Abstract
Will the next Government be ready for the future? In this Briefing we analyse responses to our pre-election survey of political parties in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) about policies to strengthen the country's resilience to long-term global risks and their intention to introduce a Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act. All five parties in the current Parliament responded to the survey and it was encouraging to see that most supported building resilience to climate change impacts, although only two mentioned specific climate change mitigation actions. The references to other potential catastrophic risks by the parties were minimal (eg, pandemics by only one, and cyber-attacks by one). No party mentioned any concern about “out-of-control” artificial intelligence and only one, Te Pāti Māori, favoured any consideration of a US-style Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act. In conclusion, there appears to be inadequate concern by this country’s political parties about the need for planning and actions to address plausible global catastrophic risks.