Peter MacDonald
A new kind of fear has arrived. It came not with sirens, but with alerts buzzing on mobile phones across New Zealand. An 8.8 magnitude earthquake had struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, 6,800 miles from Dunedin and, suddenly, most New Zealanders were told to stay off the beach and stay out of the sea: your life could be at risk. Civil Defence alerts lit up the media, cell phones and social media in unison.
This isn’t about denying that earthquakes or tsunamis exist. It’s about recognising that what unfolded here wasn’t simply prudent caution. It was a scripted response, activated across the country. From NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) to Civil Defence and every mainstream media outlet. A chain reaction of messaging kicked in that effectively said: ‘Don’t question this. Your life is in danger. Do what you’re told.’
In Christchurch, Auckland, Gisborne and South Dunedin, warnings of ‘unusual surges’, ‘tidal threats’, and potential evacuations flooded the airwaves. Some Civil Defence centres were opened and red and orange tsunami zones were activated. Coastal communities were placed on high alert. But the actual wave heights were mere centimetres in many locations. Beaches were closed and piers blocked off, not because of visible danger but because the bureaucratic process demanded it.
This is the core of the problem. We no longer respond to emergencies with real time judgment or grounded, local, knowledge. We respond through internationally prescribed systems, UN disaster frameworks, centralised tsunami models and algorithmic protocols. NEMA didn’t assess whether the quake posed a genuine threat to New Zealand: they acted according to a procedural chain that begins with global models and ends in local disruption.
What we are witnessing is the emergence of a Fear Industrial Complex – a system of institutional, financial and media structures that gain power and funding through the amplification of fear. We saw the blueprint during the Covid-19 pandemic. In that case, one virus became a global lockdown. One message was repeated endlessly: ‘Stay home. Save lives.’ Compliance was framed as morality. Dissent was demonised.
Now, that same model is being applied to natural events. A quake in Kamchatka triggers alerts in Kaitaia. A sea surge on the Kuril Islands becomes a national emergency in Christchurch. The script plays out again: uniform messaging, social media saturation and the media and state in lockstep. The public is being trained to obey. And, just like Covid, it works.
Let’s look at a real world case study. The 2015 flood in South Dunedin devastated homes and neighbourhoods, but it wasn’t caused by sea level rise or extreme weather. Two out of three stormwater pumps failed. Ageing infrastructure hadn’t been upgraded. For decades, overdevelopment in the area had increased the strain on stormwater and sewerage systems. Yet, rather than address these real causes, the event was quickly reframed as a ‘climate change’ disaster.
From there, the narrative shifted: South Dunedin became ‘vulnerable’. It was placed on long-term adaptation plans. Managed retreat was floated. Consultants began workshopping 50-year, multi-million-dollar ‘solutions’. And behind the planning jargon was a simple truth: a working-class neighbourhood, built by hand on reclaimed land, was now marked for systematic abandonment.
Who benefits from this fear driven policy? It’s not the residents of South Dunedin. It’s not every day New Zealanders. The real winners are the usual suspects: global consulting firms that charge millions to model disaster zones, engineering companies who get the contracts for mitigation infrastructure, media outlets who profit from clicks and panic, land speculators who acquire reclassified properties on the cheap and bureaucracies that secure central funding based on risk, not results.
This isn’t a conspiracy – it’s an incentive structure. When fear drives funding, fear becomes profitable. When emergencies become perpetual, democratic decision making is replaced by procedural compliance. The same actors who profited from the pandemic response are now embedded in our disaster planning, our coastal zoning, and our infrastructure spending.
We are being nudged toward a society of permanent alert. Tsunami warnings, flood overlays, climate adaptation plans and sea-level models all designed to create the impression that we are no longer safe. And that we must entrust our freedoms, our land and our choices to bureaucratic managers and remote consultants.
Yes, natural disasters are real. Yes, we must plan. But when every planning document assumes our coastline is doomed, when every alert system is automated from a central script and when every outcome benefits private contractors and land developers, we must stop and ask what kind of society are we becoming.
If we allow ourselves to be governed by fear, whether of a virus, a tidal surge or a modelled future climate, we are no longer a resilient democracy. We are a managed population and we are owned.
Let the latest tsunami alert serve as a wake-up call. Not about earthquakes, but about how emergency narratives are now deployed. It’s time we asked who writes these scripts. Who profits from them. And who will lose their communities, land and voice if this continues.
We must begin to reclaim our ability to question, to assess and to speak. Fear is not resilience. Consent is not the same as compliance. And surrender is not safety.
