This page provides information about the Emergency Management Law Reform Programme
The Emergency Management Law Reform Programme will set the foundations for a modern, inclusive, responsive, fit-for-purpose, and enduring regulatory framework for New Zealand’s emergency management system The four priority areas of work in the Programme will:
effectively implement and transition to the new regulatory framework.
develop an agreed operating model, governance arrangements, and transition thresholds and criteria to clarify lead and support agency roles and responsibilities.
ensure iwi and Māori participation is recognised, enabled, and valued throughout the emergency management system.
An increase in the severity and frequency of emergencies, including the state of national emergency declared for the North Island Severe Weather Events (2023), has highlighted a pressing need to modernise and update the current emergency management regulatory framework.
To implement the Emergency Management Act (when passed) and related Cabinet decisions, this Project will deliver transition resources, workshops, processes, regulations, rules, guidelines, guidance. These are needed to ensure NEMA and the emergency management system can continue to operate effectively and comply with new legislative requirements.
Some agencies are designated lead or support responsibilities for particular types of hazards or threats. For example, while NEMA leads (at a national level) for geological hazards such as earthquakes, the Ministry for Primary Industries leads for droughts affecting the rural sector, and Fire and Emergency NZ leads for wildfires.
The lead agency project will develop the operating model, governance arrangements, and transition thresholds and criteria to clarify lead and support agency roles and responsibilities.
This project seeks to co-develop with Māori and the emergency management sector the structures needed to enhance Māori participation in the emergency management system.
In 2020 the National Emergency Management Agency established the Regulatory Framework Review (Trifecta) Programme to bring together three projects that have significant alignment. The projects were:
Since late 2022, NEMA has made a range of prioritisation decisions to address the changing needs of the emergency management system. As part of this, the scope of the Programme was updated in May 2023 to remove the review of the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan and development of the NDRS Roadmap. These projects will now be progressed separately.
