Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill

I move, That the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill be now read a second time. Before I go to the substance of my remarks, can I just simply say that our hearts and our thoughts are very much with the men and women of the New Zealand Fire Service at the moment as they are battling those horrific fires in and around Christchurch. Our admiration and support are for them and what they are doing.

This bill repeals two Acts, the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977, and brings together the urban and rural organisations that currently form the fire services of New Zealand into one single organisation, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, or FENZ, as it is popularly known. The Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill is the culmination of many years’ work. Indeed it could be argued that its genesis lies in the 1948 report of the commission of inquiry into the disastrous Ballantynes fire in Christchurch the year before, which recommended the establishment of a national fire service. More recently, the 2012 Fire Review Panel report made a number of recommendations, which led to the 2015 discussion document seeking the feedback of the fire services and their communities. That feedback highlighted the need for change, for modernisation, and the passion and the commitment of our fire services. This bill recognises that the role of the fire services has greatly expanded since the passage of the current legislation in the 1970s and that modern legislation is required to support and enable the current and future work of our fire services.

I want to acknowledge the work of the Government Administration Committee for their thorough and robust consideration of the bill, not even halted by the Kaikōura earthquake, and particularly to acknowledge the work of the Hon Ruth Dyson as chair of the committee, and the hard work that she and the other members have put in to progress this bill. They received 104 written submissions on the bill and heard 47 submitters orally. The submitters commented on a wide range of topics, from the use of fire as a land management tool to the impact of the fire levy. The submissions highlighted the importance of the fire services to communities. The changes to the bill, I think, directly respond to the submitters’ concerns.

Let me highlight a number of the changes recommended by the committee. Local committees will now be known as “local advisory committees”, to better reflect their role within FENZ and the advice they will provide. Their role is to provide knowledge and expertise on local risk profiles, issues, and needs to Fire and Emergency New Zealand. The committee has recommended that the local advisory committee’s clauses be reordered to make it clearer to whom the clauses apply—to the committees, the board, or to FENZ.

Second is the explicit reference to the use of fire as a land-management tool. Fire is an important tool, particularly in rural communities. A number of submitters were concerned that the bill removed their ability to use wanted fire in a safe manner. The use of fire was still permitted under the bill as introduced; however, changes have been made to make this more explicit. As part of its promotion of fire safety, FENZ must now provide guidance on the safe use of fire as a land-management tool, and a definition of fire as a land-management tool has, consequently, been included in the bill. The offence relating to causing or allowing a fire to get out of control and spread to vegetation or property has been clarified so that it does not duplicate other offences such as arson. The bill has also clarified that the decision to let a fire burn may well be a valid response to a fire. That was a key concern of many firefighters, as it is sometimes appropriate to let a fire burn. The decision is always carefully considered and made, and so the committee has ensured that that provision is explicit in the legislation.

The new clauses 58C to 58F will give FENZ the power to remove fire risks from private property. Territorial authorities currently have this power under the Local Government Act 2002, but it is the intention of this reform that FENZ will become responsible for all rural and urban fire services in New Zealand. So it will need to work with territorial authorities to ensure a smooth handover of this power with a transitional period provided through to mid-2018. To avoid duplicating FENZ’s and territorial authorities’ powers, the bill makes it clear that where there are inconsistencies between local fire bylaws and this legislation, this legislation will prevail. Territorial authorities would continue to deal with other matters such as smoke nuisance and air quality concerns.

Although it is important that FENZ is adequately funded for the critical roles it plays in communities across New Zealand, it is also vital that the regime governing its key-funding source, the levy, is as fair and simple as possible for both those who pay it and those who collect it. Many submitters provided comment on the levy and, as a result, various changes have been made to those clauses of the bill. The committee has clarified and expanded the procedures for hearing and settling disputes between FENZ and levy payers over just how much levy should be paid. The committee has also amended the levy avoidance provisions to allow FENZ to pursue an insurer, a broker, or a policyholder for levy avoidance where that is appropriate.

The committee has also introduced defences against avoidance penalties for parties who can show an absence of fault and reductions in penalties for good behaviour. The regulation-making powers of the levy have been amended to create a far more flexible and responsive regime. For example, it will now be possible to set different levy rates and caps on the total levy payable for different types of properties. Levy exemptions will now be set out in regulation, allowing them to be consulted on and reviewed from time to time.

Many other smaller changes have been made to the levy provisions such as streamlining the process for reaching agreement on the valuation of assets. The use and transfer of response assets are seen as an important part of the transition to FENZ. The bill makes it clear that the transfer of these assets must be agreed by all parties. Fire and Emergency New Zealand will not have an automatic right to own response assets, but it will be able to access them to carry out its functions. It has also been made clearer that community-funded assets will remain with the communities that purchase them. These changes, along with other minor technical changes, improve the clarity of the bill.

The changes recommended by the Government Administration Committee reflect, I think, its careful consideration of and response to the submitters and their concerns. So can I thank all of those who took the time to make submissions on the bill, and also, again, thank the committee for its work. The upshot is that we are now poised to establish an integrated national fire and emergency service, one that brings together our paid staff and our urban and rural volunteers, and one that ensures adequate and proper resourcing and support across the board. There will no longer be any “poor relations” within the fire services of this country.

When I took on this task, I was reminded of the daunting reality that, over the last 20 years, various Ministers have made a total of 16 different, unsuccessful attempts to reform the Fire Service. This current reform process has gone far further than any of those, and it is succeeding because of the thorough consultation that there has been at every stage, and the very deliberate and methodical approach of the board of the Fire Service and the officials at every stage. I want to acknowledge the board of the current Fire Service, the senior management, and the officials of the Department of Internal Affairs for their efforts. They have taken what was a concept 18 months ago to the reality of this legislation.

I said at the beginning that one of the recommendations arising from the Ballantynes royal commission way back in 1948 was the establishment of an integrated national fire service. I am delighted that after nearly 70 years of trying we stand today on the verge of achieving that outcome in Fire and Emergency New Zealand. With a huge degree of pride and a great deal of satisfaction, I very proudly commend this bill to the House.

