{"id":625213,"date":"2026-10-09T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625213\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T09:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:18:09","slug":"geonets-earthquake-monitoring-centre-closes-due-to-lack-of-staff-labour-decries-govt-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625213\/","title":{"rendered":"GeoNet\u2019s earthquake monitoring centre closes due to lack of staff, Labour decries Govt cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">GeoNet\u2019s Data Science and Geohazards Monitoring operations manager Bruce Girdwood said in a statement Earth Sciences New Zealand\u2019s geohazard monitoring and response capability remained available 24\/7, but not the \u201ceyes-on service\u201d the centre typically provided, which could lead to \u201coccasional inaccuracies\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cDuring this period, automatically generated earthquake information will continue to appear on the GeoNet website,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cBecause some events will not be immediately reviewed by an analyst, occasional inaccuracies may occur, including the appearance of \u2018ghost quakes\u2019, which are incorrectly auto-located earthquakes that can appear in the latest earthquakes list. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAny significant geohazard events will continue to be assessed and communicated by our on-call duty teams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">The Herald initially approached Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell but was told the responsibility to respond to the development lay with Penny Simmonds, likely in her role as Science, Innovation and Technology Minister. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Simmonds\u2019 office has been approached for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">In December 2024, the Herald revealed National Emergency Management Agency leaders expressed concerns that a proposed GNS Science restructure disestablishing 96 positions posed a \u201csignificant risk\u201d to GeoNet\u2019s ability to manage its functions and provide the \u201cnecessary leadership capability and capacity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">In a statement today, Labour public service spokeswoman Camilla Belich called on Mitchell to address the issue. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe can\u2019t pick and choose when earthquakes strike. If it happens tonight, NZ won\u2019t have the support of accurate GeoNet data. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIf [the Government] can cut this essential service who knows what they will cut next.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GeoNet\u2019s Data Science and Geohazards Monitoring operations manager Bruce Girdwood said in a statement Earth Sciences New Zealand\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[17517,1550,2562,5201,18509,203797,262150,10666,262291,48803,5910,6752,273,1888,307207,7237,24912,6721,27135,25306,111,139,69,1118,3109,147,2552,1516,49191,2044,61,5977],"class_list":["post-625213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-because","tag-centre","tag-claims","tag-closed","tag-closes","tag-consequence","tag-constraints","tag-cuts","tag-decries","tag-disaster","tag-due","tag-earthquake","tag-environment","tag-first","tag-geonets","tag-governments","tag-govt","tag-labour","tag-lack","tag-monitoring","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-public","tag-science","tag-service","tag-staff","tag-staffing","tag-time","tag-to","tag-which"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}