Gaddum never disbanded his Waimarama Civil Defence group and now the Hastings District Council and Central Hawke’s Bay District Council are set to follow his lead.
Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Alex Walker told the joint committee meeting she has 10 localities eager to assume responsibility for Civil Defence, with Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst adding she had 20 in her district.
Hazlehurst has secured $300,000 of Red Cross funding to get two community Civil Defence groups up and running immediately.
But none of that will hurry the broader review along, or give mana whenua a legitimate seat at the decision-making table.
That issue was made abundantly clear to the joint committee by Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated board chair Bayden Barber.
Wairoa Mayor Craig Little went as far as calling it “a disgrace” that legislation does not permit mana whenua to vote for outcomes that will determine future emergency response plans for Hawke’s Bay.
The eventual review hopes to reach seven outcomes that ensure there are adequate Civil Defence systems and resources in place to protect the region.
Part of that will include establishing timelines and gathering testimonies from those directly impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle and co-ordinating the response.
Quite where the public fit into that framework isn’t absolutely clear.
The terms of reference state that the joint committee “expressed an interest in broadening the review to include community voice. While it may not be practical to include direct community engagement as part of an operational review, it is important that impacted communities have the opportunity to share their experiences and identify areas where community resilience to future emergencies could be strengthened”.
In terms of the timeline for the review, Walker said it should have begun “weeks if not months ago,” while Hazlehurst said it was important that the public were given adequate answers before December.
People have questions that need to be answered now, not in six months’ time, she said.
A note from the editor: Correcting the record
An earlier version of this article reported comments in the meeting from Civil Defence Group Controller Ian Macdonald in this way:
Macdonald said if there was one thing he wanted out of the review, it was greater public and media awareness of what Civil Defence does.
Macdonald said there remains an ignorance of the co-ordinated approach HBCDEM took to the cyclone response, in conjunction with the New Zealand Defence Force, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, police, local councils and others.
All were acting under the Civil Defence umbrella, he said, which meant the public were perhaps not in the best position to evaluate HBCDEM’s performance.
A perception existed, Macdonald said, that HBCDEM was not visible and not in control of the response, which did not match the reality.
Macdonald spoke sporadically during the meeting, but he did not speak directly about what he wanted out of the review.
Towards the end of the meeting Councillor Nigel Simpson spoke about what he feels is a false perception in Hawke’s Bay - that Civil Defence is going to ride in on a ‘white horse’ to help people in an emergency.
Macdonald responded to Simpson by saying this:
“I totally agree with Councillor Simpson and every time when took a stand up in front of the media, I pushed this ‘We are all Civil Defence’ message - that all of the agencies were working, coordinated by the Civil Defence group, at the GCC.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you push that, people - even now I’ve seen commentary just recently where people are talking about ‘we saw New Zealand Defence Forces, we saw...’ - but they didn’t realise that was all being coordinated out of the Group Coordination Centre.
“Police were there, Fire and Emergency were there, and we were all coordinating as best we could together given the circumstances.
“So I think it’s just one of the biggest challenges that we’ve always got, as to how do we actually get that message through to the community?
“I think it actually starts with agencies to a point, because if the agencies turn up saying ‘we’re part of Civil Defence...’
“That was something else we tried to push, that when the soldier knocks on the door he says ‘on behalf of Civil Defence, I’m here from the Army on behalf of Civil Defence’, but even then it was a struggle.”
Part of Hawke’s Bay Today’s role is to translate public statements like this into sentences that people with limited knowledge of the situation can easily understand.
In this case, our reporting of Mr Macdonald’s comments did not accurately reflect what he had told the meeting. We regret the errors that were introduced.
Chris Hyde, Editor
