Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations,and State Enterprises — New Zealand Fire Service Commission

I want to take a short call on the Fire Service Commission, really to congratulate a commission that is in a very safe pair of hands with Dame Margaret Bazley, because it was an incredibly impressive financial review this year.

One of the things I wanted to mention is that the Fire Service has the lowest rate of residential fires in the world, and that is to be applauded. The Fire Service is in good hands.

The only other comment I want to make is about the number of female firefighters in the service in New Zealand. We really are a bit concerned about this. Only 49 of 1,670 career firefighters are women. That is quite a concern and we raised it with Dame Margaret Bazley. She pointed out that the Fire Service has a positive approach to this, trying to make firefighting a career for women that is attractive to them, and to make them feel well supported. It was nice to hear that women are generally very well accepted by their male counterparts.

One of the other issues I will talk about quickly is the problem that the Fire Service is having now with increasingly more complex call-outs—in particular, for P laboratories, which creates extreme risk for the Fire Service. We want to congratulate the Fire Service on the way it manages this problem.

All in all, the Fire Service is in great hands. It has also stopped bringing in second-hand fire appliances from the UK, which was a practice noticed in the previous financial review that concerned us. It now has its full fleet replacement, which is properly managed. The Fire Service is a service in good heart.

Report noted.

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