Kia ora, welcome to e-Bulletin
In this edition of e-Bulletin:
NEMA News
- 660,000 Kiwis get ready with ShakeOut
- National Welfare Forum 2026: filling the kete together
- Exercise Pacific Wave 2026: strengthening tsunami readiness across Aotearoa
Sector Spotlights
- NZ Response Teams train for severe weather at Exercise Tri-Force
- South Island Emergency Management Conference builds connections for future emergencies
- Christchurch response teams achieve national re-accreditation
- Waiheke Island Response Team established
Upcoming Opportunities
- EMPA 2026 is almost here
- Looking ahead to 2027: North Island Emergency Management Conference
- NEMA vacancies
Stay in the loop
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660,000 Kiwis get ready with ShakeOut
More than 660,000 people signed up for ShakeOut 2026, with Gisborne recording the highest participation rate in the country, with 22% of residents registered.
In the lead-up to ShakeOut, NEMA staff visited Pōrangahau School to run a ShakeOut drill and encourage students and teachers to take part.
On ShakeOut Day, NEMA partnered with Wellington SPCA for a TVNZ Breakfast segment on preparing pets for emergencies. The feature shared practical advice on creating pet emergency kits, keeping identification details up to date, and planning for pets if families need to leave home during a disaster.
These activities helped bring ShakeOut messages to audiences across New Zealand and encouraged more people to practise what they would do during an earthquake or tsunami.
Thank you to everyone who supported ShakeOut this year.
From developing content and supporting media opportunities to working with schools, communities and partner organisations, your efforts helped more New Zealanders take part, practise their response, and build their preparedness.
Still time to take part
If you know someone who wanted to take part in ShakeOut but couldn't participate on Wednesday, there's still time to sign up. As in previous years, registrations remain open for two weeks after the event and close on 4 November.
Anyone who signs up before then will also be eligible to win prizes. Register for ShakeOut.
National Welfare Forum 2026: filling the kete together
Group Welfare Managers meet regularly to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and support one another. The strength of this network lies in those relationships and in the different experiences and perspectives each person brings to the collective kete.
The recent National Welfare Forum provided an opportunity to strengthen those connections.
We were joined on day one by representatives from responsible agencies, bringing together a wealth of knowledge and experience from across the country. Together, we explored what the future of welfare could look like and considered opportunities presented by the National CDEM Plan Review.
Day two focused on Māori engagement in welfare, including a fiercely competitive exercise where groups competed to buy and sell what they believed were the most valuable assets in the Māori-welfare relationship. The activity sparked thoughtful discussion about what matters most in building and maintaining strong partnerships.
Across the forum, conversations returned to a common theme how we can strengthen the way we understand and respond to the needs of people and communities. This included exploring a "North Star" for a mana-enhancing approach to needs assessment, marae reimbursement processes and how we collectively prepare for mass relief.
It wasn't all deep thinking and workshop discussions. There was a dinner (or two), plenty of laughter, and many opportunities to reflect together on what we've learned, what we're doing well, and what we're still figuring out.
The National Welfare Forum united our welfare whānau, weaving stronger connections across our communities and adding to the collective kete of whakaaro, mātauranga, and experience that we all carry forward.
Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi
With your food basket, and my food basket, the people will thrive.
Exercise Pacific Wave 2026: strengthening tsunami readiness across Aotearoa
Exercise Pacific Wave 2026 was held on 14 October, bringing together emergency management organisations from across New Zealand to test our collective readiness for a large distant-source tsunami event.
The exercise focused on national tsunami warning, escalation, coordination, and early response arrangements, with particular emphasis on alerting and decision-making, situational awareness and coordination, and public information and warnings. All Emergency Management Committees participated in some capacity, alongside approximately 18 national agencies, with several agencies providing Liaison Officers to the National Crisis Management Centre.
The exercise provided an opportunity to test how we work together across the emergency management system, from regional coordination through to national-level decision-making and governance arrangements. It also highlighted valuable lessons and opportunities to further strengthen New Zealand's tsunami preparedness and response capability.
Ngā mihi nui to everyone who contributed to the exercise. Whether you were among those responding to the early morning warning notifications, participating from regional emergency coordination centres, supporting from agency offices around the country, working in the National Crisis Management Centre, or helping behind the scenes with planning and delivery, your commitment and professionalism made the exercise a success.
Evaluation activities, including participant debriefs and formal assessment processes, are now underway. The insights gained will inform ongoing continuous improvement work across the emergency management system.
Thank you to all involved for your time, effort, and dedication. Ka pai for helping strengthen New Zealand's readiness for future tsunami events.
NZ Response Teams train for severe weather at Exercise Tri Force
Auckland Emergency Management (AEM) planned and hosted Exercise Tri-Force – Mahi Ngātahi from 9-11 October, with support from Deployable Capabilities and the New Zealand Response Team Steering Group.
Held every two years, the exercise brings response teams together to practise responding to emergencies in realistic scenarios.