First, before I begin, can I start by offering my deepest sympathy to the family, workmates, and former SAS colleagues of Steve Askin, who died after crashing into Christchurch’s Port Hills while fighting the fires in Canterbury. Secondly, can I offer my thoughts and the thoughts of the House and this Parliament towards the serious situation that has quickly worsened today. There is now a civil defence emergency in effect in Canterbury due to those fires. Thirdly, can I note that tomorrow there are cross-party talks occurring on civil defence and New Zealand’s response to serious civil defence events and the absolutely critical nature of good communication occurring.

I also note that the Minister of Civil Defence, Gerry Brownlee, said today that there was no hurry. Clearly, there is a hurry that good communication should occur. He has just been quoted tonight as saying that it is “one huge frustration” that there was not a civil defence emergency declared earlier, and around the communication of the agencies involved in fighting this fire. What that tells me and should tell this House is that we have some issues that we have to deal with and address urgently in this country around good communication and around breaking down the silos.

Can I commend the Minister of Internal Affairs—Labour is supporting this bill, and I am going to get on to it in a minute—for the steps forward that have been taken with this legislation, but we have to break down the silos at the local level and we have to break down the silos at the national level. Our communities all around New Zealand depend on this. They are depending on us to show good leadership here, and to ensure that when there is a serious emergency—and yes, we seem to be having a lot of them lately—we are able to work with agility and with professionalism and not do patch protection. People’s lives are at stake, people’s houses are at stake, and people’s communities are badly affected, and so we have got to get it right. We have to step up our game on these things.

Labour is supporting this piece of legislation. It creates a single, unified—or integrated, as the Minister, Peter Dunne, described it—fire services organisation for New Zealand, to be called Fire and Emergency New Zealand, or FENZ, and repeals the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977. It is seriously ironic, and quite disturbing, that as we are speaking on this legislation tonight, we have a serious fire emergency, and that we have rural and urban fire services working side by side. No doubt there will be others coming in from other parts of the country.

These changes are well overdue. We welcomed the opportunity to examine them. I did not sit on the Government Administration Committee. I did not hear all of the submissions. I was fortunate to be present for one of the sessions of submissions and so have been paying some attention to this. We support this bill. We acknowledge the more than 110 individuals and organisations that made submissions, and I also need to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson, who is the chair of the Government Administration Committee and has taken the lead on this bill. As a Christchurch MP, as the MP for the Port Hills, I think everybody knows where she is tonight and why she is there. She has gone back to her community to support her community, and our thoughts are with her tonight and with any other MPs who have headed back to Christchurch.

The bill does a number of things, but one of the things that the bill introduces is a new insurance levy payment system to fund the new Fire and Emergency New Zealand—FENZ, I think we are going to start calling it. Labour does acknowledge the concerns raised by the significant stakeholders about the levy system. I particularly want to speak about museums and the concerns that were raised by museums around the country. I want to reference the museum from my home town, the Otago Museum, which appeared before the committee and gave a very strong submission. I know that it was echoed by other museums. The concerns that museums have raised are very valid and do raise some serious concerns for us, because the levy cost under this bill, based on a fully insured collection, could increase their costs—our museums, our repositories of our cultural heritage—substantially and would seem disproportionate to some policyholders’ need to call on the FENZ services.

It was suggested during the submission process that the levy could be waived or capped in the case of public gallery or museum collections but could apply to their buildings or other property. We would like to see consideration given to this approach in the regulations proposed to be developed under this legislation. I do want to emphasise this to the Minister, because this was an issue of significant concern. I just want to make reference to the submission made by Museums Aotearoa, where it said that “An increased levy is likely to impose significant financial hardship on museums and galleries which would need to be passed on to their communities of support.”

I would also note that most museums in this country manage themselves financially. They do not get a lot of Government support and they are very passionate about what they do, and as a country we should be very passionate about what they hold on our behalf. So we should be listening when they speak, because they do not speak publicly very often. Otago Museum said this “provides an incentive to declare a low value, and could lead to under-insurance.” That is really significant and something that should be taken seriously. “It will also make the option of no insurance or self-insurance more tempting, especially in the case of volunteer organisations.” They asked for an exemption to waive the levy and they were joined by others.

So I want to reiterate those concerns and say that this is something that should be considered. In essence, though, Labour supports this bill. We think that it is sensible, that it was a logical thing to do, and we commend it to the House.

E Te Māngai Tuarua o Te Whare, tēnā koe. I would like to follow on from the member who has just resumed her seat, Clare Curran, and begin by thanking her and also Ruth Dyson, the chair of the Government Administration Committee, for conducting a very good, open process and for making sure that everyone who had a view on this issue was able to be heard, because it is a very important piece of legislation that we are dealing with. It updates two significantly out-of-date pieces of legislation from the 1970s—the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977—and consolidates the rural and urban fire services. Can I also commend the work of the Hon Peter Dunne as Minister, and perhaps call on Minister Dunne to give even greater reassurance to us all that museums will be—in terms of the levy-raising and the funding arrangements—considered very carefully and that they will not have costs imposed on them that they are not able to bear.

I think the member Clare Curran had a good point. I too heard the submission from Otago Museum, but it was similar to others around the country, from even the very big museums—the well-funded museums like Te Papa here in Wellington—through to, for instance, the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland. MOTAT made the point that its Lancaster bomber may be worth a huge amount—perhaps over $100 million—but because it was one of only seven remaining such artefacts, it was, effectively, irreplaceable, and the choices that it makes over how it chooses to insure such a precious and rare artefact should be based on a sensible and prudent approach, as the manager and steward and guardian of that taonga, rather than with a view to minimising levies. So I felt reassured in the committee by our advisers and our officials that museums would receive, I think, a favourable and sensible treatment in the way levies are raised, and I hope that that is further confirmed in this House by the Minister.

We did hear extensively about the important work that the Fire Service does, and at this time when firefighters are risking their lives to combat one of the largest fire emergencies that we have faced in this country in recent times, I want to commend the amazing work of the members of the Fire Service—or Fire and Emergency New Zealand, as it will be known after this bill passes into law. They risk their lives on a sometimes daily basis to keep us all safe, to protect us, and, actually, the work goes beyond that traditional remit of a fire service; it is not just putting out household fires. We know, from the hearings that we have undertaken in this legislative process, that a significant amount of their work these days is keeping us safe on the roads and responding to accidents and emergencies in that area. So I say: well done to the men and women of the Fire Service.

