Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill

I move, That the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. This bill repeals and replaces two elderly pieces of legislation—the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977—and instigates the biggest change to the fire services of New Zealand since the response to the disastrous Ballantyne’s Fire in Christchurch nearly 70 years ago. This bill also reflects the views and desires of New Zealand’s fire services, their communities, and wider stakeholders on the future of the nation’s fire services.

Last year’s consultation process on what was needed to maintain and build our fire services received over 230 submissions, and the message from all of those for change was loud and clear. So this bill is another step in the journey of change, transition, and futureproofing. It represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enable New Zealand to have a fit for purpose fire organisation that is flexible, modern, effective, and efficient. It will enable fire services that work well, fire services that are funded appropriately for what they do, and, it will value the rural and the urban, and the paid and the volunteer workforce.

This bill creates a unified fire organisation that brings together the urban and rural fire services spread throughout New Zealand. The new organisation will be known as Fire and Emergency New Zealand, which reflects that the activities of the fire services of New Zealand have changed considerably in the last 70 years. Today’s firefighters face a wide range of issues of fires, from forests and other vegetation fires to fires in homes and commercial properties, but although fighting fires remains at the core of the fire services, their role has expanded far beyond this. Their functions now include responding to vehicle accidents, urban search and rescue, and dealing with hazardous substances incidents. Fire services also have a key role in assisting other agencies and organisations with a variety of other incidents including animal rescues, maritime incidents, and technical rescues. This bill reflects these expanded roles in the main and additional functions of Fire and Emergency New Zealand. It also formally recognises the flexibility and agility New Zealand’s fire services have displayed for many years and will continue to show in the future.

Firefighters are a passionate and committed group of people, whether they are urban or rural, paid or volunteer. They serve our communities to protect and preserve life, property, and the environment. Their communities, in turn, support and encourage them—something that is consistently identified as the key to the success of New Zealand’s fire services. It is critical, therefore, that this strong community support is recognised and maintained.

This bill enshrines this support and reflects it through the establishment of local committees. These local committees will be appointed by the board from representatives of the local area and will serve as the area’s voice to Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s board. They will advise on local risks and issues, consider and promote the interests of the local area’s volunteers, and provide feedback and guidance to the board on local fire and emergency planning. Over 80 percent of the firefighters in New Zealand are volunteers. As a significant portion of the workforce, volunteers will move into a more direct relationship with Fire and Emergency New Zealand, although they will not become employees as such, and there will still be an important and vital place for the United Fire Brigades’ Association. This bill enables the provision of independent advocacy services and support for volunteers, at no charge to them, and that is the role that the United Fire Brigades’ Association has played for more than a century now.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand will develop a framework for supporting volunteers based on modern volunteer principles. Increased support for volunteers recognises their contribution while not detracting from the support given to the paid workforce. The bill clearly states that the existing paid and volunteer workforce will retain their entitlements when Fire and Emergency New Zealand is established, so local brigades will retain their chief fire officers and their deputy chief fire officers.

The way that the fire services of New Zealand are funded will change. Fire and Emergency New Zealand will be funded through the fire levy, which is paid on insurance for contents, property, and motor vehicles. This will replace a variety of funding sources for rural fire services and allow the new organisation to be adequately funded for the work it will do. The bill will allow the fire levy to be broadened to include insurance on material damage, not just fire damage, to better reflect the range of functions Fire and Emergency New Zealand will perform and to make levy avoidance more difficult. The fire levy on motor vehicle insurance will be extended to include third-party insurance, ensuring that more motor vehicle owners contribute.

There will be public consultation at least every 3 years on the level of the fire levy, making the funding of the fire services more transparent and requiring the funding of the new organisation to be aligned to its strategic and business planning processes. The bill will also include anti-avoidance provisions to ensure compliance with the new levy regime.

The bill includes an updated offences and penalties regime that will provide appropriate penalties that punish and deter unwanted behaviour through a combination of significant fees or terms of imprisonment upon conviction. The bill removes cost recovery for rural fires and establishes an infringement notice scheme that will be designed to address low-level offending. These updated offences and penalties provisions will be supported by a comprehensive compliance and enforcement strategy that will help the new organisation and the public to encourage compliance and will make clear the penalties for unsafe behaviour. It is important that firefighters have the tools to appropriately respond when they identify behaviour that could have or has had serious consequences.

The bill also clearly sets out the powers firefighters may exercise in the course of performing their functions. It includes modernised powers of entry and inspection to investigate the cause of fires and to support Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s regulatory role in ensuring compliance with the bill. There are appropriate safeguards in place for the exercising of these powers, including the production of identification, the requirement for warrants in line with the Search and Surveillance Act, and, for marae, taking into account the kawa of the marae as far as is practicable in the circumstances.

The bill also includes new powers for dealing with hazardous substances incidents and powers to take samples or objects for testing or analysis. It includes specific provisions for evacuation schemes and measures to ensure there are adequate firefighting water supplies for emergencies and training, including the development of a code of practice for firefighting water supplies. The bill sets out the fire control measures for when the starting of fires or activities likely to cause fires can be prohibited or restricted. These measures are necessary to protect life, property, and the environment; to describe fire seasons; and to establish the responsibilities and requirements on individuals and commercial operations to limit the risk of fires in open areas.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand will continue the important relationships that the Fire Service has established with the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Defence Force. It will also enter into operational service agreements with departments, as is the current practice, as well as the Ministry of Education and industry fire brigades. There will also be a new dispute resolution process so that the organisation can resolve disputes consistently and fairly. I will not go into these in great detail, but there is a range of transition provisions forecast in the bill, and there is also provision made for the transfer of assets so that from the time of the new organisation taking effect, the assets currently available will be available to Fire and Emergency New Zealand to perform its functions. How they are transferred in the long term will be determined using a principle-based approach and in collaboration with the owner of the asset.

