Interesting to see the reports of Helen Clark’s comments about our preparedness to deal with a natural disaster.

“There were no deaths mostly because there were years of a strong building code and anticipating that New Zealand, on the ring of fire and volcanic area around the Pacific, could suffer such an event,” she said in an online video chat this morning

This reminded me of something I had been meaning to do since the quake, which was to congratulate successive Ministers of Civil Defence and the officials for the work done to improve oure responsiveness to a disaster. I can remember when working in the Beehive the great work that Rick Barker, for one, led to upgrade the systems and processes of civil defence.

Also great to note that Helen was making these comments on a live Facebook chat. Open government at the global level!