neb:

 

 Yup. If you look at the quote from the earlier article:

In defending his role in delay, Brown has said he had to let the bureaucracy do its job and follow the correct process: “The state of emergency is a prescribed process. It’s quite formal. I had to wait until I had the official request from the emergency management centre”.

Yeah, because in an emergency, defn: "a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action" the appropriate response is to sit back and let things run their course while watching from the sidelines.

My understanding of a state of emergency is based on this quote from an RNZ article someone else linked to:

Waikato University Law Professor Al Gillespie said states of emergency were declared when normal emergency services could not, or were at risk, of being overwhelmed.

Surely that means that Brown relies on the advice from the people in charge of the emergency services, for example Ron Devlin of Fire and Emergency which is who Brown referred the question to when asked if he declared a state of emergency at the right time. So Brown relies on FENZ to know when they need a state of emergency declared (because they need the resources that declaration gives them). Should Brown decide he knows better than FENZ and pre-empt their advice as to when they need an emergency declaration? 

This is a question open for anyone, not aimed specifically at the people I've quoted.