Video: No accountability in Government Inquiry report, says Cyclone Gabrielle community advocate
There is no accountability in the report by the Government Inquiry into Cyclone Gabrielle, says a Cyclone community advocate.
Louise Parsons, who has been advocating for the Esk Valley, Bay View and other communities since the Cyclone last year, was reacting to the Government Inquiry into the Response to the North Island Severe Weather Events.
The Inquiry, led by former Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, was set up by Government to review the response to Cyclone Gabrielle, and other North Island weather events last year.
Parsons said: “When I read page four, there's point three, it says that, ‘There is going to be no blame attributed to any individual entity.’ And I thought, ‘Do I really want to keep reading?’ Because it's just showing that there is actually no accountability for any of the findings.”
She says nothing will ever bring back the victims of the cyclone including “little Ivy” who lost her life.
“I spent the morning with Jack and Ella who lost little Ivy in the floods and no reports ever going to bring them back. But had they been evacuated, Ivy would still be alive today. And they're angry. They're so angry about this review.”
“So that's my feelings towards it. Waste of time, waste of money. There's nothing in there that none of us didn't know already, and no one's coming out and saying, ‘We're sorry we got this wrong’."
A lack of public warning systems and public notifications, including evacuation alerts, had a significant impact on Hawke’s Bay communities, the report said.
Parsons says 14 months later, nothing has been done about it.
“Nothing's been done. All they've done, all that the councils have done so far is put all our rates up.”
The Inquiry also found the role of the NZ Defence Force also came into question. The Inquiry said the NZDF was a reassuring presence for communities in Cyclone Gabrielle, but was frustrated at lack of clarity of its roles. Despite this the armed services made a valuable contribution to the response.
Asked about the NZDF, Parsons said: “Well, they were bringing water that we weren't allowed to drink because they weren't registered as being allowed to allocate drinking water.”
“This is the stuff that we had to put up with. And I can only imagine how awkward it must have been for the Defence Force, how frustrating. Some of them couldn't come and help with silt because of the contamination. We were up to our knees in the stuff because we had to get it out of the houses. We didn't worry about that.”
“There's a lot of things that have been said that you just think, ‘Really?’ It's a natural disaster and all the red tape should be completely cut.”
Another finding was that Police did not anticipate people taking advantage of situation caused by the Cyclone.
This resulted in multiple reports of lawless and anti-social behaviour in Hawke’s Bay following the Cyclone.
Parsons says that what happened during the Christchurch earthquake to see what would happen in Hawke’s Bay.
“The looting was rife when that happened. So what's going to be different here? And if they don't know criminal activity, what are they doing in the police? And I do not blame the frontline staff because they were overwhelmed with everything. So I don't blame them. But in regards to resources, not using the Defence Force, crazy, crazy stuff.”
Watch the accompanying video to see the interview with Louise Parsons.