This seems to be a relatively uncontroversial piece of legislation in this House. We have yet to hear contributions from some of the other minor parties, but I welcome the cross-party cooperation and bipartisanship on what is an issue too serious to play politics with. It is an example of how we can take legislation through the select committee process and improve it by working together in a constructive way, and I commend this bill to the House.

I am happy to rise in support of this bill, and I too would like to acknowledge the Minister of Internal Affairs for driving this. I think, even though he is a member of the Government, that the fact that this work is coming to fruition is an example of somebody taking the lead, of somebody just getting on with the job. I also want to acknowledge Ruth Dyson, a colleague who chairs this particular committee, the Government Administration Committee. And, to be fair, I am not a member of that committee, but I do want to acknowledge all the members of the committee because, just looking through this particular report, it is a pretty comprehensive report. It deals with and raises a number of issues that, no doubt, those who made submissions would have raised here. Effectively, what is happening here is that the New Zealand Fire Service, the National Rural Fire Authority, and 30 other rural fire authorities will merge to become one organisation, and that will begin from 1 July 2017.

As I listened to the speaker before me, Paul Foster-Bell, he repeated the name “Fire Service”. You know—and I hope that we will tease this out come Committee time—that the new name will be Fire and Emergency New Zealand. We will drop “service”. I think we may find that that will be an issue of debate in the Committee stage, because I think the dropping of the word “service” is almost, in a way, a slap to our men and women who provide the fire and emergency services for the safety and for the sake of the rest of our population.

I want to go through this particular select committee process and just highlight some things that I believe cover some key issues that arose during the consideration of the committee and, no doubt, would have been raised by members of the public. I know that the Fire Service in my own constituency of Māngere, when I spoke with the gentlemen there sometime back at the first reading of this bill, were pretty supportive. They were looking forward to it.

One of the first impressions that comes to mind when you are building an organisation is how you fund it, because big does not necessarily mean it will be cheap. I note that in some of the preliminary papers that were made available the board chair of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission, Mr Paul Swain, a former member of this House, said that “to successfully transition to the new organisation, while maintaining the high standard of service delivery by urban and rural firefighters, the Board expects the levy will need to increase by about $36.00 per year for the average homeowner, or 70 cents per week.” I suspect that during the select committee stage that would have been an issue that people were concerned about.

So just from the report here, one of the key issues that would have been raised is the local advisory committees. They are dropping “local committees” and now using “local advisory committees”. I understand that the select committee felt that this was more appropriate because the committees are advisory in nature but local in their representative capacity. I note, also, that their report, as I said earlier, is comprehensive, because they then go through as a committee and debate some of the issues: the functions of local advisory committees—and the committee has included a new clause 13A(2)(e) “to include consideration of operational service agreements and memoranda of understanding relevant to the local area.” I think that is a key: “relevant to the local area.”

The committee also looked at guidelines for local planning, and the committee is making recommendations that “local planning would include a specific fire plan for the local area.” That is a key, because I suspect rural areas will be quite different from urban areas. I know that in my own constituency—we are called the “Gateway to the Nation”, the “Land of the Young, Gifted and Beautiful”, and “Home of the Champions”—you have got Māngere Bridge, you have got Favona, you have got Māngere central, and you have got Māngere East. There are four specific areas. People are pretty parochial about their own little area there, and that would be the same for a range of other urban areas. The select committee considered operating principles for local advisory committees, that it was “important that local advisory committees be able to retain a certain degree of autonomy.” and that “operating principles are for guidance only”. Most people, if they are elected or chosen or appointed for certain committees, want to do the best thing. So I think having those principles as a guide is going to be important.

Appointments to local advisory committees was discussed, as was the levy regime for funding the new organisation. This bill allows “for the levy to be broadened to include insurance for material damage as well as for fire damage, in order to better reflect the services that would be provided by [the new organisation]”. So there are amendments in this bill that broaden the levy base, and there are concerns, which, hopefully, the committee was aware of, in that broadening the levy to cover insurance on physical loss or damage—there would have been concerns.

Some of the concerns that I understand were raised: that the relationship between the new organisation and the types of risk covered by this type of insurance is unclear, that the levy payable and resulting costs would increase substantially in some instances, and that there would be disproportionate increases in levy costs relative to risks. I hope that the Committee of the whole House will tease out some of those concerns, and it would be good to note whether some of the submissions that raise these concerns could be made available.

The select committee did say that it was “pleased that there is a requirement under clause 106 of the bill … to publicly consult on the making of levy exemptions, and we consider that this would facilitate better public understanding of the potential benefits”. This is critical, that there be public consultation on levy exemptions and, hopefully, on the levy itself, because, in effect, we are asking members of the public to pay for a service, a public service. We might call it a levy, but, in effect, it is a tax, and therefore the people whom we are taxing should have a say in the increase in the levy and in the exemption and in anything else with regard to this particular levy.

I also want to highlight, for the benefit of the House, that this is fundamental to why we pay taxes. I pay my taxes so that we can provide some of these public services. I pay my taxes so that we can ensure that we have a public education system, a public health system, and that we can provide housing. So the same principle that should have applied to some of those other key services is being spelt out openly and publicly in this particular bill. I am pleased that that is happening.

I also note in the other issues here the “Power to require information” from the new organisation. Clause 86 will “require persons (levy payers or insurance intermediaries) to provide information that [the new organisation] considers necessary or relevant for administration or enforcement of the levy.” I think that that is plain in itself. It is a levy, it is a tax, and therefore it needs to be open and transparent.

In terms of “Levy disputes, avoidance, and exemptions”, the committee’s report covers that quite comprehensively. “Fire in the open air” is quite interesting, because there was “concern about the fact that there is not an explicit provision in the bill for the use of fire as a land management tool.” I see a hāngi or an umu as a land management tool, so there needs to be some leeway for that. I am pleased that the committee has made it clear that fire can be used as a land management tool and is recommending some amendments to that. It goes on: as for fire seasons and fire permits, there is a whole range of recommendations.