So overall this bill supports the invaluable and varied work of the fire services of New Zealand, and as of 1 July next year establishes Fire and Emergency New Zealand as the new overarching organisation. It is a combination of community, volunteer, and paid firefighters alike. This change has been a long time coming. The time is right. Our firefighters, their communities, and their stakeholders all agree that the change is needed and all agree that this is the right process. I want to acknowledge the contribution they all have made over the last year in bringing this proposal together. So with great pleasure, and a small amount of pride, I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare otirā, ki a tātau hui tahi nei i tēnei pō tēnei te mihi ake ki a tātau. Tino pai ki ahau kia tū ake ki te kōrero ki te pire nei, te pire e pā ana ki Ahi me Ohotata Aotearoa, arā—the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. Pīrangi au ki te tuku i taku kōrero i te reo Māori nā te mea ko tēnei Te Wiki o te reo Māori. Otirā he maha ngā kupu-ā-kaupapa kei roto tēnei pire. Ahakoa tēnā, māku e tarai ki te tuku taku kōrero.

Tuatahi, e pai ana tēnei te whakakotahi, ā, te Kōmihana Whakaratonga Iwi me ngā Rōpū Weto Ahi ki Taiwhenua kei raro i tētehi rōpū me kī, hinonga Karauna hou. Nō reira, e tautoko ana ahau taua w’akaaro. Kua roa te wā e whiriwhiri, e titiro atu Te Kāwanatanga ki tēnei take. Ka puta mai ngā kōrero o taua āhuatanga, te arotake ki tēnei pire, tēnei āhuatanga. Nō reira, e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki a rātau mā, i tuku kōrero mai. Ki taku nei mō’io, 235 ngā tāngata e tuku kōrero ki roto ki tēnei arotake. Kei roto i ā rātau kōrero e whakaae ana rātau kia tīnihia ngā āhuatanga e pā ana ki te Kōmihana Whakaratonga Iwi. Nō reira e tika ana kia tuku mai e te Minita tēnei pire nā te mea whakaae ana te hapori whānui. Nō reira, e tuku mihi atu ki a ia te Minita, ā, i tuku mai tēnei pire.

Kei roto te pire nei e whakamanahia tēnei hinonga Karauna hou, kia pēnei i te kōrero o te Minita, he mana hou tā rātau kia uru mai ngā whare, kia āta titiro ā muri i te ahi, kia titiro mai, kia mōhio mai āe, he aha te tino pūtake ka tīmata aua ahi. He mea hou tēnā. He mea hou anō hoki, ā, ngā mana e pā ana ki ngā mōrearea pūmatū, ki taku nei mōhio, hazardous chemical substances. He mana hou tēnei anō hoki. Nō reira, e tū ana ahau mō Te Rōpū Reipa hei tautoko ana tēnei pire, kia tuku atu tēnei pire ki te komiti whiriwhiringa, hei āta titiro ki roto i ēnei mahi nei. E pai ana ki ahau, ā, kua kōrero ki ahau ki ngā kaimahi e mahi kore pūtea ana–volunteers–e pā ana ki tēnei āhuatanga. Pai ki a rātau te whakakotahi ēnei mahi i raro i tētehi rōpū hou. Ā, ka pai anō hoki, ā, kia mahitahi me ngā kaimahi, me ngā rōpū hei mahia aua mahi mō he pūtea; nō reira, e tautoko ana ahau taua āhuatanga.

E tū hoki au kia tuku atu tētehi āhua āwangawanga e pā ana ki tēnei pire. Arā, ko te kohikohinga o ngā pūtea, ngā pūtea whakaeke. Kua rongo au nō ngā rōpū mō ngā kamupene insurance. Kāore e tino whakaae a rātau ki te kohikohinga i ngā pūtea whakaeke ki a rātau mā. Ko tā rātau kōrero kia tuku atu pūtea mai i ngā tāke kē. Koinā tā rātau kōrero. Ki a au nei, me whiriwhiringa e te komiti whiriwhiri e pā ana ki tēnei take, kia noho mārama ai te katoa e pā ana ki tēnei āhuatanga, kia tuku, kia whakahokia atu tēnei pātai, he aha te mea tino pai, he aha te ara tino pai kia kohikohi ngā pūtea nei.

[Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, I wish to acknowledge everyone gathered this evening. I am delighted to speak on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. I wish to speak in Māori because it is Māori Language Week. There is much policy detail in this bill, which I will attempt to describe in Māori.

Firstly, it is beneficial that the bill unifies the New Zealand Fire Service with the National Rural Fire Authority under a new Crown entity. Therefore, I endorse this plan. The Government has spent a long time considering this matter. Comments about that aspect, in terms of reviewing this bill in relation to this situation have emerged. And so, it is fitting that those who sent in those comments are acknowledged. I understand 235 individuals sent in comments on this review. Their approval to amend aspects relating to the New Zealand Fire Service Commission was included in their comments. It is appropriate that the Minister has brought this bill before the House due to widespread public support. With that in mind, I commend the Minister.

The bill creates a new Crown entity, which the Minister stated gives fire services new powers to enter homes following a fire to establish the cause of the fire. It also provides new powers relating to hazardous chemical substances. Accordingly, I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to endorse this bill and its progression to select committee for consideration. I am fine with that, and I have spoken with volunteers about this bill. They approve of the unification of fire services under a new organisation. It is also beneficial that firefighters and organisations work together; and so I support the unification.

I would also like to express concerns about the bill, particularly with regard to the collection of the fire levy. I have heard from insurance companies that are opposed to the levy and say that fire service funding should come from normal taxes. In my view, the relevant select committee considering this issue must discuss this to ensure that everyone is clear about what is the best way to collect the fire levy.]

Given that it is Māori Language Week, I did try to do my entire speech in Māori, but there are some things that are very technical and are beyond the scope of my Te Reo Māori. Mā te wā pea ka tū au. [Perhaps, in time, I will stand.]

I do have some questions around the collection of levies and around what is the best way to actually give effect to that. As I understand it, Cabinet made a decision around that before the review had started, and so I do not think the submitters who made submissions through the review process were really given the opportunity to discuss that.

