The Civil Defence Minister is staunch on the need for mobile emergency alerts.
An alert sent at 6.30am warned people to stay away from water, beaches, harbours, marinas, and estuaries - with uncertain sea conditions triggered by yesterday's massive Russia quake.
It applies until further notice.
But many received multiple messages, and others got none.
Mark Mitchell told Kerre Woodham they'll be looking into it, but early warning is important.
He says in the past emergencies with fatalities, it's because of optimism bias, but New Zealand doesn't have that luxury anymore.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be Civil Defense officials are investigating a glitch with
mobile emergency alerts, but say the tsunami risk to New
Zealand is real and ongoing. Alerts were sent out yesterday
and this morning warning people to stay away from the
water until midday. However, some people received extra alerts. One caller, Susie,
received thirteen. Surely, as we're discussing, there has to be
(00:33):
some sort of middle ground when it comes to the
call to action emergency management and recovery. Minister Mark Mitchell
joins me, Now, good morning to you, Good morning, good morning.
How many did you receive?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I received two?
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Okay, but same But but I am aware that you know,
due to difficult different technical sort of issues around people
moved between towers and things like that, that there were
either multiple alerts or some people didn't receive any. I
mean the good news, you know, the good news around
that is that hasn't been the national alert has not
been used for a long time. So you know, it's
(01:07):
up to us now to identify where the issues are,
work with the telcos and make the system even better.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Sure and there's I mean, you know, the poor old
name is damned if they do damned if they don't.
You know, if they didn't give sufficient warning, then they'd
have been slagged.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Absolutely, always happens every event. Yeah, it always happens. You
get some people that say there wasn't enough information. You
get other people that say, you know, went too soon.
But look in my viewers, as the minister, and I've
been the minister now eighteen months, I've been on the
ground at fourteen local states of emergency. We do not
have the luxury anymore of operating in this optimi optimism
(01:43):
buyer space because that's how people die.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And so we'll be proactive.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And we'll be giving keywis the information that we think
that they need to be able to make inform choices
and understand what the risk is.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Could we have a middle ground, like we have a
developing newsting now, instead of over using the breaking news
which was just becoming meaningless to listeners. It was over
used at the time, and we responded to that. Could
we have a middle ground that claxon sound as an
immediate call to action immediate and that is not the
(02:17):
case in this situation.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, I mean we do have we are.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I've got a piece of legislation that will be come
into the house shortly where we are trying to come
up with different ted options for decisions around areas that
are being hit by weather events and a progression into
a local state of emergency. So yes, we are doing
some work around that.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Why does it need a piece of legislation. Why can't
NIMA just say, look, people need to know to stay
away from the coastline and we'll send it out with
a different sound. This one is for immediate risk to
life and that makes it very clear.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well, my expectations with NIMA have been really simple, is
that we keep having when we have big events in
New Zealand and we lose people, there's a loss of life.
Often it's because there has been this optimism bias that
sort of sits there, and I see we don't have
the luxury of that anymore. As a country or a
small island nation down the bottom of the world, a
tsunami event could hit us severely, and so we have
(03:13):
to be we're the ones that are responsible for people's safety.
I'd rather err on the side of caution and make
sure that people are getting the information they need. And
for example, the six thirty alert this morning, yep. I
get that some of the parents were happy that it
waked their kids up and got them out of beard
and ready for school in the morning. But I get
the fact that people don't like getting the alerts. But
I just want people to understand too, that we're a
(03:34):
coastal nation. At six thirty in the morning, people are
hitting thousands of people are hitting the beaches to walk
their dogs or enjoy that natural environment, and we've got
tsunami impacts on our ocean, and Mother Nature can do
strange things, so we want to make sure that people
are kept safe. We don't want to Human life is
always the first priority.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yes, absolutely, and we've seen terrible loss of life through
no fault of people's own, you know, where natural events
have overcome them. We've also seen people who take risks
and think that they can manage the events around them,
and that's just and we've also seen brave first responders
who have no choice. They go out and they have
lost their lives. But totally at the same time, there's
(04:16):
also a risk of complacency when that siren goes off
all the time, and we've seen the tsunami travel from
the eastern coast of Russia, Japan, Hawaii down through the Pacific.
