15 July - 6 August
The Ministry undertook to review our CDEM public education messages once the Consistent Messages for CDEM document was published in 2010. The aim was to ensure that the Get Ready material we offered the public was consistent with the published Consistent Messages document.

The Get Ready public education messages are the reference point for public education materials produced by the Ministry, as well as councils and CDEM Groups. This includes printed material such as the Get Ready brochures and checklists, the Get Ready website in nine languages, CDEM advertising and media/editorial articles, and the What’s The Plan Stan? school resource.

The Ministry is now consulting with the CDEM sector on the proposed changes before we update all our national public education resources.

Go to the download page

In response to feedback from the sector the Ministry has set up an online calendar to help CDEM Groups stay informed about upcoming consultation periods for MCDEM guidelines and other publications as well as other important dates and events. The aim is to provide a “one-stop” source of national-level information that CDEM Groups can use to plan and delegate tasks to ensure contribution can be made.
The calendar can be access from the Homepage or by clicking here

The CDEM Awards Programme was introduced by the Minister of Civil Defence in 2009 to recognise career and volunteer personnel within the New Zealand CDEM sector. The Programme also serves to raise awareness of CDEM efforts across New Zealand. This is a call for nominations for the inaugural presentation of CDEM Gold and Silver Awards.

Nominations should be received by the Director of CDEM from CDEM Groups and Councils by 31 July 2010.

Nominees for CDEM Gold and Silver Awards must have performed outstanding or important work in the field of CDEM above and beyond routine work and service. Nominations should outline the nominee’s participation in CDEM and how this contribution has helped CDEM in New Zealand. Nomination forms and further information about the CDEM Awards Programme is available here or by emailing CDEM.Awards@dia.govt.nz.

The CDEM Amendment Regulations 2010 have been approved by the Governor-General, and will come into force on 1 August 2010.

See the full text of the Amendment Regulations or download a PDF version.

A number of technical changes were made to the prescribed forms for declaring, extending or terminating a state of emergency. The amendments ensure that the prescribed forms are as “ready-to-use” as possible during a civil defence emergency and help reduce the likelihood of errors and the risk of liability issues arising from the declaration process.

Each individual CDEM Group and their local authority members need to ensure that all of their existing forms are replaced with the new forms by 31 July 2010, and the new forms must be used from 1 August 2010.

An amendment to the regulations has also been made to allow different design options for the civil defence logo to be used on medallions for the Ministerial CDEM Awards Programme which was launched by the Minister of Civil Defence in late 2009. This amendment does not directly affect any CDEM Groups or local authorities in terms of their use of the logo. The amendments will be incorporated into the CDEM Regulations 2003 from 1 August 2010, and the new electronic version of the regulations will be provided from that date.

The programme and registration details for the North Island CDEM conference to be hosted in Whangarei 23-24 November 2010 are now all available at www.nrc.govt.nz/cdemevents

The week commencing May 24 witnessed torrential rain and localised flooding in the Waitaki region. However, close contact with Met Service and the Otago Regional Council’s flood room in the days leading up the event enabled emergency management staff to take the initiative and respond well ahead of time. Emergency Services Manager Chris Raine summarises the response.

“This was a coastal flood event that extended inland to the Corriedale area. There were no obvious stock losses, injuries or loss of life. The NZ army was used for welfare runs and area reconnaissance missions. This event was managed for six days as a non-declared emergency with a full EOC complement that issued regular media releases locally and nationally, along with situation reports and incident action plans. There were lessons learnt that will be applied to the next event. The EOC team has formally met and debriefed the weeks work. The professionalism shown by the council/community staff who gave up their normal work to assist civil defence was impressive. People worked hard and were very dedicated to the tasks that had to be solved. The EOC atmosphere was cordial and productive with a good relationship across the council EOC team, community volunteers assisting, emergency services, support agencies and contractors represented there and in the field.”


Photo: State Highway 1 flooded at Richmond as far as the eye can see about 4-6km in length.

Exercise writer’s workshop
MCDEM will be hosting an exercise writing workshop in Wellington on 27 July 2010. CDEM Group exercise planner/writers from around the country will meet with national agency representatives to discuss the detailed scenario, exercise control and evaluation structures, and boundaries for exercise writing. National agency representatives, GNS Science and MCDEM staff will be available to answer questions and provide support in the exercise writing process. This workshop (and a possible second workshop closer to the exercise date) will help ensure that there is a connection between local, regional and national level exercise planning.

For Exercise Tangaroa, the national planning/writing team will develop the following types of injects for all participants:

Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) Tsunami Information Bulletins
foreign science agency reports
MetService weather and swell warnings
international and domestic media reports.

Participating agencies are free to develop their own injects based on their geographical area and functional responsibilities. However these should be aligned with the national exercise objectives and Master Schedule of Events. If you have any questions related to exercise writing, contact the appropriate exercise planner/writer for your area.

Exercise evaluation
Work will start in July on the national exercise evaluation guideline and associated evaluation form. An Exercise Control and Evaluator Rules of Play document will be produced along with an evaluation form that will prompt evaluators to look for certain actions in the exercise and allow them to determine whether or not the national, Group, Territorial Authority and other agency objectives and key performance indicators are met. Each agency may adapt this national evaluation form to include their objectives and key performance indicators.

Agency participation in Exercise Tangaroa
Registration for participation in Exercise Tangaroa closed on 21 May 2010. Participation forms have flooded in and we now have 90 agencies who have confirmed their commitment to the exercise. Download a list of participating agencies (doc)
If your agency wishes to participate in the exercise, and you haven’t registered you can still do so. Complete an Agency Participation Form (doc) and forward it to Exercise Coordinators Jo Guard or Tane Woodley to confirm participation. Levels of participation definitions can be found on the Exercise Tangaroa pages of the Ministry website link.

Exercise writing and management course
A series of pilot courses were delivered during June and early July in Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. The purpose of these courses (delivered as part of the build-up to Exercise Tangaroa) was to build and maintain national consistency and quality standards for exercise development across the CDEM sector.

To this end, the courses were aligned with CDEM Exercises: Director’s Guideline published in July 2009 and provided practical, hands-on activities to support personnel tasked with developing and managing CDEM exercises.

Jo Guard (Emergency Management Advisor, Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and course facilitator) was pleased with the enthusiasm and level of engagement of the course participants. “Participants were divided into small groups forming a mix of agencies and experience. The inter-agency approach to the course was very successful and participants were able to create a mini-exercise in their groups during the two-day course using one of their agencies as a case study. We hope that people will take away the tools they received in the course and use the networking opportunity presented to continue to work together to peer review future exercise work” she said.


Photo: Pauline Hitchcock (Roturua District Council), Peter Carr (Vodafone), Paul Blewman (Hamilton City Council), Craig Bosson (Manukau City Council)) and Suzanne Vowles (Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management) work through one of the course activities at the Exercise Writing and Management Course held in Tauranga on 21 and 22 June 2010. Jo Guard (Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management) looks on.