I am not advocating one method over another. All I am saying is that the best way forward needs to be examined in full, and I think it is appropriate for the select committee to do that. I think that the working together of both the volunteer and the paid sector is one thing that the volunteers—from the feedback I have been given around that—do want, although they do tell me that they have good relationships between the different fire services.

This bill is, obviously, a way to give recognition to the substantial changes that have happened over time. Once upon a time firefighters put out fires and that is pretty much all they did, but they now have a vast range of work and tasks they provide for the community, not the least of which are things like urban search and rescue and providing the prevention side of things as well. I think those things are incredibly important, and I can speak from the number of marae that I am involved with where we have close interaction with the Fire Service to make sure that we try to keep our marae safe and have the prevention measures in place. So we look forward to hearing from all of these people during the submission process of the select committee.

Taku kōrero whakamutunga e tuku mihi atu ki a rātau ngā kaimahi whakaweto ahi. Nō reira, huri rauna te Whare nei, ā, tēnā tātau katoa.

[In making a closing remark, I pay tribute to them—the firefighters, the ones who extinguish fires. And so, to everyone throughout this House, my appreciation to us all.]

It is my pleasure to take a short call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill in its first reading. Can I just acknowledge any members of the Fire Service that we have in the House today—I think we do have some—and their families. Welcome, and it is great to see you here. Can I just mention my own fire service back in my electorate of Rodney, and also the fire service in Northland.

The previous speaker highlighted—and I agree with him—that our Fire Service and our firefighters are now far more than first responders to house fires, commercial fires, or any type of fire. Every year we attend award ceremonies where they will be receiving awards for their actions at motor vehicle accidents, chemical spills, storm and flooding damage. In my own electorate, when we were hit with a major storm, it was our firefighters who were the first ones out there dealing with the damage and the carnage associated with that.

I was recently up in Kaikohe, and I want to acknowledge the rural firefighting service in Kaikohe because it had actually implemented a youth programme whereby it has taken eight young guys who were going off the tracks—they were running straight into the arms of the gangs up there—and wrapped around them mentoring, some discipline, and training, and it is training them to be rural firefighters. This is the kind of community spirit - based service that we have in our country, and I just want to acknowledge our Fire Service, the role that it takes, and everything that it does in our communities.

Like I said, it is only a very short call. I do look forward to receiving the bill on the select committee and being given the opportunity to get up and speak in this House again to this bill. Thank you.

Rangatira mā, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te rā; tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Esteemed ones, I acknowledge you collectively in regard to the matter of the day; greetings, salutations, and my appreciation to us all.]

Can I, first of all, say what a delight it will be for our select committee to have this piece of legislation. It has been a long time coming, but I can also say that it has been through a very good process—two big rounds of reviews and a lot of public debate about it, and so there should be.

This is quite a fundamental change to the way that our fire services are organised. It extends their powers, and it will bring to the forefront of the debate the sometimes tense relationship that professional firefighters and volunteer firefighters have had in different parts of the country, but I think that the legislation is designed to give us the best possible service for the future and I am sure that every member of the House will support the intention.

Our select committee will, I know, because of the performance of the members, give the bill a lot of rigorous investigation, listen carefully to the submissions, and then bring it back to the House with any changes that we see fit.

As the Minister who introduced this bill indicated, this bill establishes a single, unified fire service, so that repeals two pieces of legislation. I was a bit surprised that the Minister referred to them as being—“quite ancient”, I think, was his term. The mid-1970s is not ancient compared with some pieces of legislation that we have in the House, but the Acts are old enough and, certainly, they reflect a structure that is no longer even current practice, let alone best practice for the future.

The Fire and Emergency New Zealand service will become the new service for us. I do not know why we have to have “FENZ” as the—it is not a very attractive word. We might be able to come up with something better as the name that will develop as its commonly referred to name. But, certainly, the new legislation, when it is passed, will replace the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977.

The member Mark Mitchell, who resumed his seat immediately prior to me, made mention of the Fire Service brigades in his area, and I would like to do the same. I have had a very close association with the brigades in my area. The two volunteer brigades that are currently in my electorate are Lyttelton and Sumner—both extraordinarily competent leaders in our community as brigades—and I have the Woolston professional fire brigade in my electorate as well. All three of the buildings—Woolston, Lyttelton, and Sumner—received quite a lot of damage in the earthquakes. It was extraordinary to watch the brigade in Lyttelton, with a very badly damaged fire station and with members who had left their places of work, give hours and hours and hours over days to ensure that the community was safe. As was written in a book called The Brigade, a story about the Lyttelton Volunteer Fire Brigade and the work that it did post 22 February—which I would recommend to the Minister to read, if he has not already—a number of those brigade members had not been able to contact their own families while they were giving of their skills and talents to support others.

We recently had the news in Christchurch that the Sumner Fire Station, which actually survived a lot of the worst of the quakes somehow—I do not know how—got very badly damaged in the last quake we had and is now going to be replaced. So that will be a celebration for them, once that is under way.

The insurance issue and what contribution commercial property owners make to the service I am sure will come up in the discussions. I know the Minister ducked for cover a little bit on that one—did not go the full step in terms of who contributes to the service—and I am sure that the Insurance Council and perhaps even some of its individual insurance companies will make representation on that.

I am interested, though, in the other area of insurance—that the third-party cover is being extended under this provision, and I think that is something that will be welcomed. I am not sure whether it therefore becomes compulsory—I assume it does, given that it is a levy—or how broadly that third-party cover extends, but I will be very interested in learning more about that when we have the bill at the select committee.

The futureproofing of the legislation is also something that I think should be commended—the fact that it is a requirement under this legislation to do, I think, 3-yearly reviews. That will mean that we will not end up in this situation again. We will not have to have—probably—huge and significant structural changes, but will be able to keep the legislation refreshed. As the needs of our communities change and the ability of people to volunteer, or the reluctance, potentially, of employers to support their staff to volunteer—those relationships might change, and I think the idea of futureproofing by that 3-yearly review is a good one.

