Few trained civil defence volunteers

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 10

Few trained civil defence volunteers

PA Wellington Plenty of volunteers, but too few trained people. This was New Zealand in a civil emergency, the Director of Civil Defence (Major-General R. M. F. Holloway) has said. Addressing the Wellington City Council’s civil defence committee Major-General Holloway said New Zealand needed better co-ordination of the specialised voluntary organisation.

‘ People forget what Civil Defence is supposed to do, yet when you have the real emergencies, there is no lack of volunteers. Every voluntary organisation in the country wants to help," he said.

“They feel, half the time, that Civil Defence is in parallel, in competition, with what they want to do.” General Holloway said regionalisation would bring a “dramatic change” in Civil Defence. “In seven areas we have regional Civil Defence which means there can be a rather more rational approach to using resources than we have had in the past.” Local groups with a common interest would be grouped together. He gave the Lower Clutha Valley flooding as an example, saying that the people there now believed they should amalgamate or at least unify in Civil Defence, he said.