Infrastructure failures: Govt makes little headway on fixing weaknesses
Critical infrastructure - including cellphone networks - remains "insufficient" when disruptions hit, according to a discussion paper.
Photo:
citadelle/123RF
Two widespread communications failures in the Northland storm and Otago within two days last week have again exposed the vulnerability of the country's critical infrastructure.
The outages came within hours of the government releasing its latest ideas about fixing the weaknesses exploited in each new disaster.
But its efforts have hit hurdles similar to those seen by the government, according to Cabinet papers newly released to RNZ.
The papers show Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop had "specific options" to improve investment by companies and reduce "overall costs borne by taxpayers and the economy more broadly from costly infrastructure failures", and that he wanted to put these options to the public last year for consultation.
But other Cabinet ministers raised concerns - which are blanked out in the OIA papers - and he withdrew his paper.
Bishop told RNZ he was not "blocked" from bringing in regulations last year.
"The work is now progressing in part through my upcoming programme on improving infrastructure asset management,"
New Zealand ranks second to Bangladesh in expected financial losses from natural disasters relative to GDP. Other official data showed 92 percent of respondents worried about severe weather, 88 percent about major earthquakes and 78 percent about cyber threats.
But critical infrastructure - such as power, water and fibreoptic lines, bridges, roads and cellphone networks - remained "insufficient" when disruptions hit, a discussion document about a new Emergency Management Bill said.
That document was released a week ago. A day later, the two most important phone and internet lines near Dunedin were cut - one by a contractor digging, and
one by rats chewing through it
on Wednesday - leaving One New Zealand considered if it needs a third cable.
At the other end of the country, Northland police were telling people on Thursday to use landlines after power cuts caused by ex-cyclone Tam disrupted cellphone networks.
This raised questions as power cuts cam also disrupt landlines.
The Far North's civil defence leader spoke up, calling for government action.
"
Wave the big stick
," said Kelly Stratford, who is also Far North deputy mayor.
Industry group Electricity Networks Aotearoa is now asking: "How many more trees need to fall on power lines before the rules change?"
Hokianga artist Lise Strathdee told RNZ on Tuesday she did not need to call 111 at any point in the storm, but she worried the country's communications systems were not up to the task.
"I don't think the status quo is good enough."
She heard One NZ telling its customers they could use their mobiles via satellite, but this would leave others out, and solutions should be for everyone.
"I think there's a lot of confusion," said Strathdee.
"It's best to just push forward and realise what are the most important things, and definitely I would have thought in emergency events, communications... is one of the number one priorities.
"So what can the government do to address the critical infrastructure?"
Bishop has said making critical infrastructure more resilient was one of his top six priorities.
Eighteen months ago, he intended to create "enforceable minimum resilience standards" for companies such as telcos, and also "information-gathering powers" for the government to know what companies had done - or not done - to improve cables, pipes and ports, Cabinet papers show.
But the discussion document on the new Bill does not mention "enforceable minimum resilience standards".
Bishop told RNZ that standards were among the "non-regulatory and regulatory options" he was exploring.
These included mandatory long-term capital plans and asset management plans; information disclosure requirements, including on performance and indicators; upskilling opportunities; minimum standards; and stronger scrutiny and monitoring, he said.
A series of Cabinet papers between July and December showed Bishop's attempt to consult the public was dropped mid-year.
In September, officials told Bishop they were looking at proposals "designed to keep costs of compliance as low as possible and avoid the gold-plating of assets".
Governments around the world are struggling with the costs from imposing higher standards to try to withstand earthquakes and floods, while digital networks also need to deal with multiplying cyber attacks - more than 7000 of them last year in this country.
The cost of not acting is huge - the North Island storms of 2023 killed 15 people, and Cyclone Gabrielle cost people almost half a billion dollars during a fortnight of power cuts.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told the government in November: "The relative vulnerability of people, property and infrastructure is growing."
A Bill worked on by the last government from 2018 till 2022 would have imposed "contentious" new planning, reporting and information-sharing requirements for critical infrastructure entities.
But the Bill overall was widely seen as too weak, and was dropped by the new government last March.
The Telecommunications Forum industry group said it did not have a problem with minimum resilience standards, as long they were not prescriptive in a way that might hold back innovation.
Earlier this year, the forum called on the government to be much clearer about what it would or would not mandate them to do.
"We want some clarity," it told RNZ.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has said the resilience of telecommunications infrastructure
"sits with the network operators themselves"
.
After years of delays and multiple scathing inquiries into disaster responses, the new Emergency Management Bill is expected to be out in a few months and enacted in 2026.
But the discussion document also makes it clear that officials were still testing "whether we have accurately identified and defined the underlying problems" - nine months after Bishop tried to get a second round of public consultation going.
Bishop's options were "consistent" with legislation in Australia, a Cabinet paper said.
Australia imposed new obligations on operators across 11 critical sectors in 2018, including having to report back on compliance each year, with a big focus on cyber security.
One of Bishop's options was "a mandatory approach to risk management".
"However, Ministers raised a number of concerns... and the paper was withdrawn," said a briefing in December.
The options and the concerns were largely blanked out in the OIA.
"The slow pace of transformative change" was sure to concern many people, said Mark Mitchell, who is in charge of the new Bill.