The updated offences and penalties regime includes new infringement offences. That will put Parliament in quite a different place than it has been before, and I think that is a good place. We are sending a clear message to the community about standards and consequences, and I think that is a very good message.

The removal of the powers to recover the cost of rural fires—I listened to the Minister’s introductory comments and I did not get any detail about that, but I would be interested in the rationale behind the removal of those powers. There are new powers introduced for managing hazardous substances incidents. That is, again, just keeping up with incidents that when the original legislation was drafted probably were not as common, may not have been as dangerous, or may have been contained in different ways.

Measures to encourage compliance among levy payers and to protect the integrity of the levy are something that everyone in this House should certainly understand and would support. There are new powers for firefighters to enter premises to investigate the causes of fires. I am not generally a supporter of giving intrusive powers to any other members of our society, so I will be looking at that very carefully and asking what it will have potential risk around and, if so, what we might do to mitigate it. Of course we want to support investigations as to the causes of fires and prosecution, if that is appropriate after that, but I am nervous about granting intrusive powers to people without very good justification—and also making sure that there is a protective mechanism around such powers.

In conclusion, can I say that I have been—everyone in this House will have an association with fire and emergency services, I am sure—really following the debate on this quite closely. I am very pleased that it has finally come to the House. It is overdue, but it has been a worthwhile process to wait for. It has involved a lot of people, and there has been a lot of public discussion and debate about it. So it is not a surprise bill. It is one that has got a little bit of rigour behind it—and that is not common, actually, under the current Government—so that is good.

I think we will end up with a flexible, modern, and efficient fire service that is backed by its legislation, instead of the current situation where I feel as if the fire service often has to try to work around the legislation to get best practice, and that is a dumb thing. We want to make sure that the services—[Bell rung]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): About 1½ minutes, sorry.

Thank you. We want to make sure that the services are funded appropriately, that the levies are fair, and that people understand them and comply with them. This gives us an opportunity to do that. It gives us an opportunity throughout the debate to recognise the amazing contributions that both our professional firefighters and our volunteer firefighters make to their communities. We will be listening to their voices very carefully as the debate progresses.

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. It is a pleasure to rise in support of this, the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. Much-needed reform has been canvassed after many, many years. The legislation that this will repeal and replace dates back to the 1970s, to a time when a firefighter’s role was very, very different indeed. So it is good to see legislation that recognises that both paid and also volunteer members of our fire service now are involved in many more types of activities and incidents, whether it is urban search and rescue, vehicular incidents and extrications, or other emergency services. I am pleased to see that we will have legislation that both recognises that and sets up the structures and the funding arrangements to support that.

I am also very pleased to see within that some measures that follow along from the lines of the Inland Revenue Department to prevent avoidance of those levies, through the new means that will be used. So it remains to go through the select committee process. I look forward to that, and I commend this bill to the House.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa, ngā mihi o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori ki a tātou katoa. Ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te pānuitanga tuatahi o tēnei te pire, te Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and acknowledgments to you collectively throughout the House and salutations of the Māori Language Week to us all. I stand on behalf of the Green Party to speak in the first reading of this bill, the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill.]

The Greens will be supporting this bill. There are some things in the bill that we are a little bit cautious about. However, we are really quite keen to hear the submissions during the select committee stage, and we look forward to the discussion around the intricacies, because I think we do have to acknowledge that it is a fairly complex bill.

One of the major things that this bill does is that it brings together many of the different organisations that currently deal with fire services in Aotearoa into one Crown entity. Currently there are the New Zealand Fire Service and the National Rural Fire Authority and 52 separate rural fire authorities. Within this, there are more than 400 volunteer fire brigades around the country and around 13,000 volunteers, who comprise about 80 percent of the workforce.

I just want to take this moment to express my gratitude to these volunteers who provide this essential service. In my own community on Waiheke Island, we have got two volunteer brigades—we have got the Oneroa one and the Onetangi one—and both of them are staffed by skilled, trained volunteers. Over the summer, the Onetangi brigade was actually called out to our place when a passer-by noticed smoke coming from the back of one of our houses. Although we lost a bit of equipment, the quick response from our volunteer brigade essentially saved our house. That fire was the result of a bottle lying in the grass over the summer, so it was a good reminder that we should actually mow the grass.

I just want to record here my thanks to the committed men and woman who have devoted years—years—of their lives to this work. They are the people who come when they are called, any time of the day or night. They leave their homes and their jobs, and they respond to the emergencies in our communities. Those emergencies, of course, include car crashes, house fires, bushfires, and civil emergencies, as we saw during the Christchurch earthquakes. No doubt my colleague Eugenie Sage will touch on that more.

I particularly want to note for the record, and in Hansard, my thanks to Ron Leonard, the fire chief on Waiheke Island, who retired in May after 29 years as the fire chief and a total of 48 years as a volunteer firefighter. I want to congratulate his deputy, Bruce Sciascia, who has taken on the fire chief role. Again, he is not inexperienced—he has been a volunteer for 20 years. I just think we need to recognise that we have these amazing people who continue year after year to provide a service for free.

Anyway, this bill has been a long time coming, as others have said. There have been two reviews, one in 2012 and another in 2015, and this bill acts on many of the recommendations from those reviews. I want to acknowledge that the process around the reviews was very inclusive and there was quite a large number of submissions. Under this bill there is the new Crown entity, Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), where all fire services in New Zealand—rural, urban, volunteer, professional—will come under that one overarching piece of legislation. So it replaces two pieces of legislation: the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977.