As I said from the start, I want to commend Ruth Dyson, the chair of this committee, and members of the committee for a pretty comprehensive report. They have dealt with a lot of the concerns that have come out, but in the Committee of the whole House stage I would expect that we will tease out the reason for the dropping of the word “service” from the title, and then we can debate a little bit more some of the concerns around the whole levy situation.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of the men and women of the New Zealand Fire Service, our rural firefighting communities, the New Zealand Defence Force, and other members of local communities who have been fighting and will continue to fight the devastating fires around Christchurch. I think nothing illustrates more the risks and danger that the men and women of those services will place themselves in to protect the lives and property of others than the tragic death of Steve Askin, who was killed in assisting to help fight those fires. I think it is appropriate that we as a Parliament take a moment to acknowledge and extend condolences particularly to Steve’s family, friends, and colleagues both current and former. It is a terrible moment but it does reflect on what the men and women of those services will do for others.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve on the Government Administration Committee, which looked at this bill. I commend the Hon Peter Dunne for bringing this bill to the House. As has been said, the nature of the functions of the Fire Service has changed dramatically over the years since the legislation was last dealt with in a major way. For a number of years, for instance, the Fire Service, and I knew this through school friends when I was growing up, and their fathers—principally their fathers—would be involved in attending things such as motor vehicle accidents.

In fact, I offer my thanks to the Fire Service. Some many years ago when I was first learning to ride a motorcycle, quite frankly they came and scraped me off the road in Pukerua Bay, just north of Wellington, when, unfortunately, as a new rider I did not quite understand what would happen to that bike in the wet weather. The point is that the Fire Service has not been funded for those types of activities. So this new legislation will bring about a better model, one where the service can be better and more appropriately funded for all of the activities that it takes on.

I think a wonderful thing I have noticed through it as well—particularly in Ōhāriu—is that we have a large number of volunteer firefighters and brigades. I would like to commend the Fire Service for doing a great deal of work in recent years to really work on the relationship between the professional Fire Service—or permanent firefighters—and the volunteers. I think this legislation reflects well the sort of legislation I think we want to endure in the Fire and Emergency New Zealand organisation.

A number of people have mentioned that the levy got a lot of scrutiny in the committee work, and that is true. I also join with my colleagues across the House in saying that we had concerns about what the case might be for organisation such as museums. I would just reflect that officials were clear to us that, for instance, if a museum only partially insures what is a total assessable value of their collection, it would not be treated as any form of avoidance and the maximum levy payable would be on the amount they chose to insure, not on what some expert might say a certain item or a total collection might be worth. I think that is a very sensible approach, and it will be interesting to see how these things are teased out through regulation.

Overall, I think this is an extremely good bill. I think it is a very welcome sort of movement for the Fire Service as a whole and it can do nothing but good across the communities of New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to take a call in the second reading of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. I know that there is a lot of interest in this piece of legislation, but I suspect that many of the people who may have been following the debate on this in the House tonight may be more preoccupied with the news of what is happening in Christchurch at the moment. On that note, I do want to offer the Green Party’s condolences to David Askin’s family—the helicopter pilot who died supporting the emergency efforts in the Port Hills.

I want to acknowledge all of those people involved voluntarily and in a paid capacity in our emergency services, who put their lives on the line to protect property and people. It is a great tragedy, and my heart really does go out to the people of Christchurch. It just feels wrong that they are having to go through another such crisis and disaster. It really just seems too much, but it does make this debate all the more poignant and reminds us that what is actually at the heart of this is trying to ensure that our fire and emergency services, right across the country, are able to respond and that all of those people working in those services, in paid and voluntary capacities, are well supported to do that work.

I would also like to add my words of thanks to Minister Peter Dunne for bringing this bill to the House. You know, this is updating legislation that has not been substantially changed since the 1940s, and we have had many, many changes in our society and in our communities, let alone in technology, since the 1940s.

At the heart of what this bill is about—to completely oversimplify it—is the merging of the urban fire services and the rural fire services, which have been operating quite distinctly and have been very much based in their communities. So it is a very significant undertaking, and it is one that the Green Party supports.

I do also want to thank the chair of the Government Administration Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, who, I understand, has gone back to her community in the Port Hills to support them there at the moment. She is a very competent chair and, sadly, I still think her experiences from the earthquakes add a lot to the committee’s consideration of legislation such as this bill. But we were definitely aided by the 104 submissions and the 47 oral submissions, which came from a very wide range of organisations—I think, an unusually wide range of organisations—from district councils to museums, insurance companies, fire brigades, aged-care services, farmers, forest owners, and Air New Zealand, as well, of course, as all of the different fire unions and fire agencies. So I think the committee worked together very sensibly, seeking to hear what the concerns were and considering how we may be able to address them in the legislation.

This has been mentioned by previous speakers, but I will also add that we are waiting to see the resolution of the levy issue in regulation, and we did also listen very carefully to the museums and art galleries that raised concerns with us. The idea that museums and art galleries would not be penalised for under-insuring and that that would not be seen as avoidance—I do think that the possible other consequences of that need to be properly considered. There certainly was a call for a levy waiver system for these public institutions, which contribute very significantly to our cultural understanding, and that is something that I do support. I think it is important that that regulation sets up a transparent, easily understood system, so that we do not get into having people under-insuring or not insuring or self-insuring just to be able to avoid increasing the costs of entrance to their public institutions to the point where people no longer come. I do not think that would serve any of us or the intent of the legislation.

Also, I do want to speak a little bit about an aspect of the bill that others have not spoken about so far, and that is the treatment of volunteers. Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) has a direct relationship with volunteers. Through this legislation, there will be a framework created for that relationship, and many New Zealanders—I certainly was not aware, before the consideration of this bill, that 80 percent of the Fire Service’s workforce in this country are volunteers. So it is really, really encouraging to see that the bill identifies volunteers as “personnel” up front in the legislation, because we certainly need to make sure that we are looking after those volunteers, who are putting their lives on the line and giving up so much of their time and are sharing their skills for the benefit of our community. It is good. We certainly know that some of those relationships have not been uncomplicated in the past and that there are things to improve on.

So clause 34 of the bill enables FENZ to make independent advocacy and support services available so that if somebody has got a dispute and maybe they do not want to go through the United Fire Brigades’ Association, if they are a volunteer, there is actually the ability for there to be an independent advocacy and support service for them. Sometimes, when there are paid staff and there are volunteers, their interests may not be aligned, and sometimes they may be seen to be in conflict, so I think that independence will add value and security to the volunteers. It was also encouraging to see that there will be a requirement to consult with volunteers in the development of services.