At the opening ceremony, John Cranfield, Head of Operations at Auckland Emergency Management, Dave Gawn, Director-General and Chief Executive of the National Emergency Management Agency, and Councillor Alf Filipaina, Chair of the Auckland Emergency Management Committee, highlighted the value of realistic training and strong partnerships in preparing volunteers to support their communities during emergencies.
The exercise simulated a severe weather event affecting Auckland, including flooding, damaging winds, landslides and disruption to infrastructure. Teams worked across multiple locations, putting their cross-team collaboration, leadership, communication, resource coordination and technical skills to the test.
At Camp Adair, teams built flood protection measures, carried out temporary repairs to storm-damaged structures and established a Civil Defence Centre to provide welfare support. At the Ward Demolition site, teams searched a simulated collapsed structure and assessed injured people. At Wero Whitewater Park, teams responded to widespread flooding and evacuated or rescued isolated people.
Thanks to AEM for delivering a successful exercise that provided NZRT volunteers the opportunity to train together, test their skills and learn from the experience.
Councillors, Local Boards, Auckland Council, AEM, Police and NEMA
Exercise attendees
South Island Emergency Management Conference builds connections for future emergencies
Over 160 emergency management professionals, community leaders, iwi representatives, government agencies and resilience specialists were in Greymouth in September for the 2026 South Island Emergency Management Conference.
The event, hosted by West Coast Emergency Management, focused on Preparing People and Places. It included sessions about Real World Adaption: Resilient Westport; AF8: 10 years of collective action and impact, the Role of AI in Emergency Management and Disaster risk and resilience science in the South Island.
West Coast Emergency Management Regional Manager Claire Brown says a great range of agencies and practitioners were represented at the conference.
“It was a really successful event. What we heard from those who attended was they very much valued the opportunity to come together and listen to the strong programme of presenters.
“The conference was also an opportunity to build on the fellowship and sense of community among attendees. The value of knowing who each other is and how we all contribute - before we are thrown into the next emergency event -can’t be underestimated.”
There were also economic benefits for the Coast with people staying in local accommodation and eating out. This was another way to showcase and promote the region, says Claire Brown.
She thanked event sponsors the Natural Hazards Commission, National Emergency Management Agency, NZ Transport Agency/Waka Kotahi and Response & Recovery Aotearoa NZ.
“The conference simply wouldn’t have been possible without their support.”
Waiheke Island Response Team established
Auckland Emergency Management is pleased to welcome 16 members to the newly established Waiheke Island Response Team.
Based at the Waiheke Island Local Board and Auckland Council offices, the team began its training programme in mid-August and will continue building its skills as members work towards national accreditation as a New Zealand Response Team (NZRT).
Team members are currently undertaking training in Foundation skills, Flood Response, Civil Defence Centres and Welfare activities. These capabilities will help strengthen Waiheke Island’s emergency preparedness and enhance the support available to the community during emergencies.
The team has already shown great enthusiasm, commitment, and a desire to serve their community. We are excited to support their development and see the positive contribution they will make to Waiheke Island's resilience and emergency response capability.
Christchurch response teams achieve national
re-accreditation
Over the past five months, Christchurch’s three New Zealand Response Teams (NZRT 10, NZRT 11 and NZRT 14) have completed the national re-accreditation process. The assessments checked each team’s capability against national standards and identified opportunities to strengthen their readiness to support communities during emergencies.
NZRT 14 began the process in July. Assessors reviewed the team's administration, equipment, qualifications, and incident reporting before members completed a series of skills stations and emergency scenarios.
NZRT 11 completed its assessment in August, with assessors from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), and the Response Team Steering Group reviewing the same core capabilities.
NZRT 10 completed its assessment in early October and is working through the final stages of the process.
All three teams received remedial actions and recommendations to help strengthen capability beyond the minimum standard. NZRT 11 and NZRT 14 have now completed all remedial actions and achieved accredited NZRT status.
Christchurch City Council is grateful for the commitment and dedication of its volunteer response teams. Their members step forward to support communities during emergencies, both in Christchurch and across New Zealand when needed.
EMPA 2026 is almost here
The 2026 EMPA conference is just around the corner, with emergency and crisis communicators from across New Zealand gathering in Wellington on 5 and 6 November.
The programme features leading local and international speakers, practical case studies, and valuable networking opportunities for anyone working in emergency management communications and engagement.
Some tickets are still available. We look forward to seeing colleagues from across the sector.
Looking ahead to 2027: North Island Emergency Management Conference
Emergency Management Bay of Plenty will be hosting a North Island Emergency Management Conference in Tauranga, in September 2027.
The conference has a theme of “Shaping Tomorrow: Building the Future of Emergency Management” and an expression of interest call will shortly be going out on EMBOP’s LinkedIn for those who would like to present a case study or research project.
More information about the conference will be shared in early 2027.
CDEM Vacancies
Emergency Management Southland - Emergency Management Advisor Role - closes 15 November 2026.
To list a CDEM role on the Civil Defence website, please email our communications team at communicationsnema@nema.govt.nz
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