It is hoped that it will lead to more consistency across the service and, hopefully, better coordination between the urban and rural fire services. This lack of consistency was kind of referred to in the regulatory impact statement (RIS), which said, basically, that because there are so many of them, there was a lack of data. It said “For example, there is no single national incident reporting data for the fire services”, which means that “a lot of specific information of the work undertaken in the rural fire sector is unknown.”, including around the use of cost recovery under section 43 of the Forest and Rural Fires Act. It also said: “Further, each of the … Rural Fire Authorities, would have to collect data in a way that could be shared in order to effectively analyse the activities of all of them.” The RIS does say that it expects that the reforms in this bill will actually lead to better monitoring, analysing, and reporting—and I suspect it probably would—so that there is best practice right across the services.

But there is a similar statement around this lack of information, lack of data, in the regulatory impact statement, which deals with the new funding arrangement as well. FENZ will be funded principally by levies, as others have referred to, and they are levies that are basically paid on insurance for property and motor vehicles. That funding replaces the variety of sources that have funded the rural fire service—for example, things like the cost that it was able to charge and recover under the Forest and Rural Fires Act.

How the levy system will work is one area that we would like to know more about. The RIS disclosure statement notes that one significant remaining question is the impact of the proposed funding reforms on the private sector. It states: “Any change to the levy will have an effect on … [the] private sector and not for profit entities. Due to commercial sensitivity and privacy we are unable to access … data and therefore cannot model the … nature and extent of this impact.” So there is a bit of a gap in some of the information around how this will have an impact, but I can imagine that this is something that we are going to discuss more and find out a lot more about during the submissions process. I would like to note as well that the levies will be reviewed every 3 years, but I do think we should note that as a result of the reforms in this bill, it probably will cost levy payers—people who have insurance—a bit more.

Aside from the creation of Fire and Emergency New Zealand—FENZ—and the outlining of its services, its objectives and functions, and its operating principles and powers, and aside from the reform around the levies, the bill also looks at other parts of the whole fire operation. It states in the bill’s purpose clause that this bill will be about reforming “the law relating to fire services, including by strengthening the role of the communities … in the provision of fire services, … provide for local committees to influence and advise FENZ; … improve support for volunteers and enable them to communicate directly with FENZ; … provide new offences and penalties to improve fire safety.”

I just want to note, as it says in the explanatory note of the bill itself, that “The Bill provides that the existing paid and volunteer workforce will retain its existing entitlements. Volunteers will move into a direct relationship with FENZ, and there is provision for independent advocacy ...”. We support the emphasis on community and community engagement and the support for volunteers, and I am keen to hear from the firefighters union how this will impact on its workforce and those firefighters’ working conditions, although I understand that the union was involved in the review itself. However, we look forward to a robust discussion during the select committee process and we commend this bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill, and I really want to start the contribution off by saying that New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to a select committee, but there are some reservations that we have, and I want to be very clear about that. Whether or not we continue with our support after the select committee process will obviously come down to hearing from those submitters. We want to hear what they have got to say.

Some of the issues that have already been raised with the work that we have been doing behind the scenes with regard to this bill I think have some validity, and I think there will be some potential problems if they are not addressed. They may well be addressed as we delve into this bill, and from reading through the bill so far, I think there are some good points and some tidying-up that has occurred, and I will talk to those in a moment.

But I just want to reflect for a moment on the work that the Fire Service does, and this is from last year’s annual report. The Fire Service attended 72,800 incidents around the country. It attended 5,400 structure fires, 10,300 medical emergencies, 5,100 vegetation fires, 4,800 motor vehicle accidents, and 3,245 hazardous materials incidents. That is highlighted very, very boldly on the first page, but it does not go on to talk about the other things that the Fire Service is heavily involved in, and we are talking about weather incidents.

With global warming, whether you are a believer or not, certainly things are heating up, and so too is the weather, and because of that we are seeing higher winds, we are seeing more rain, and we are seeing a lot of unexpected weather conditions—floods, etc. And every time we see a weather incident, who do we see there, in the middle of the night, working in the wind and the rain and the floods? It is our Fire Service, whether they be volunteers or full-time employees of the Fire Service, chopping down those trees, making our streets and our communities safe again.

There is no mention on this first page of the report about the work that the urban search and rescue (USAR) team does. I had the great pleasure of being invited along to an exercise that the USAR team had when it was going for its certification, which it passed with flying colours. I went through to Palmerston North for that exercise, and what an incredible set-up it has got. Under this new regime, of course, urban search and rescue—although it is not heavily mentioned in the explanatory note to this bill—will now actually be officially recognised and it will have a home inside the overarching Fire and Emergency New Zealand service. But it was great to be there on that day, and, in fact, it was a day when we had an earthquake that rattled the lower half of the North Island. So to actually be on an exercise with the urban search and rescue guys, who obviously work in rough and ready and rumbling terrain—to actually have a real-life earthquake where they were digging through concrete, and to just see how they execute their work was just fantastic.

Something that people will not be aware of, and many people in the House will not even be aware of it, is that if 111 is called and an ambulance arrives at an incident where the ambulance officers need to lift somebody up on to their trestle to take them off to hospital and that person weighs over 150 kilograms—and there are a number of those big front-rowers whom we have playing in our teams around the country—they actually have to call the Fire Service. The Fire Service gets called out at all times of the day and night to lift those heavier people on to stretchers to put them inside the ambulance. So the Fire Service does a lot of work that you and I and the people of New Zealand do not really give it full credit for.

Then, of course, we have seen incidents around this country where there is an incident involving the police—particularly in our rural communities, where the number of police has been restricted—and who do they call? Not Batman, not Superman; they call the Fire Service. They dial 111 and those volunteer fire services and those rural fire brigades come out and they have on a number of occasions assisted the police, to help them arrest somebody and keep the community safe.

How do you fund that model when you have got weather conditions, you have got car accidents, you have got rural fires, you have got urban fires, and you have got all sorts of issues and options? There has already been a number of concerns raised by the stakeholders who are actively involved in the Fire Service about the validity of having a fire levy and increasing it to third-party insurers to try to capture a wider audience to get more coppers in the bin. We know that there are a number of people who do not have third-party car insurance on their cars who are, ultimately, going to load up more of a levy on those people who do have third-party insurance on their cars, for example.

