KEY POINTS:
The reliability of the country's civil defence emergency warning system is under question as the upgrade of a key part of it is relegated to the backburner.
The warning system is used to send out national alerts to organisations like the Police, Fire Service and regional councils, informing them of potential threats such as a tsunami.
Messages are sent out via fax, email or text by a duty officer at the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, which itself receives alerts from places like the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii or the MetService.
But a previously confidential document released yesterday by National's civil defence spokesman John Carter suggests the existing system may be prone to failure.
The document, sent out by the Department of Internal Affairs in 2005 to companies interested in upgrading the system, embarrassingly contains deletions from an original draft.
In the deleted paragraphs, the department states that there are better ways of disseminating messages, that remote access to the existing system is not guaranteed at all times, and that part of it "proved effective but inefficient and may be prone to failure".
The ministry has a project under way to upgrade the system, but despite being part of a wider review that started in 2004, there is still no budget for it, and no final date for its completion.
Mr Carter yesterday demanded to know why the upgrade was taking so long.
"Two years after the Boxing Day tsunami, and two years since a review of the National Civil Defence Management Warning System was started, the system remains a shambles," Mr Carter said.
New Zealand's preparedness for a threat like a tsunami was called into question last May when the BBC reported a wave heading for New Zealand.
People, especially those on the North Island's East Coast, rushed for high ground.
However, the alert, issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii after an earthquake in Tonga which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, had been withdrawn.
In the wake of that scare, it was acknowledged by Civil Defence Minister Rick Barker that people needed to be better informed.
The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management was unable to immediately comment on National's questioning of the warning system yesterday.
But Government Duty Minister Jim Anderton said the existing system did work, and the upgrade work wasn't deemed to be serious enough to be done immediately.
A bid for funding for the upgrade was being included in the current Budget round, he said.
"The existing system will work, up to a point," Mr Anderton said.
"But it can always be improved."
