Transcript
MIKE HILL: Often I think what picks up the attention of most of the community and media might be the actually rescue, but that is only a thin slice of the wider work that goes on. SAR governance is about having responsible SAR establishments within the countries, some of them looking at SAR legislation. There is also the need for every country to have it national SAR plan,, and then sign up to and comply with the numerous international conventions on Search and Rescue. And then if I was to leap at the SAR prevention, that is saying
'What are the things that make a difference to change the safety culture'. And we are not just talking the Pacific nations here - we are also talking New Zealand. 'How do we get more people to wear life jackets, carry out small risk assessments, look at the weather. What about the forms of communication, whether it is maritime radio for being on the water, a cell phone in a water proof bag, but also more importantly, more people to have a distress beacon.' One of our roles is to receive distress beacons' alerts and that takes the search out of search and rescue. We know there is a problem in a particular spot rather than looking for an overdue person who could have been bobbing about in the ocean for days and days.
DON WISEMAN: We know that some amazing work is being done by you and your colleagues and many of the member countries across the Pacific, but there is, and will remain for same time, in a lot of these Pacific countries, a lack of capacity, an inability to really undertake a lot of this work. But as well as that we have got many in the local populations who just don't have the resources for these elementary things
MH: Well it is a combination. How much does each nation want to have to invest or to spend around rescue assets. There is a real community at work where we might be able to send the RNZAF to locate, we then still need someone to do the pick up and the rescue. What we are aiming to do is if we can reduce the search area or the search time in the best interests of the person who is lost, or missing or in distress. But we are also involved,, not just in the people who have a break down or a gear challenge and need to be located , we are also responsible for medical evacuations. So we are not going to stop medical issues or necessarily a boat that might have broken down, but there is this growing network of countries to work together, regardless of the international politics, to go and help whoever is in distress.
DW: So as far as your Strategic Plan goes, of your 26 members has everyone committed to it?
MH: Yes we had around 22 there. A couple of countries were unable to attend, but yes, that was one of the outcomes of last week, that the SAR professionals from those countries agree and accept that this is the approach that we will have and have agreed that they will work to improve their SAR system - New Zealand included - under those four limbs of effective SAR.