I will note one more concern at this point, though, and there are not many for us, but this is an area where we maintain concern. There has not been a baseline review done of services, and this bill and, I think, the Regulations Review Committee document looked at the cost savings that would come from this merging and estimated that there would be $47 million of savings through this process. But without a baseline review having been done, there is the real potential that the organisation will drive to make those savings without first working out what is needed and what services need to be provided for those volunteers and the communities. We are very wary of that and would encourage all those involved to be very careful in that process.

I would also like to mention another concern that we have, which is about the identified functions and objectives of Fire and Emergency New Zealand, because fire investigation is not listed as a specific function. This is a very specialised skill—and it certainly is recognised separately in other jurisdictions overseas—and we are concerned that that may lead to an erosion of the competence of the investigation of fires and the ability to make cases in court when there is a case to be made. Again, I think that area should be reconsidered.

But, all in all, there are many things to be pleased with in this bill, and, again, congratulations to all those involved.

I think it is a very profound evening this evening, that we are talking about the biggest review/amalgamation bill coming through the House in the last 70 years—I think it was the 1940s when we had such a big amount of change—on a day such as this, when we have seen a civil defence emergency being called in Canterbury. Our sincerest condolences go out to David Askin and his family, his loved ones, and friends, who will be suffering at the moment because, of course, tragically, he died yesterday, in the afternoon, putting out these fires.

I would like to start off on a positive note, but I do have some very serious reservations. In the first reading in the House, we were very, very clear that New Zealand First would support this bill through its first reading in order to get it to a select committee so that we could hear submissions and look at this bill further, but we were very concerned.

I can tell you right now that there are bigger concerns than the fact that we are going to take the word “service” out of the Fire Service, and there are bigger concerns than the congratulations that we seem to be giving each other—and patting each other on the back—because this bill is very important. Outside of the submissions that we have heard in the Government Administration Committee, we have been inundated with people who are involved, directly and indirectly, on the periphery of the Fire Service, who have some serious concerns. They will be sitting at home and in the gallery tonight, absolutely with their eyes and their mouths open wide, aghast at the absolute complacency with which we seem to be walking into this trap. I will get in to that in a moment; I am going to start positively. I have been trying to keep myself calm here.

Just as a bit of an overview, we have close to a total of 14,000 workers inside the Fire Service, and 83 percent of those workers are volunteers—men and women giving up their days, their mornings, their nights, and all their holidays to go and assist in all manner of occasions. There were 5,400 structure fires last year, and 10,300 medical emergencies that the Fire Service showed up to and assisted with. There were 5,100 vegetation fires, there were 4,815 car accidents that they went to, and 3,245 hazardous material call-outs. That is just the start of it. That is not including all of the weather incidents that the Fire Service attends, such as the pumping out of water from the bottom flat of your house or your garage that has filled with water. The number of times we have seen the Fire Service working well beyond its call of duty—chopping down trees that have cut power lines. Just yesterday a young girl went missing, and who did we call? We called the Fire Service to go and find that young girl of 5 years old in the Waikato. Search and Rescue came together with the community, the volunteers, to do this.

The Fire Service adds so much value. It is far more than we are putting down on paper here, and yet we are not adequately funding this. Our funding model is absolutely flawed. There are two things that we are going to oppose in this: the funding model, which we do not believe is fit for purpose; and, of course, the culture within the organisation—the amalgamation of urban, rural, and the volunteer sectors coming together, and I will get into that a little bit shortly.

This is the 17th review that the Fire Service has had in 21 years, and the first major reform changes. We had 104 submissions, and 47 of those were oral, and, I have to say, some of the evidence coming out in some of the submissions was quite damning.

The positive aspects were that the enabling factors of fire in the open air as a land management tool is absolutely essential when you are dealing with scrub fires and rural locations. The best way to control fire is actually by lighting other small fires and controlling them. It is great for getting your vegetation back and getting it blooming. This has been a change that they have found is working very well through Europe, and it is great to see that this bill actually modernises our current situation.

The power to move fire risk from private property is another great part of this bill—as I say, I am going to focus on some positives before we get to the nuts and bolts of the issues that we have—as is the uninhibited access to water, in section 45 of the bill, which will enable fire services to tap not just into the mains water supply but into any water that is available on a property, whether it is from a farm, river, or the like. That water is now made available to them. Finally, another positive aspect is the power for entry for the fire inspectors, who may, at any reasonable time—and I underline the word “reasonable” because it is in there clearly in the bill—actually enter a premises, a building, or a landmass to inspect it to make sure that it is safe and fit for purpose.

The issue that we have in New Zealand First, and the reason that we are opposing this bill—and I am surprised that there has not been more Opposition to it. There has been a lot of fluffery and a lot of lollipops and candyfloss clouds talked about. The reality is that if any of these members of Parliament have read the Malone review from Australia, which is the Queensland review from back in 2013, or the Ferguson report from 2016 from Western Australia, outlining the major issues with their amalgamation project that they went down in 1998—and I am sure some of them may well have and have just decided not to bring it to your attention.

Let me just read out some of these reports. The 2016 Western Australian special inquiry found the fire service approach for urban and rural private lands in Western Australia did not function well to cater for the different cultures between the urban and rural environments. It goes on to say that the systems for managing rural fire has been variously described as, at best, “disjointed and disconnected”, and, at worst, “dysfunctional and broken”. The report goes on even further to say that “The FRS”—or Fire and Rescue Service—“culture is one that prioritises structural firefighting over any other type of fire, that favours incident response rather than hazard reduction, and which focuses on the Perth metropolitan area rather than the entire State.”

This is the trap that we are walking ourselves into. The Queensland Malone report came out and said very, very similar things. It said that after the amalgamation of the rural and urban services into a single service, many volunteers felt that the greater local autonomy that was put forward in 1990 by the Minister “would have never eventuated.” and “Instead rural fire service volunteers felt their operations started to be influenced by the urban fire culture,”. It is exactly the same in Greece, Canada, and California. All these other countries and States around the world have seen that the amalgamation of urban and rural does not work.

