Gerry Brownlee collapses upon himself and event horizons into a black hole

ByMartyn Bradbury

9425777

Soz Gerry, what were you saying about Geonet never asking for extra funding and attacking them for daring to challenge you in public?

Government ‘never, ever’ told to upgrade tsunami warning system – Brownlee

Acting Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee has been accused of vilifying a Geonet scientist who spoke out about the need for a better tsunami warning system in New Zealand.

Brownlee stood his ground today, saying the country’s quake monitoring agency Geonet had “never, ever” raised the issue directly with the Government.

Following last week’s Magnitude 7.8 quake near Kaikoura, Geonet director Ken Gledhill blogged about the need for an expanded, around-the-clock monitoring system.

When Gledhill repeated the comments at a press conference at Parliament yesterday, Brownlee responded angrily, saying he had been blindsided by the scientist.

…so was Geonet lying about needing more funding…

Brownlee met with GNS Science chair Nicola Crauford today to discuss the matter.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, he said it was now apparent that GNS had raised a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week monitoring system in various reports over the years.

…right. So Gerry’s wrong.

With all the pressure and stress of an Earthquake you can forgive Gerry for blowing this, but it’s not a good look attacking scientists.

Gerry needs to apologise and retract.

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15 Comments

  1. There should also be a park bench dedicated to the memory and legacy of John Key. Key hates New Zealand and New Zealanders. He still insultingly calls us New Zilland and New Zillanders. And when there is a disaster like an earthquake he buggers off overseas, in this instance to Peru, to try telling the world everyone needs a TPPA.

    And so here is the park bench sign of John Key:. In Memory of John Key. The Minister of Vanity Projects and arse-licking(of the Americans). The Minister who hates NZ and NZers but is only here(in NZ)to allow entry of the US warships back into OUR ports and harbours. The Minister who never listens to anyone who doesn’t have a spare million to donate to the National Party. And the Minister who denes there is a Housing Crisis. The Minister who is quite capable of lying through his teeth and then denies he made a promise even to the families of the Pike River 29.

    Show us a man and we will show you a leader. Show us a weakling and we will present to you John Key.

  4. It doesn’t bother me that Gerry Brownlee didn’t know GeoNet had raised the issue of a better tsunami monitoring/warning system several times before. After all, he’s only the acting Minister of Civil Defence. Perhaps Nikki Kaye read the GNS reports? My issue is with his automatic assumption that because he doesn’t know something, the other person must be a liar and therefore deserves to be publicly attacked. A better response would be to keep his mouth shut, ask someone at MCDEM to do a little fact checking, and only make a statement when he knows what’s actually happened.

  7. Funny that . . . NIWA gets a supercomputer . . . for what? Spying on the environment? Can’t they be besties and let Geonet use it from time to time?

    It IS being used for checking up on the environment, isn’t it? Wouldn’t be used for spying on the sleepy hobbits of muddle nu zeelund, would it?

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