Media Release - For Immediate Release
Thursday 1st October, 2009. Wellington, NZ.

Coordinated approach needed for disaster preparedness

The head of the New Zealand Resilience Trust has called for all parties to stop squabbling and focus on preventing death and injury from disasters, following criticism of the Ministry of Civil Defence over the recent Samoa earthquake tsunami scare.

Jarrod Coburn, Executive Director of the New Zealand Resilience Trust, is calling for the focus to switch from "witch hunts" toward a coordinated attempt to improve communication around disaster warnings.

Criticism has been leveled at the Minister of Civil Defence and publicity officers from the Department of Internal Affairs over the handling of a tsunami warning earlier this week.

Mr Coburn says it is essential for the public to hear a clear message consistently from the media if communities are to be resilient when faced with adversity.

"Community resilience is determined by four main attributes, one of which is the level of trust the population place on the information they receive," says Mr Coburn, "To a large extent this depends upon the quality of information released officially by government and local government sources, but it is affected by the treatment of that information by the fourth estate."

Mr Coburn goes on to highlight the erosion of public confidence in both government and media agencies whenever a failure to provide accurate information occurs.

"I think it's fair to say that media agencies have been equally guilty of incompetence or outright misinformation in the past," he says, "The solution is not to dwell on the situation, point fingers, or blame - but to acknowledge mistakes made and learn from them. That is what - as adults - we teach to children, that is what we need to all be doing in this situation.

However, Jarrod Coburn says it is important to recognise the role the media plays in building trust, and will be highlighting this when addressing an Australasian disaster management conference in Sydney later this month

"Yesterday I wrote to John Hamilton (head of MCDEM) noting the excellent response by the media to the situation. Our media sector plays an incredibly important part by exposing failure and producing a tension that pushes government agencies to make positive changes. I'm not advocating a black-out on reporting stuff ups; I want to see more evidence of the Ministry and local government working with media organisations so everyone is singing from the same song sheet.

"No doubt the Minister will be taking down names and asking some serious questions of his staff, and I for one look forward to reading or hearing about the outcome of that process.

"I equally look forward to hearing positive ideas from the media on what they think can be done to improve the trust New Zealanders put in emergency information."

Further information about the New Zealand Resilience Trust and its work in building community resilience can be found at www.nzrt.org.nz.

ENDS

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