I am heavily involved in the surf lifesaving movement. We have got about 300 volunteers who give up their weekends every weekend to go down to the beach to make sure that people are kept safe. If we wanted to flip the organisation and let the 20 or so full-time employed people in the organisation tell the 200 people what to do, very, very quickly the volunteers are going to stop showing up. This is exactly what is going to happen if this is not addressed, and not a single party here has raised the concerns of the thousands of volunteer and urban fire services and the search and rescue operators who are actually going to be marginalised if this bill comes in to place. The reality is that it is going to be put into place. It is like: “Buckle up your seatbelts, because we are going to get bumpy from here on in.”

We have to acknowledge the fact that the funding model is also severely flawed. If you take into consideration everything I have said so far, that the work the Fire Service does is over and above what the levies are going to be providing for—with car levies, with a levy now on residents, and, of course, now we have got contents insurance levies coming through—the major fund is going to be supplied largely by the non-residential, the commercial operators, and owners of property. There is no cap on them whatsoever.

At the moment, the residential levy is capped at $76. We have got the contents levy at $15.20, which is a total of around $91 per annum. The motor vehicle levy is a flat rate of $6.08, but the non-residential, commercial levy is going to 7.6c for every hundred dollars insured. People are going to stop insuring their properties—they are going to under-insure them for a start—because that gets up pretty quickly. If you talk about a million-dollar property, you are talking about $7,500 in fire levies a year on a commercial building, which is going to be covering nearly half of the entire fund that they are looking for to actually run the Fire Service, which is around about half a billion dollars.

I do not think there has been enough consideration put into this bill. Certainly, listening to and reading the reports from Property Council New Zealand, talking to the rural firefighters, and looking at international studies and reviews that have been done, what we are doing here is duplicating what has not worked internationally, and I am telling the people of New Zealand: watch out. We are in for a very bumpy ride, and I cannot believe that there is no other party out there that is nodding agreeably and saying: “We should not be going into this like we are.” After 17 reviews in 21 years, I say we can do better, and we should be holding it off until we can do better. Thank you.

It is always a pleasure to follow behind a 5 percent party. We have just heard a speech that is aimed at a 5 percent market—a 5 percent market that will be opposed to any initiative and to any forward-moving, progressive, constructive, solid, forward-thinking, and positive idea that is presented in this Parliament. It is a 5 percent party that will always find 5 percent of detractors. That was a speech that was designed for the marginal, for the 5 percent, and, in my ranking, it was probably only about a 3.5 percent speech.

Tonight we are considering the second reading of this very important bill. It is poignant and appropriate that we should, as other speakers have done, acknowledge the work that is being done by so many in Canterbury—in Christchurch—around the Port Hills tonight and over the last few days, and will be for what sounds like several more days yet to come, if not weeks.

I too want to acknowledge the friends, family, and colleagues of the late Steve Askin, who lost his life yesterday fighting to put out and bring under control those fires. In my electorate of the Coromandel, we had a similar experience. It was not as large as the one that is currently under way in Canterbury, but a few weeks ago we had the Comers Road fire just south of Whitianga. I had an opportunity to go there the day after and see firsthand the devastation of houses burnt to the ground, and the remarkable work and dedication of volunteers—almost exclusively volunteers—from around my electorate, who had come from every part of the electorate to support that community to bring that fire under control.

In my electorate, the volunteers, the rural firefighters, and other members of our wider community are really looking forward to this legislation because it is legislation whose time has come. The environment is right, the mindset is right, and the opportunity is right for modernising what is an incredibly important part of our community first response not just to fires these days but, of course, to so many other matters of urgent need, mostly on the road.

The Government Administration Committee has done a very good job on this bill. I am impressed with the work that it has done. I would like to acknowledge and thank the committee for the work that it has done. It is my very great pleasure to support the bill in the House tonight.

I rise to take a very short call for the Greens to support the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill in its second reading. I was not involved in the committee but I understand, through the submissions, that there was quite a lot of discussion about it, which is not surprising given that it has taken quite some time to get to this position. My understanding is that this bill is the result of a review that occurred in 2012 and again a couple of years later. It brings together the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977, but, essentially, the laws relating to the New Zealand Fire Service and the way it has operated have not really changed since the 1940s. Society has changed since then, so it is actually timely that we bring together—we have seen the work that has happened across these reviews—the range of services, particularly the rural and urban setting for the fire and emergency services.

Before I go any further, I also want to add my condolences and send my regards to the people of Christchurch and Port Hills. Our MP who is based in that area, Eugenie Sage, like Ruth Dyson, has gone back tonight to be with the people there, to be with part of her community.

I think it is timely to acknowledge the work that goes into providing these emergency services. Yes, I do acknowledge that 80 percent of the fire services are provided by volunteers. Between them all, they keep us safe. If we consider the type of fire that is happening now in Port Hills, and the one in Hastings recently, and if we look at the temperatures that are going through the thermostat with the impacts of climate change—we are seeing that happening in Sydney and elsewhere in Australia—it is more and more likely to occur here in drought-stricken areas in Aotearoa New Zealand. When we think about that, we need to be futureproofing the emergency services that we do have.

That brings me back to the bill. Some of the concerns that were outlined in the select committee report and in three submissions have been about funding. This bill ensures that there is one funding source rather than a range of funding sources, which had occurred for the rural fire service previously, but there are some concerns about whether the funding is adequate. In particular, there are some issues around fire investigation. That was raised several times through the submission process. The report talks about the committee having some concerns about investigations not being undertaken by the peak body, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and that it will not be required to employ fire investigators. From my understanding, this will be done through the police. However, there is a specialist area here, and I think that, actually, we should be considering that and considering having that paid for through the levy that is going to be supporting the organisations in the first place.

I guess the other thing that we need to be concerned about is the modelling of the funding. We were very concerned that the predictions of $47 million a year in savings from the ongoing support for volunteers may leave the voluntary fire service in a difficult position. That is certainly not what we want now.

The other thing that I really want to add is that this bill has been a long time coming; it came in for its first reading in July last year, so it has been quite a process to get it to this stage. Overall, despite the concerns we have around funding, we are supportive of the bill and we recommend it to the House.

