John MacDonald: Call in the army for our civil defence future

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

How many reviews and reports do we need before we accept that we are nowhere near as good at emergency and disaster management as we think we are here in New Zealand?

I reckon we’ll never admit it. But we should.

In fact, we shouldn’t just admit that we’re not as good as we think - we should also be looking at some major structural change. Not just more of the tinkering around the edges that the Government is talking about today.

We need to accept we’re pretty average; we need to accept that we’re a tiny country; we need to accept that, when it comes down to it, the military is the best outfit to be running our disaster response and we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.

The Government has announced a big overhaul of emergency and disaster management after recent reports showed just how woeful things are in this department. Particularly after what happened during and after Cyclone Gabrielle last year.

You might remember back in March this year when Mike Bush —who used to be the Police Commissioner— released his report on his review of the Civil Defence response to the cyclone.

I remember being astounded when he came out and said that Civil Defence wasn’t prepared; it hadn’t planned for worst case scenarios; and that the national emergency management system was setting people up to fail.

It was setting people up to fail.

I was astounded because it seemed the country had learned nothing from the experiences during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury. It was no better prepared in 2023 than it was 12 years earlier.

So the Government’s taken all that on board and is talking about changing things.

As you’d expect, what the Government’s talking about is all high-level, strategic stuff. It’s saying things like: “We want to build an emergency management system that can continuously improve and become stronger over time”.

Which is all great stuff, but the Government’s also warning that it might have the money to do it.

So here’s what I reckon we should be doing:

You know how after a disaster the army either turns up to help or people call for the army to be sent in? I think the army or our defence force (even though it’s way under-resourced in a lot of areas itself) should be doing the planning and the leading during times of disaster.

I heard Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB listing all the people involved in emergency management in this country. Which tells me there are just too many cooks in the kitchen.

And that’s the nub of why we seem to be getting no better at disaster planning, disaster response, and disaster management.

From my experience, there are a lot of moustaches involved. A lot of testosterone, and a lot of egos.

You don’t get that in the military. There are hierarchies that people operate under in the defence force. In normal times and during times of disaster. The military has communication functions and capabilities that no local council is ever going to have.

It does plan for worst case scenarios. It does all the things our disaster and emergency management people haven’t been doing and have been called-out for not doing it. Not just in Mike Bush’s report, but others as well.

And that’s why I’m more convinced than ever that, instead of pouring more time and money into a standalone civil defence system —one the Government itself is saying today needs to improve, but is also saying that there might not be the money to do it— that’s why I think we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.

Or, to put it another way: I think we should be bringing the army in well before disaster strikes.

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