Long-term Insights Briefing 2025: Building New Zealand’s Long-term Resilience to Hazards

The Government has published a Long-term Insights Briefing on building New Zealand’s long-term resilience to hazards, such as severe weather, pandemics, volcanic activity, and earthquakes.

The briefing discusses New Zealand’s evolving hazard landscape, the tradeoffs and tough decisions New Zealand will need to make, and opportunities for resilience-building.

As the briefing states, “Resilience is not a nice-to-have; it is a prudent way to ensure our prosperity and security”. Embedding resilience into our systems and decision-making processes is a long-term commitment that requires sustained focus, not just in the aftermath of events, and collaboration across all sectors of society, from national scale down to households.

It is also a commitment that must transcend political cycles. The significant benefits of resilience are also a reason to move quickly. Action is more effective the earlier it is taken. Since the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Ministry for the Environment began developing this briefing on behalf of the, now former, National Hazards Board, new governance arrangements have been made for the National Resilience System. These are designed to improve efficiency, minimise duplication and increase focus.