement that the Auckland anniversary weekend storm was ‘unprecedented’. There are, however, many issues that need to be addressed.

The Government has also instigated another review of the weather warning system, which includes the separation between the MetService and Niwa (the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research). I was surprised to learn of the competitive nature of their roles. There’s no single source of truth there with different agencies buying their forecasting off one or the other.

Napier City Council commissioned an independent review of its response through Resilient Organisations. It contains a number of worthwhile recommendations, but I would say they are not just for Napier. Some of the recommendations clearly require local and central government attention.

Fire & Emergency NZ commissioned an independent accident investigation into the deaths of two firefighters at Muriwai. This report opened my eyes to a 1981 Local Government Act amendment (now Building Act) that absolved councils of any civil liability as they issued building permits for houses on unstable land prone to erosion, subsidence, slippage or inundation. The site of the Muriwai landslide had been such a place, where Rodney County engineers had once declared that no houses would ever again be allowed to be built in the path of the 1965 landslides. Why do we not learn the lessons of history? This needs to be resolved.

The Telecommunications Emergency Forum produced a Post-Incident Report. Reading its recommendations was a ‘you have got to be kidding me’ moment – it is recommending the very basics of a co-ordinated and integrated emergency response management system. 

The National Emergency Management Agency is undertaking an After-Action Review, which is standard after any event, and although it will feed into the Government inquiry, it again is organisation-specific.

Sir Jerry Mateparae is leading the Government’s formal Inquiry into the Response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. The purpose of this inquiry is to ensure the design of New Zealand’s emergency management system is appropriate to support readiness for, and responses to, future emergency events (such as landslides, tsunamis, earthquake, volcanic activity, floods and storms) by identifying lessons from the 2023 North Island severe weather events.

The focus on the emergency management system could mean we overlook the essential linkages with legislation that allows land use that exposes people to the risks I mentioned before, and the business-as-usual activities of councils including specific expertise in flooding for example and the management of land drainage systems and infrastructure.

Would it be too much to ask for a New Year’s resolution from the coalition Government that commits to joining up all the reviews and all the related inquiries. We could then ensure that we are better prepared to respond to these ever-increasingly frequent and severe events.

More importantly, we could also develop the capacity to start a fully integrated recovery process in parallel to the response that enables us to take advantage of the opportunities that these crises always offer.

In other words, we could build the kind of resilience we are going to need to face the challenges that the 21^st Century will continue to expose us to.