Source: Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi
A Government that promised to “fix the basics” has now let New Zealand’s 24/7 geohazard monitoring centre shuts down twice in a matter of days.
GeoNet says its “eyes on monitoring” through the National Geohazards Monitoring Centre was temporarily suspended from 10pm last night until 6am today. It follows the closure of the centre on Friday night for eight hours because of staff shortages.
“We now have two instances of service shutdown in a matter of days. This is clear evidence of systemic failure,” said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi.
“The Government promised no frontline cuts. There is nothing more frontline than keeping Kiwis safe from earthquakes and tsunami. National promised to fix the basics. Instead, it’s breaking them, and this is now an election issue.
“The centre’s closure could mean that information about earthquakes is not provided quickly enough to the public and decision makers.
“Earth Sciences NZ is taking an appropriate and responsible approach by issuing public notifications of service shutdowns, but it should never have come to this.
“Responsibility for the closure lies squarely with the Government, which imposed these cuts. It’s a national tragedy waiting to happen.
The centre opened in 2018 so that analysts would monitor geohazard events around the clock, rather than relying on scientists on call from home. Since then, the team monitoring live earthquake data has been cut from 20 to 15 and its annual funding cut by a third to $24 million.
“The Government is again putting saving dollars ahead of saving lives.”
Scientists warned this would happen. Former geohazard analyst Caleb Rapson Nuñez del Prado, who took redundancy after his team was cut, told the Save Science Coalition’s report Underfunding our Future that New Zealand’s monitoring would at times “step backwards from a live monitoring system to an on-call system”.
Report: https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/2604/Save_Science_coalition_publication_2026_digital_version.pdf
“The Government must immediately intervene; admit it got it wrong and restore funding. This is just a snapshot of the damage to come as the Government pushes ahead with more cuts.
“The closure is also another glaring example of why we need a public good test to assess the impacts on services from cuts before they happen.
“The Prime Minister needs to front up about what other services that keep New Zealanders safe this government will cut if it’s re-elected. This is why we need a new government that properly values the services New Zealanders rely on.”
Previous statement
10 October Fixing the basics? Govt cuts let geohazard monitoring centre go dark last night: https://www.psa.org.nz/news-media/fixing-the-basics-govt-cuts-let-geohazard-monitoring-centre-go-dark-last-night
The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi is Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest trade union, representing and supporting more than 95,000 workers across central government, state-owned enterprises, local councils, Health NZ and community groups.