I think that if this Government wants to introduce something along those lines, then maybe it needs to look at other ways to capture a wider audience. In the UK, for example, it is compulsory when you have a motor vehicle to have third-party insurance as a bare minimum, to make sure. They are not worried about whether your car is insured; they are making sure that for the car of the people whom you might hit, or the fire that you might cause, or the accident that you might be involved in, there is going to be some cover. This has not been addressed to date, and I think these are the sorts of issues—and others—that are going to come out in our select committee process.

So one of the ideas that has already been put forward from the submitters and the people we have been talking to is that, rather than putting a third-party insurance levy on cars, maybe it is a levy that goes on a registration—so that every car that is registered pays a levy. That has already been put forward and discussed, and I think you are going to hear submitters coming through quite strongly about the fairness and equity when we are talking about the funding model for the new Fire Service regime.

It goes on to more than that because, of course, you have got insurance, and you have got places that are insured and you have got places that are not. I am not suggesting that there are a lot of those properties out there that are not insured, but one thing for certain under this new regime is that you are going to see a step back from the rural insurance, and it is going to be heavily subsidised by the levies that are going to be paid in the cities to subsidise the rural sector. So that could be a concern, and, again, that could be something that could be captured in a rates levy across the board so that it is evenly spread. I think that as far as a funding model goes, there are some serious concerns moving forward, and that may have an impact on New Zealand First’s position moving forward on this bill as to how this is going to be properly funded.

It is also important to note the number of people we have got within our Fire Service. These figures do not include our USAR teams, and I believe there are a few hundred of those people around the country, but at the moment we have got around 1,730 career firefighters, full-time employed. Speaking to a number of those—and I have a number of friends of mine who are full-time employed in the Fire Service. They love their job, by the way. They love the work that they do. In the public sector we have huge amounts of admiration for them. In fact, as far as that goes, I think they are considered to be at 97 percent in a trust and confidence rating that came out with this report, which was also saying that we the people understand the importance of their role.

There are some concerns with regard to those jobs, and I know that Minister Dunne has addressed some of those, saying “Don’t panic, it’s business as usual, you know. Don’t hurry, don’t worry—don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers, everybody. We’re going to keep the model internally the same, so just watch this space.”, but there are concerns, and I think they need to be addressed as well.

We have a total of 11,150 volunteers, plus 600 full-time employees working inside the sector as management and support staff. But there are 11,150 people working in the Fire Service who are volunteers. They give up their days. They give up their nights. They are on call 24/7. A lot of them have jobs that they need to attend to. They have families, they have husbands, and they have wives who are on call. Another concern that has been raised through the volunteer sector is the potential marginalisation of volunteers within the Fire Service. There is, in some areas, some disregard, if you like. A little bit of a culture shift needs to happen. That needs to be addressed as we bring all these entities together to be one, with the amalgamation, to make sure that we are not leaving the volunteer sector behind and left outside in the cold.

To wrap things up, I think the third point that needs to be raised and addressed—again, speaking to stakeholders—is in regard to the potential bureaucracy that may manifest in the amalgamation. We have to make sure—and, again, I bring it back to a point that the Minister has already made in the bill, which I do commend; I think it is a great one—that we are setting up local committees to make sure that there is input from local stakeholders, who know their area better and the importance of the role that they play within the area, to actually advise the board at the top end, so as to make sure that they are not marginalised and forgotten.

But we have to make sure, when we are combining rural and urban, that funding is shared adequately, that we have got the right funding sources coming through, that our volunteers are actually part of the big picture, and that when we are dealing with rural and urban together we are not forgetting the big picture.

We look forward to seeing this bill in the select committee. To finish off, we would like to think that we can support this bill if we can tidy up a few of these areas moving forward. Thank you.

I rise to take a very short call in support of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill in this first reading. As has already been talked about, the formation of this bill is a product of the Swain review. It is one that looks to modernise the service, to bring both the urban and rural components together—the paid side along with the volunteer side.

As has already been discussed in this House, the Fire Service and its emergency responses have evolved over time. It is no longer about firefighting per se; it is also about first response to crashes. Especially in my area, a southern geographical spread—that response is certainly well received in such isolated areas. And, of course, the Fire Service’s duties also span to search and rescue. So it is a service that is very much needed in New Zealand and one that should be reflected properly in legislation.

To finish with, in my short call, I do want to pay tribute to Minister Dunne on his consultation process. I had the pleasure of attending meetings between both the rural and urban fire services in Invercargill and greater Southland. They were conducted with the utmost respect, and were a very constructive series of meetings that took on board the challenges of uniting the different aspects of the service but also acknowledged the opportunities. I think that consultation process was done in a very good way, and it has produced this bill, which is well needed and reflects the modern state of the Fire Service. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Ka tū au mō Ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te pānuitanga tuatahi o tēnei pire te Fire and Emergency Bill.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and greetings to you collectively, the House. I stand for the Green Party to speak in the first reading of this bill, the Fire and Emergency Bill.]

I am very pleased to take a short call on this bill. The Green Party is pleased to be supporting it, the modernisation of the Fire Service that it precipitates, and setting the Fire Service on a good path for the future.

I must say that whenever the siren goes in the middle of the night to call out the volunteers in the area where I live, I am enormously grateful for their skills, their commitment, and that huge gift of time that they provide for dealing with fires and accidents. Particularly in Christchurch, after the earthquakes, the volunteer fire brigade in Diamond Harbour was the core of the response, reassuring the community by simple things like taking the fire truck around the streets immediately in the hours after the February quake just to reassure people that it was there, and requisitioning a big water-tank that I think was on its way to a farmer, which became the hub of the water supply for the community when people’s tanks were unable to cope.