Strathdee and other locals hit by storms have questioned why the landline copper cables that offered a backup system were being pulled out, if resilience was so crucial. The cables are expected to be all gone by 2030.
Chorus said last week's problems were with its roadside cabinets.
One problem is how to split the costs of resilience upgrades. The Cabinet papers put it this way: "Five well-understood market failures make resilience a competitive disadvantage" - meaning there is no requirement to tell consumers that one network is more resilient than another, so no way to give the investor in a stronger system a clear incentive.
Cabinet set up a new National Risk and Resilience Framework in December, which laid out 30 national risks and which agency was lead on each.
At the same time, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon approved his department withdrawing from its lead role on critical infrastructure overall, to focus on cyber security and on implementing the new framework.
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In the light of the time, effort and taxpayer money wasted by the ACT Party in bringing their pre-destined-to-fail Bill into Parliament, there should have been calls made - simultaneously - for the ACT Party to apologise. Seriously. We might then have had genuine grounds for a compromise. The Action Against Universities ACT's recent move to restrict the discretion of universities is disturbing on several grounds. But here's a contemporary concern. In the US, the Trump administration's recent attacks on major universities like Harvard - and their international students - has been aimed at punishing campus demonstrations against US/Israeli policy on Gaza, and at deterring university councils from divesting their sizeable investments in Israel. As yet, protests against Gaza have not been not as prominent on campuses here. Here's how the Gaza issue could easily come to the fore. New Zealand joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as an observer on June 24, 2022. 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For example: we will have had to complete a survey on the state of Holocaust education, remembrance, and research in the country, which will have been submitted to the IHRA Permanent Office at least eight weeks before the Plenary meeting at which the interested government seeks admission as an Observer. Evidently - since New Zealand does now have observer status within the IHRA - we did all of the above. Much as some NZ politicians profess to oppose the use of the education curriculum for social engineering purposes, there would be few New Zealanders who would oppose a commitment to ensuring that nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again. But here's the not un-related problem. In December 2023, the US Congress passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act that placed a very broad definition of anti-Semitism, promoted by the IHRA at the centre of federal civil rights law. 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Kenneth Stern, who self-identifies as a Zionist (and who was the lead drafter of the IHRA definition) has since spoken out in the New Yorker magazine against the misuse of the IHRA definition by right wing Jewish extremists. Among Stern's concerns is that the IHRA definition could be weaponised to stifle legitimate protest. So here's the thing. IF ACT feels driven to protect free speech on campus, would it oppose - or would it support - the adoption by university councils of the definition of anti-Semitism being promoted by the IHRA? In 2018, the Auckland University Students Association formally adopted the IHRA definition, but it is unclear whether student unions at any other NZ university have followed suit, let alone any NZ university administrations. Would ACT - as a a self-declared champion of free speech on controversial issues - support or oppose them doing so, given how the definition has allegedly been weaponised to restrict free speech? 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It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants 'between the river and the sea,' whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form. And here's Guideline 14 : 14. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic. In its preamble, the Jerusalem Declaration also makes a useful distinction between criticism of the actions of the Israeli state, and anti-Semitism. It states 'Hostility to Israel could be an expression of anti-Semitic animus, or it could be a reaction to a human rights violation, or ... the emotion that a Palestinian person feels on account of their experience at the hands of the State.' Exactly. Criticism of the Israeli state is not necessarily (or primarily) motived by sentiments of anti-Semitism. Reportedly, the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism has been signed by three hundred and fifty scholars, including the historian Omar Bartov and Susannah Heschel, the chair of the Jewish Studies programme at the prestigious Dartmouth College in the US. So, and again… since ACT Party seems intent on having the state dictate to university councils how they should handle issues of free speech on campus, perhaps ACT can enlighten us on how it thinks universities should be treating allegations and defining the parameters of anti-Semitism. For starters: which definition of anti-Semitism does the ACT Party believe is more conducive to free and open debate on campus (and why) - the IHRA one, or the Jerusalem Declaration On Anti-Semitism? Big Thief Returns Adrianne Lenker's lyrics can seem as natural as breathing, at least until you notice how tightly structured her rhymes are, how surprising her analogies can be, and how the song narrative never wanders from the path of her intent. The new Big Thief track 'Incomprehensible' starts out as road trip with her lover along the Canadian side of Lake Superior - Thunder Bay and Old Woman Bay get nam-checked - before in verse two, the song becomes a meditation on growing old, and on how society teaches women to react with dread to the signs of ageing. Instead, Linker celebrates the silver hairs now falling on her shoulders, and what she sees in the faces and bodies of her older female relatives. Most songwriters would have left it that. But Lenker turns further inwards. As the lyric says, she wrote this song on the eve of her 33rd birthday, and she seems to have to terms with how unknowable - incomprehensible - we are to ourselves, and to each other. If you know Lenker's back catalogue, the 'Incomprehensible'song (BTW, it is the opening track of the upcoming Big Thief album Double Infinity) is the polar opposite of her earlier solo track, 'Zombie Girl.' In that song about a dis-integrating relationship, she's failing to bridge the distance between herself, and the zombie girl lying beside her.
