A petition asking the government to provide funding for 24/7 hazards monitoring has been presented to the parliament after more than 11,000 people signed and demanded the action.
According to a report from the Newsroom, Labour Civil Defence spokeswoman Clare Curran presented the petition, saying that New Zealanders need to feel that something has changed following the Kaikoura earthquake in November.
The parliament’s government administration committee said it was “pleased to see that work is under way in an attempt to address some of the issues raised,” according to the Newsroom report.
“We are however concerned that timelines appear to be slipping and that urgency needs to be applied to improving New Zealand’s round the clock capacity for hazard monitoring and communication,” the committee said.
The business case, entitled Enhanced Geohazards Monitoring, was prepared by the GNS Science and funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. It was due to be completed July but has only been completed now and will be considered by ministers soon, Dr Gill Jolly of GNS Science said.
“New Zealanders need to feel as if something has changed following last November’s earthquake,” Curran told the
Newsroom. “I just don’t think it’s been taken seriously enough by MBIE, whoever's going to make the decisions around funding allocation and if there’s going to be any funding allocation.
“I don’t know why they couldn’t have ramped things up in the interim until they did a business case, they could have spent some money to ensure there was extra capacity within GNS to be working around the clock and ensure there were people actually on duty rather than people who are asleep in their beds and on call,” Curran said.
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