The voluntary fire brigade is a huge part of our emergency response services, and this bill, in modernising the services and ensuring that there is a greater commitment—in the words of the Minister—to integrating them with the Fire Service, is a good step forward because, as others have said, there are about 13,000 paid and volunteer staff in the Fire Service, and a very high proportion of those, around 80 percent, are volunteers. So we are very pleased about the Minister’s comments that the bill retains the existing entitlements for volunteers and that it will increase the support for volunteer firefighters. I think the bill also has provisions in it that Fire and Emergency New Zealand must take reasonable steps to recognise, respect, and promote the contribution of volunteers, and it must consult with them and relevant organisations.

We are interested, though, in some of the clauses of the bill, because clause 11 sets out the main functions of Fire and Emergency New Zealand and clause 12 sets out some additional functions. Those additional functions are to the extent that Fire and Emergency New Zealand has the capability and capacity to implement them. One of those additional functions is responding to severe weather-related events, natural hazard events, and disasters. The Green Party will be very interested in submissions as to whether those additional functions should be elevated to be more of a key purpose, because, as we saw with the Christchurch earthquakes, and with climate change and the increasing likelihood of more intense weather events—particularly more severe storm events, with warmer air temperatures that can retain more water; so the storm events are more severe and there is more rainfall—the Fire Service is being called out to respond to those. It is having to have operational capacity not just with fire trucks but potentially also with boats because of significant flooding that we have seen in Northland, in Dunedin South, and elsewhere, so we are interested as to whether that should be much more of a core function of the new organisation.

The other area where the Government should take much more cognisance of the impacts of climate change is, of course, the increasing risk of fire danger. We have seen those chilling photographs of the spread of wildfires in Canada and the United States. The work that the Ministry for Primary Industries has done in New Zealand shows that there is likely to be quite a significant increase in fire danger, particularly in eastern parts of New Zealand, where we are likely to have more drought with climate change. We are likely to have longer fire seasons, an increased fire load because the vegetation has dried out, and much drier and much windier conditions. That is yet another example of why we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, because climate change is going to put even more stress on our Fire Service and on our urban and rural populations.

The other area that we would be particularly interested in, in terms of submissions, is in relation to the offence provisions, because the—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I recall some years ago an elderly, retired fireman related stories of his time in the rural area. It was a time when the service of the fire brigade was to put out fires. He told the story of this house that had burnt down. The wind sort of swept up the flames and all the surrounding trees burnt and the embers started falling down. Unfortunately, some of the firemen did not have the appropriate safety footwear, and so they could not get close enough. On another occasion he related the story of how they went there and they did not have sufficient water. Again, this was in a rural area. On another occasion, in order to prevent the fire from spreading to the other buildings, they hosed down the two sides and did not put out the fire. It was sort of funny, in many ways, but he related that story to convey to me how different things were in his time as opposed to today. He also related how important it is to sufficiently resource the department that we call our Fire Service.

Tonight I had the opportunity to call Theunis Wedzinga, the duty station manager at the Māngere Fire Station. I asked him whether they were aware of this bill coming through. His answer was yes. What was his feeling about this? Mr Wedzinga has served in the rural area as well as in the urban areas, and he believes, in his words, that this is a big step forward for the Fire Service and for New Zealand. He believes that by bringing together the organisation under one Act, rather than having the Forest and Rural Fires Act and the Fire Service Act, hopefully there will be sufficient funding for the organisation, recognising the services of the Fire Service, as well as recognising the volunteers, but, in addition, to have ongoing training.

That then brings me to the bill. There are three parts to the bill. The first part establishes Fire and Emergency New Zealand; the second part refers to its operational functions, duties, and powers; and the third part talks about the levy. I hope that the general public do consider that particular part seriously. Although I acknowledge the Minister of Internal Affairs has done significant work in ensuring that there was widespread consultation and that people had an input into the implementation of this bill, he also released alongside this work the budget for this work, of $303 million in 4 years. A significant proportion of that is capital for the establishment of the headquarters.

The concern I have is that we can expect increases in levies. I do not know, given the fact that our Fire Service is no longer focused on just putting out fires—we basically use our fire services for just about anything, just about anything. Oftentimes people tell me it is easier to call 111 and ask for the Fire Service than it is to call 111 and ask for the police to turn up. There is a big question of whether Fire and Emergency New Zealand will be sufficiently funded in order for its officers to carry out their task and perform their duties and about the burden that will add, whether it will be added fairly, and whether the increased levies will go directly into Fire and Emergency New Zealand, or, as we have seen with this Government, it often siphons off money to do other things. I would ask that the Minister continue with his good work on this, and extend the consultation period to the fullest.

I recommend the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee. It is an appropriate committee. The chairperson is professional. The chairperson is far better than some of the other chairpersons at ensuring that we have widespread input on some of the concerns. My colleague Mr Wedzinga, the station manager at the fire service in Māngere, is wanting to ensure that all their members have that opportunity to make a statement at the public consultation process. Thank you.

It is my honour to take a call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill at its first reading. First of all, I would like to pay gratitude to all the firefighters and the volunteers who stand up in difficult times with other New Zealanders. This bill is also part of the Better Public Services of this Government. We warned that the law should be revamped and updated, because it has been due for a long time. The review was taken in 2015, and the recommendations are contained in this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation. I hope you will indulge me, because I am not sure whether I am going to get another chance to speak in the House this week, and I want to take the chance to thank the messengers in the House who are leaving Parliamentary Service at the end of this week. I can see Pauline, Philip, and Pat in the House at the moment, and Judy—and I think that is Sue—up in the gallery. Thank you for the many years of service that you have given to us. We work in a very unique environment and sometimes it can be very political, and I would like to thank you all for the professionalism you have shown over the years in my experience as an MP and wish you all the best. I am very lucky—being a Wellington MP I will see many of you when you leave this place. I think I will see Bob and Trevor on the platform at Porirua train station, as I do on a regular basis. I thank you all for your service and wish you all the best.

