A home and vehicle destroyed after Cyclone Gabrielle in the Esk Valley in Hawke's Bay. Photo: Tom Kitchin
After two years of major damage from storms, a key government unit has made an abrupt change to focus on cyber security over and above natural disasters.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) has led work on trying to disaster-proof a slew of critical infrastructure since Cyclone Gabrielle in early 2023.
It led a review that year that 100 groups including some of the biggest power lines, telecos and contractors made detailed submissions on - some worried at the costs, and urging the government to help them pay for any upgrades it might mandate.
But now, a change.
"The work programme to enhance critical infrastructure resilience being led by DPMC has been reshaped to focus on managing national security risk, particularly cyber security risks, and wider work on national risk and resilience," the department told RNZ.
Why remains unclear.
The shift took some players in DPMC's local government and industry reference group by surprise, coming after months of consulting them.
It told them by email last month the government had decided not to progress with the work in its current form. It talked about being open to ideas to address growing national security threats.
When RNZ asked Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell what was going on, he said to ask DPMC.
The department said all that previous work, including the feedback, would feed into the future work programme, "where applicable".
It listed in a statement the various other work programmes on natural disasters still going on, such as the National Direction for Natural Hazards, the Adaptation Framework, Emergency Management System improvements and the National Risk and Resilience Framework.
"The government remains committed to working with industry and other partners to strengthen the resilience of New Zealand's critical national infrastructure," it said.
Between 70 and 80 percent of New Zealanders in the latest survey by DPMC believe government agencies do not share enough information about significant hazards.
Hawke's Bay's economic development agency this week said it was hearing from businesses frustrated at not knowing what resilience work was planned - such as how to boost the back-up power supplies for cellphone towers, that were widely cut off by Gabrielle.
People surveyed nationally in December expressed relatively low confidence in authorities handling failures of critical infrastructure.
They rated severe storms and floods as the number one hazard out of 16 risks facing the country - the failure of critical infrastructure was rated sixth.
How private companies could be forced by legislation or regulation to bolster their infrastructure remains fraught.
The cost could be large, and how it might be shared around - or impact customers - has vexed officials, papers that RNZ has reported on showed.
This was a sticking point in the two prongs of legislation and regulation the previous government worked on for years, and was on the verge of pushing through, when Gabrielle hit, forcing a rethink.
Mitchell last year dumped the first prong of that.
RNZ is seeking clarification on what DPMC's "reshape" means for the second prong that covered what resilience-building obligations might be put on companies.
For now, MBIE said resilience was the companies' responsibility.
NEMA is now leading the so-called 'Emergency Management System Improvement Programme' - but how that intersects with making critical infrastructure better is not clear.
Not everything is in hiatus.
In telecommunications, One NZ said since December it had linked hundreds of thousands of customers with a new enough phone and a common plan, to a new cellphone-to-satellite service that uses SpaceX technology.
That is so far text-only.
One NZ promoted the tech "as the potential to provide another layer of resilience in public emergencies when traditional mobile and fixed networks are affected".
On the public side, MBIE has helped with some upgrades to power back-up in places hit by storms since 2023 - Hawke's Bay, Gisborne, Northland, Marlborough Sounds, West Coast, Coromandel and Manawatū.
Its officials are also looking at amending the National Environmental Standards for Telecommunications Facilities (NESTF) to allow, for instance, bigger batteries at cell towers, though that is subject to the sweeping change programme for the RMA.
Emergency services infrastructure has had upgrades, though the $1.4 billion Public Safety Network programme hit delays as the private joint venture delivering it fell apart last year.
Another bonus will be incoming tech that lets emergency services see where mobile coverage is available, helping them deploy staff, under the overarching Next Generation Critical Communications, or NGCC, programme.
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