Every five years the regional Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Group Plan needs to be reviewed. As a result, the Nelson Tasman Regional Group Plan has been reviewed and the draft is open for public consultation from Monday 5 August.
The potential changes to the national emergency system mainly driven by the relatively recent large events across New Zealand may take many months to be completed and subsequently implemented. In the meantime, disasters do not stick to a legislative timetable it is essential our current plan is fit for purpose while these legislative and regulatory changes are considered.
Since our last plan was developed in 2018, the Nelson Tasman region has experienced a number of significant events, said Joe Kennedy, Nelson Tasman Civil Defence Emergency Management Group Manager.
"Throughout these responses our current arrangements have been tested and nothing major has been identified that would require significant change to the structure of our Group Plan."
"While the current plan is still largely fit for purpose, we are proposing to update it in the following way to reflect changes and lessons learnt from responses over the past five years.
"In recent years Māori and Iwi have played an increasing role in emergency management, we have aligned to the National Disaster and Resilience Strategy and a number of processes and relationships have been updated, all these updates have been included in the Draft Regional Plan.
"While the current review of the CDEM legislation and system reforms are being undertaken, we are delaying the review of some elements of the existing plan, including our CDEM Group structure, agency roles and responsibilities and our response framework."
The Draft Plan can be found here(external link). The consultation period closes 2 September 2024.