Although I was not a member of the Government Administration Committee, I certainly have a passion and commitment to rural fire services. There is always unease with change. I accept that different people who have spoken to me about this have not always been enthusiastically supportive of it for, I think, justifiable reasons.

The question of why this has been done is something that we should ask. I have been very suspicious of most of the changes that the National Government has undertaken. The question of “why” usually comes back to one of saving money, and that does not always bode well for the people who have to carry on with the service responsibility—so, too, in this case here. We have a huge voluntary component in the fire service in this country. I think the select committee acknowledged that, and we in the Labour Party certainly acknowledge that. It is huge. In fact, without them, we would not have a properly functioning fire service. The issue of funding is one that we are attempting to address in this legislation, and there will be levies imposed. I know that there was some pushback from the forestry companies, which have a lot of assets, and other organisations—museums, for example—where they think the asset value is overvalued and the levy may be excessive.

I come back to the point: the question of why we are doing this and whether we are indeed going to end up with a more effective fire service or emergency service. Indeed, in the rural areas, more particularly on the West Coast, we do not have a lot of rural fires. We have a few, but the weather, given the last summer, probably has prevented most of that. Unfortunately, we have seen the tragic circumstances in the Port Hills. I too want to acknowledge the terrible loss that we have seen over there. I guess the Askin family has to take that on board. We want to say thank you for the sacrifice that, although not willingly, has been made.

There is another issue there around the ongoing risk and risk management. If I can intervene, in a slight segue, it is to the Pike River families meeting with the Prime Minister today, who were, effectively, told that we cannot put anyone at risk to go in and recover their loved ones. The idea of zero risk is completely unrealistic. Just as those helicopter pilots in the Port Hills have continued with their risky task of trying to put out those fires, in spite of the terrible tragedy that we have seen, they have taken on board the risk and have gone forward managing it in a way that we hope will prevent any further tragedy.

We have to remember that in all emergency services there will always be an element of risk, and although we might be dealing with the administrative structure through this piece of legislation, we can never forget the objective and the reality of what happens here. We have volunteers and paid members, regardless of the funding—and it now, hopefully, will be more secure—going into risky situations every single day of this year to protect property in New Zealand, protect lives, and, in some cases, recover people who have, tragically, lost their lives.

I think we have not quite got it right in this country, and I think the Prime Minister today displayed another case of misjudged calculation in terms of risk management and said: “No risk at Pike River, but we’ll accept risk in the ongoing management of fires in the Port Hills, and we’ll accept risk through this fire service and emergency service in the ongoing protection of New Zealanders and their property into the future.” That is the reality we must face. But, in doing so, Parliament has an obligation, firstly, to acknowledge the risk that volunteers and others undertake and also to not be unrealistic and say that we have no zero-risk and there is a liability issue and someone has to carry the can—

💬 Brett Hudson: Actually, there is.

Oh, the member over there gets a bit touchy about this. He knows full well that everyone working in the Fire Service moves into risky situations every single day of their situation. This legislation hopes to bring together the structural unity of the organisation. Let us not forget the reality for the people—the volunteers and the paid people—who undertake these services. They take on a big challenge. They take on risks on behalf of us all. They should be acknowledged and they should be funded properly, but we have got to be realistic across our whole economy.

Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. I am going to be taking the higher ground and will not respond to the Hon Damien O’Connor’s comments, although they actually do require some response. I am just going to take the higher ground.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the work that the Fire Service has been undertaking in the Port Hills of Christchurch and in the Hawke’s Bay over the past few days. Their tireless dedication to the people of New Zealand is commendable, and they truly are, in fact, heroes in our communities. I actually see several of them sitting up there in the gallery, and I would like to salute them: thank you for what you do.

I would also like to share in the condolences that were given in this House to the family, colleagues, and friends of the helicopter pilot David Steven Askin, known as Steve. It was such a tragedy to have lost him while he was actually fighting the fires in Christchurch, and our aroha—I am sure all members will agree—goes out to the family, friends, and colleagues of Mr Askin.

This bill will repeal and replace two outdated Acts, the Fire Service Act of 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act of 1977, and will give the Fire Service a modern and future-proofed legislative framework that acknowledges the changes in our country over the last several decades. It will ultimately establish a single, united fire service organisation for the New Zealand people.

The role of the Fire Service has moved on significantly from only fighting fires—not that that is anything to diminish, but, you know, it is no longer just rescuing cats, either. It has a significant role in urban search and rescue, motor vehicle assistance, and community engagement—and education in our community, as well. The Fire Service, whether in rural towns or in our local suburbs, is, in fact, a key community organisation, and it should be thanked and acknowledged. It does an incredible amount of work for the people in our country. Across New Zealand, there is a mixture of professional and volunteer firemen and women, and our firefighters, wherever they are and whatever their role, need a system that works best for them and the communities they work in.

This bill will mandate those non - fire-related services that firefighters undertake, and it acknowledges that they do much more now than was their traditional role. The Government has also been heavily engaged with stakeholders to ensure they will be involved in working out how local services can best operate in their communities once the unification of the fire services takes place. These changes will also ensure the maintenance of volunteers as an important part of our Fire Service tradition. Our volunteers, especially in smaller towns, are a vital part of the fire service industry.

Earlier this evening, Scott Simpson and I were having a conversation about how I was so envious of a girlfriend who, during university, volunteered as a volunteer fireperson, fire—you know—

💬 Scott Simpson: Firefighter.

—firefighter—and it was probably the fact that she carried a pager. This is long before mobile phones came out—I am actually showing my age.

💬 Scott Simpson: Pager?

Pager, yes—one of those things that went off, went “beep beep”, and the Fire Service would actually ring her. She was so responsible. She would not drink when we went out on a Friday night, because she was waiting for that call, just in case it actually happened. I was so envious, I even tried out for the volunteer Fire Service. Back then, I was apparently a little too small and so uncoordinated that when I held the fire hose I actually fell over backwards and water went everywhere. So I was not allowed to join the volunteer Fire Service. But I digress.

I think this is a great bill, and I commend the work that the Government Administration Committee has produced. I think it has done a wonderful thing, and I salute the Fire Service once again. I commend this great bill to the House.