We've had plenty of warning.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, this is the we have had plenty of warning.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
We don't often have the luxury of that, and we
did have the luxury in this case with the modeling.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
That we had about twelve hours.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
But I view every minute matters, because even if it
had been a major tsud ami and we were going
to get severe inundation into residential areas and risk drownings,
then even twelve hours for us to get organized to
do a proper evacuation throughout the entire country because the
entire coast was at risk, there's not much time to
be able to achieve that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, not expecting the government to come and collect you,
but if you receive a warning on your phone to
say evacuate from your home now, we should all have
that plan. We shouldn't be sitting there waiting for you
to turn up in your upe mark and come and
rescue us.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I I agree with you entirely, and I think you're
bringing forward some really important discussions and points that we
should have a wider and broader debate around in this country.
And that quite simply is that the councils that from
my experience with emergency management, the mayors are making good decisions,
they go in early, they're being proactive. We've got very
good civil defense teams, we've got outstanding first responders. But
(05:36):
if you want a really serious response, then it's a
whole of society. It's people taking responsibility. And of all
of those fourteen local states emergency that I've been on
the ground for as Minister, I've seen people make very
poor decisions, ignore instructions, put themselves at risk, and worst
of all, put our first responders at risk, who then
have to go and sort them out.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it's just it's a good discussion to have.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
You know, the reality of it is, we're going to
get We're a country that will continue to be hit
with weather events. The national alert system is not used
very often. It's been a long time since we've used it.
The decision in this case was quite simply impacted the
whole country, so we couldn't ring fence it. We felt
that really strongly that we're a coastal nation that people
do want to have access to the ocean and the beach,
(06:22):
and we needed to get that information out quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Everyone helps you help. Television helps.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Websites, civil defense websites, the Internet helps get information out,
but we wanted to make sure that we used every
tool possible that we had to alert people to what
the risk was.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thank you very much, as always for your time. Mark Mitchell,
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be Civil Defense officials are investigating a glitch with
mobile emergency alerts, but say the tsunami risk to New
Zealand is real and ongoing. Alerts were sent out yesterday
and this morning warning people to stay away from the
water until midday. However, some people received extra alerts. One caller, Susie,
received thirteen. Surely, as we're discussing, there has to be
(00:33):
some sort of middle ground when it comes to the
call to action emergency management and recovery. Minister Mark Mitchell
joins me, Now, good morning to you, Good morning, good morning.
How many did you receive?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I received two?
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Okay, but same But but I am aware that you know,
due to difficult different technical sort of issues around people
moved between towers and things like that, that there were
either multiple alerts or some people didn't receive any. I
mean the good news, you know, the good news around
that is that hasn't been the national alert has not
been used for a long time. So you know, it's
(01:07):
up to us now to identify where the issues are,
work with the telcos and make the system even better.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Sure and there's I mean, you know, the poor old
name is damned if they do damned if they don't.
You know, if they didn't give sufficient warning, then they'd
have been slagged.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Absolutely, always happens every event. Yeah, it always happens. You
get some people that say there wasn't enough information. You
get other people that say, you know, went too soon.
