Tsunami risk: do we learn our way forward, or repeat the mistakes of the past? NZIER Insight 66

New Zealand has just had a ‘near miss’ with tsunami risk – for the second time in the last three months.

This Insight, which updates an earlier Insight (no. 63), reinforces the message that we need to learn from these events so that major but infrequent risks can be mitigated.

We need an independent expert review so that we can take an evidence-based approach to learning from near misses. The Minister has signalled an overhaul of the ‘command and control’ structure but this review needs to look across the whole system.