New Zealand's critical infrastructure systems—including electricity grids, water networks, and telecommunications—are fundamental to the country's economic activity and citizens' wellbeing, yet face growing vulnerabilities from natural disasters, climate change, terrorism, and cyber attacks. Following the establishment of Te Waihanga (the Infrastructure Commission) in 2019, the first Infrastructure Strategy (Rautaki Hanganga o Aotearoa 2022-2052) was tabled in Parliament in May 2022, identifying New Zealand's exposure to various shocks and recommending a coordinated approach to infrastructure resilience through common definitions of critical infrastructure, shared understanding of threats, and coordinated risk management across increasingly interdependent systems. The Government fully supported these recommendations, recognizing that while New Zealand's historic approach to infrastructure resilience has been effective, today's infrastructure systems are markedly different and more complex than those of 30 years ago, requiring updated regulatory frameworks to address emerging vulnerabilities and ensure continued resilience for future decades.

We are most concerned about the class of risks that would cause the most harm to New Zealand (including a risk of permanent economic and social damage). These are global catastrophic risks(GCRs) and include: major volcanic eruptions at global pinch points, nuclear war (with or without nuclear winter or high-altitude electromagnetic pulse), severe pandemics (natural or engineered),major global food shock, industry disabling solar flares, devastating global cyber-attack, catastrophe from misaligned artificial intelligence (AI), large asteroid/comet impact, etc.Although individually such risks may have a low probability of occurring in any given year, collectively they are plausible, and some are even likely in the long term (eg, future pandemics). Each could cause persistent medium to long-term disruptions, significantly altering life in New Zealand. The risk of many GCRs is probably rising given advances in biotechnology and AI, increasing geopolitical tensions, and the amplifying impact of climate change.From a risk analytic perspective almost all the harm that occurs is contained in a few extreme events.For example, Covid-19 has caused 95% of all disaster deaths in the 21st Century. The same is true for harm to industry and the economy, where occasional catastrophes cause most of the damage. We are concerned that much risk mitigation activity in New Zealand addresses only smaller more common risks (eg, local floods and earthquakes) and therefore leaves most of the actual future harm to New Zealanders unaddressed. It is possible that populations might tolerate some smaller risks, inorder that resources can address the truly unbearable risks (this is an important topic for future consultation).Our key critical infrastructure-related concerns, are summarised as follows:

• Global catastrophic risks (increasing probability)

• NZ trade isolation (if global industry disabled)

• Inability to supply necessities of life (eg, food, energy)