But look in my viewers, as the minister, and I've
been the minister now eighteen months, I've been on the
ground at fourteen local states of emergency. We do not
have the luxury anymore of operating in this optimi optimism
(01:43):
buyer space because that's how people die.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And so we'll be proactive.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And we'll be giving keywis the information that we think
that they need to be able to make inform choices
and understand what the risk is.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Could we have a middle ground, like we have a
developing newsting now, instead of over using the breaking news
which was just becoming meaningless to listeners. It was over
used at the time, and we responded to that. Could
we have a middle ground that claxon sound as an
immediate call to action immediate and that is not the
(02:17):
case in this situation.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well, I mean we do have we are.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I've got a piece of legislation that will be come
into the house shortly where we are trying to come
up with different ted options for decisions around areas that
are being hit by weather events and a progression into
a local state of emergency. So yes, we are doing
some work around that.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Why does it need a piece of legislation. Why can't
NIMA just say, look, people need to know to stay
away from the coastline and we'll send it out with
a different sound. This one is for immediate risk to
life and that makes it very clear.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well, my expectations with NIMA have been really simple, is
that we keep having when we have big events in
New Zealand and we lose people, there's a loss of life.
Often it's because there has been this optimism bias that
sort of sits there, and I see we don't have
the luxury of that anymore. As a country or a
small island nation down the bottom of the world, a
tsunami event could hit us severely, and so we have
(03:13):
to be we're the ones that are responsible for people's safety.
I'd rather err on the side of caution and make
sure that people are getting the information they need. And
for example, the six thirty alert this morning, yep. I
get that some of the parents were happy that it
waked their kids up and got them out of beard
and ready for school in the morning. But I get
the fact that people don't like getting the alerts. But
I just want people to understand too, that we're a
(03:34):
coastal nation. At six thirty in the morning, people are
hitting thousands of people are hitting the beaches to walk
their dogs or enjoy that natural environment, and we've got
tsunami impacts on our ocean, and Mother Nature can do
strange things, so we want to make sure that people
are kept safe. We don't want to Human life is
always the first priority.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yes, absolutely, and we've seen terrible loss of life through
no fault of people's own, you know, where natural events
have overcome them. We've also seen people who take risks
and think that they can manage the events around them,
and that's just and we've also seen brave first responders
who have no choice. They go out and they have
lost their lives. But totally at the same time, there's
(04:16):
also a risk of complacency when that siren goes off
all the time, and we've seen the tsunami travel from
the eastern coast of Russia, Japan, Hawaii down through the Pacific.
We've had plenty of warning.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, this is the we have had plenty of warning.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
We don't often have the luxury of that, and we
did have the luxury in this case with the modeling.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
That we had about twelve hours.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
But I view every minute matters, because even if it
had been a major tsud ami and we were going
to get severe inundation into residential areas and risk drownings,
then even twelve hours for us to get organized to
do a proper evacuation throughout the entire country because the
entire coast was at risk, there's not much time to
be able to achieve that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, not expecting the government to come and collect you,
but if you receive a warning on your phone to
say evacuate from your home now, we should all have
that plan. We shouldn't be sitting there waiting for you
to turn up in your upe mark and come and
rescue us.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I I agree with you entirely, and I think you're
bringing forward some really important discussions and points that we
should have a wider and broader debate around in this country.
And that quite simply is that the councils that from
my experience with emergency management, the mayors are making good decisions,
they go in early, they're being proactive. We've got very
good civil defense teams, we've got outstanding first responders. But
(05:36):
if you want a really serious response, then it's a
whole of society. It's people taking responsibility. And of all
of those fourteen local states emergency that I've been on
the ground for as Minister, I've seen people make very
poor decisions, ignore instructions, put themselves at risk, and worst
of all, put our first responders at risk, who then
have to go and sort them out.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it's just it's a good discussion to have.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
You know, the reality of it is, we're going to
get We're a country that will continue to be hit
with weather events. The national alert system is not used
very often. It's been a long time since we've used it.
The decision in this case was quite simply impacted the
whole country, so we couldn't ring fence it. We felt
that really strongly that we're a coastal nation that people
do want to have access to the ocean and the beach,
(06:22):
and we needed to get that information out quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Everyone helps you help. Television helps.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Websites, civil defense websites, the Internet helps get information out,
but we wanted to make sure that we used every
tool possible that we had to alert people to what
the risk was.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thank you very much, as always for your time. Mark Mitchell,
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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