Can I also acknowledge the 13,000 men and women, I think it is, who make up our Fire Service, whether they are volunteers or professional firefighters in our communities. Like many other members have done, I take an opportunity to thank them for their particular services, and I would like to thank the Titahi Bay, Plimmerton, and Paekākāriki volunteers. I live very close to the Titahi Bay Fire Station and quite often get woken by the alarm. Also can I thank the Tawa, Porirua, and Paraparaumu professional firefighters for the job they do and the contribution they make to the community.

It is an enormous change that we are seeing being heralded through with this piece of legislation, and can I acknowledge the Minister in charge of this legislation, the Hon Peter Dunne. Having read through a lot of the documents and the regulatory impact statement, I see there has been a lot of consultation with a lot of community groups to put this piece of legislation together. I do acknowledge the Minister for that. There are major changes that cover governance structure—a change in the funding model—which I am sure we will have a submission on from the Insurance Council of New Zealand. I think this piece of legislation does recognise the changed nature of the work of our professional and volunteer fire services, whether they are urban or rural.

While we are looking at some of these big picture issues with this legislation, certainly when I have been speaking to some of my volunteer fire service people, they do not want to let this piece of legislation go through and miss an opportunity for them to their job more effectively. When I speak about that I want to make a comment about subpart 3, in Part 2—it sounds like a bit of a Committee stage speech—which goes to the formation and approval of a code of practice for firefighting water supply. That might seem slightly mundane, but it is certainly an issue that my volunteer fire service has brought to me around the issue of training.

The responsibility of the upkeep of the fire hydrants in the street—at least in my area; that of the Porirua City Council—is the responsibility of both the professional and local volunteer firefighters. They have had some issues around the maintenance and upkeep of those, because every time they have to go and do that they have to put in place a traffic management plan. That has been an issue for them, especially for the volunteer firefighters in terms of having the people who are accredited—qualified—to do that, the time, and, potentially, the expense that it takes to do that, which has caused a great level of frustration within the volunteer fire service. So I look forward to submissions in the select committee. When we look at the firefighting water supply, one of the issues I think we have to look at is in terms of training and maintenance of some of those fundamental things. I sit on the Government Administration Committee. I would encourage volunteer firefighter services around the county, if this is a particular issue for them—and it certainly is for the Plimmerton fire service in Porirua—to submit to that as well.

Another issue around the security of water supply for firefighting is that under the current Fire Service Act, section 30(1)(b) says that firefighting services should “have the use of all water in any river, creek, stream, watercourse, channel, lake, lagoon, well, tank, or other source of water supply whatsoever for the purpose of extinguishing any fire or stabilising or rendering safe any hazardous substance emergency.” In English, I think that means that if there is some water there and they need it to fight a fire, then they have access to it. The issue, again, is around training. Some of our volunteer firefighter services need to train, and in some areas that particular aspect—the water and the areas around it—is challenging. They have been told “Oh, you can go and use the local school pool.”, but it does not quite match up to the real conditions that they may be faced with if they are asked to take water out of one of those bodies of water. They have asked for permission from the Greater Wellington Regional Council to be able to practise that. They have taken the water out and put the water straight back in, but they have found the red tape and the bureaucracy around being able to do that very frustrating.

If we are going to give firefighters the power to be effective and give them the ability to use these types of water supplies in an emergency, then we have to get real about letting them train in those situations. Otherwise, they will get into a situation where they need that water to fight a fire, and they will think, well, “There goes the pond.”, or “There goes the lake.”, or “There goes the lagoon.”, but when they get there they will come up against something that they have not foreseen and have not been able to train for, and that is going to be problematic. That was a real scenario where one of my volunteer fire services said “Hey, look, we will take the water out, then we will put the pipe back in.”—so the water is essentially just going through the hose—“Can we do that?”, and it has been prevented from doing that. That is one of the practical issues—[Interruption] Yes, I think it is a very strange issue, Mr Assistant Speaker, and that is why I think that these are some of the practical things that I would like the Government Administration Committee to look at during the select committee process. I would encourage as many volunteer and professional fire service personnel who share those frustrations to make a submission during the select committee process.

I think that Part 2, subpart 3, around the code of practice around firefighting water supplies, is good because it compels Fire and Emergency New Zealand to work with local committees, any local authorities, and the New Zealand standards organisations to get that code right. I am thinking that that has been set up to make sure that some of these impracticalities around training for some of its scenarios can be sorted out so that we do not have what I would call a silly situation where it cannot do practical training. So there is that issue around supply and of practice and training around water, and also the issue of having to have a traffic management plan for doing something as simple as setting up and checking a fire hydrant and seeing whether it is fit for purpose, if it was to need it.

These kinds of issues are frustrating for lot of volunteer fire service personnel who have been in the service for decades. If we can ensure that we can sort out what are, in my mind, these very small issues—get them sorted—then we will have these volunteers around for 5 or 10 years to come, and will address the issue that we have with recruiting more people to the likes of volunteer fire services and to firefighting. If we lose that body of experience because of these niggly little issues, it will be to the detriment of all of our communities because we will not have those people there who can give their knowledge on to the next generation of volunteer fire services.

I am looking forward to the select committee stage. There is plenty to look at, but, as many of my colleagues have said, at this stage we will support it. We think it is a good change—a change that brings the Fire Service into the modern era and also fits the purpose. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to stand in support of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill in its first reading tonight. This is the culmination of many years of consultation and consideration. This new organisation that will be set up is called Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), with local committees to be established at the local level. This single organisation, FENZ, will be responsible for rural and urban fire services.

Reflected at the heart of this bill is the importance of the links between fire services and communities, and also the strong need for support for volunteers, given that 80 percent of firefighters are, indeed, volunteers. This bill reflects the changing demand on our rural fire services. For example, from my own experience on the West Coast, rural fire services very rarely put out a rural fire. In fact, in some areas it is difficult to even get a fire to burn. However, these volunteers are often engaged as first responders to motor vehicle accidents. This bill will ensure, through the regional committees, that they are well resourced, trained, and heard. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.