A Government that promised to “fix the basics” has now
let New Zealand’s 24/7 geohazard monitoring centre shuts
down twice in a matter of days.
GeoNet says its “eyes
on monitoring” through the National Geohazards Monitoring
Centre was temporarily suspended from 10pm last night until
6am today. It follows the closure of the centre on Friday
night for eight hours because of staff shortages (see
attached screenshot).
“We now have two instances of
service shutdown in a matter of days. This is clear evidence
of systemic failure,” said Fleur Fitzsimons, National
Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga
Here Tikanga Mahi.
“The Government promised no
frontline cuts. There is nothing more frontline than keeping
Kiwis safe from earthquakes and tsunami. National promised
to fix the basics. Instead, it’s breaking them, and this
is now an election issue.
“The centre’s closure
could mean that information about earthquakes is not
provided quickly enough to the public and decision
makers.
“Earth Sciences NZ is taking an appropriate
and responsible approach by issuing public notifications of
service shutdowns, but it should never have come to
this.
“Responsibility for the closure lies squarely
with the Government, which imposed these cuts. It’s a
national tragedy waiting to happen.
The centre opened
in 2018 so that analysts would monitor geohazard events
around the clock, rather than relying on scientists on call
from home. Since then, the team monitoring live earthquake
data has been cut from 20 to 15 and its annual funding cut
by a third to $24 million.
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“The Government is again
putting saving dollars ahead of saving
lives.”
Scientists warned this would happen. Former
geohazard analyst Caleb Rapson Nuñez del Prado, who took
redundancy after his team was cut, told the Save
Science Coalition’s report Underfunding our Future
that New Zealand’s monitoring would at times “step
backwards from a live monitoring system to an on-call
system”.
“The Government must immediately intervene;
admit it got it wrong and restore funding. This is just a
snapshot of the damage to come as the Government pushes
ahead with more cuts.
“The closure is also another
glaring example of why we need a public good test to assess
the impacts on services from cuts before they
happen.
“The Prime Minister needs to front up about
what other services that keep New Zealanders safe this
government will cut if it’s re-elected. This is why we
need a new government that properly values the services New
Zealanders rely
on.”
Notes:
The Public Service
Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi is
Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest trade union, representing and
supporting more than 95,000 workers across central
government, state-owned enterprises, local councils, Health
NZ and community
groups.