Can I begin with the obvious acknowledgments to the people of Christchurch tonight, to the families that are affected by the third night, I think it is, of fires on the Port Hills, to the men and women who have helped over those three nights to attempt to put out what is turning into a rather major fire, and to those communities that have been affected, areas very close to where I grew up around Westmorland and Tai Tapu, where my parents lived not so long ago. Our thoughts go to those communities as they go through these difficult times.

As others have said as well, there has been a helicopter pilot who has passed away during the efforts to quell the flames. To Steve Askin’s family go the collective thoughts of this House for the loss of a brother and a husband, especially for the efforts that he made during his time fighting that fire.

Can I also acknowledge the Government Administration Committee, which I used to be a member of, and the chair, Ruth Dyson, who, I think, led this process very well. It is a rather large piece of work, and I think the members on that select committee worked through a lot of technical issues to make sure that the bill could be as good as it could be. And I do acknowledge Ruth as the local member of Parliament for Port Hills, who is back in her electorate tonight tending to the issues that need to be addressed with the fire that is going on there.

There are two issues that I wanted to address in the second reading, and members who remember my first-reading speech so fondly will be happy that I am following these up. The Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade, from my electorate, made a submission on this bill around a number of issues but primarily around two practical issues that it had some concerns about. It saw the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill as an opportunity to address those.

One of those was the ability for fire brigades to access water for training, not necessarily from hydrants but from rivers, streams, lakes, or ponds that they thought might be useful for them to train with. Under the old settings—which I guess are current settings—it was very difficult for them to get permission to allow them to do training around pumping water out of those water bodies so that their volunteer fire brigade members could get practical experience around some of the local areas of Porirua. My understanding is that the practical problem was that they had to get permission from the Wellington Regional Council just to set up a pump in one part of a stream, operate the pump so they knew how to work the pump, and then pump the water straight back into the stream. They had to get permission for that. That was onerous, and they thought—I think, rightly so—that this issue should have been dealt with in this bill.

To the credit of the Minister in charge, Peter Dunne, and to the Government Administration Committee, they followed up on the recommendation to this bill by the Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade and other members of volunteer fire brigades and professional fire services in making sure that clause 45 stayed within the bill. That is around the power to use, “for any emergency and training purposes”, “all hydrants and control valves installed in any water mains and any water in the water mains for—(i) the purposes of performing or exercising FENZ’s functions, duties, or powers; or (ii) training for the purposes of performing or exercising FENZ’s functions, duties, or powers;”. In plain English, that means the fire brigades, like mine, around the country no longer have to go through the rigmarole of being able to access waterways to make sure that they can train in those areas. I think that is a good thing. It is a good thing to make sure that these things are followed through, and my local fire brigade can be happy with that.

There is still one other issue with the bill that they wanted to see through that has not been dealt with in the bill, and I am almost definitely likely to put in a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage of this bill. That is around when fire brigades are testing fire hydrants in our communities. To test every individual hydrant, they have to get a traffic management plan to make sure that they can do their job. They have to register with the local councils every time they check each individual hydrant. They are mandated within this bill to check that the hydrants work and to use them for training purposes. But every time they do that—to check or train—a traffic management plan has to be done. That has been onerous. It has been very taxing, especially on smaller volunteer fire brigades, because it has meant a lot of red tape that they have had to go through, a lot of planning that they think is unnecessary for the simple job of making sure that a fire hydrant in their area works.

They made a submission that as long as Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) set out some criteria and that the local bodies agree to it, that they would not have to undergo the onerous task of having a traffic management plan for each individual hydrant that they test. So just to give people at home an idea of that, we see hydrants probably every kilometre or 500 metres sometimes in some areas. For every one that they checked, they would have had to put in a detailed traffic management plan about where they were going to put cones out, how many people were going to be on that testing, what they were going to do, and how long they would be doing that testing for. You can imagine that with a small volunteer fire brigade with maybe eight, nine, or 10 regular active members that would be quite a hassle to do.

This piece of legislation still does not deal with that, so I think that in the Committee stage we should actually reconsider that submission from the Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade because it will help them to not only do their job but if that is the main work of a fire brigade it is going to be pretty hard to attract new members. You are going to get caught in red tape most of the time and not be out doing what Melissa Lee was doing, which was having a go with the hoses, training to put out fires. I think that this House should reconsider that and make sure that we give those volunteer fire brigades the freedom and the ability to do the job that they volunteered for and not get caught up in the red tape in and around traffic management plans. I think that is a waste of time.

I think these people have already volunteered their time, and they will have technical ability and are already safety conscious enough to make sure that they are going to keep themselves safe when they are testing the fire hydrants, because when they actually have to use those fire hydrants, there is no traffic management plan—none whatsoever. They are going to have to use a bit of initiative and a bit of instinct when they are going to these incidents, and I think it is good to train as you would if you were in the actual situation. I will hope that the Supplementary Order Paper that will be coming in under my name—which will, basically, be a carbon copy of what was suggested by my local fire brigade—is taken up and that this House seriously considers it. I think it will save a hell of a lot of time for our local volunteer fire brigades.

I rise to speak briefly on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. As other members have stated, the bill will repeal and replace two outdated Acts, the Fire Service Act 1975 and the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977. Basically, the bill will modernise our Fire Service. It seeks to establish a single, unified fire service organisation for New Zealand.

If you look at the history of our Fire Service, you will clearly see the process of evolution. In 1854 the very first New Zealand volunteer fire brigade was formed in Auckland. It started with just buckets, and later on it upgraded to manual pumps. In 1856 a Wellington Provincial Council regulation required all citizens to have two buckets of water ready so that they could help in case of a fire.

Then, basically, the Fire Brigades Act of 1906 was the very first piece of New Zealand legislation specifically devoted to fire protection. But, ironically, in the following year, in 1907, the first Parliament Buildings in Wellington were destroyed by fire. Then, in February 1946, a massive scrub and forest fire swept through the towns of Taupō and Ātiamuri, and that prompted the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1947, which laid the basis for a modern rural firefighting system in New Zealand.

On 1 April 1976 the New Zealand Fire Service as we know it today was born, but a lot has changed since then. We need a fire and emergency service for the 21st century, and we need a structure and laws that reflect the work of our firefighters. This bill will enable us to better serve our firefighters and to also serve their services. Thank you.