Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill

Just some overview, first of all. I want to acknowledge the more than 110 submitters on this bill. I thought that our Government Administration Committee worked very well to address all of the issues. I will go straight to a tabled amendment that I have put forward for the Committee to consider. A number of submitters talked about the importance of service. In this House in the last few days there have been a number of members who have acknowledged the difficulties that people are going through right now with flooding and other issues, and it happened today in the House as well.

I just want to highlight that a key part of that acknowledgment was acknowledging the service that had been given by the Fire Service and others. I think the word “service” is a key one. In the dictionary, when I looked it up, service actually means “a system supplying public need” and service can also mean “helping or doing work”. For this reason I have put forward an amendment, which has been tabled, to add the word “Services” to the name of both this bill and Fire and Emergency New Zealand, as it is called under this bill, so that it will now be called Fire and Emergency Services New Zealand.

That is more specifically in acknowledgment of all of those wonderful people who provide that service and take pride in providing that service. It is seen as a badge of honour that they are part of what is now the Fire Service, and other services. So establishing the new entity under this bill, although it is really important, I think it is really important that we acknowledge all of the thousands of men and woman who provide the services. That is the reason why I have put forward this particular amendment. Of course, along with that, it makes a number of other changes as well throughout the bill. It is not an easy thing to change the name, but I have put this forward because I want to acknowledge all of those people who have made submissions. I believe it is important that they have their voice heard in this House, in this debate.

In the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 262, and I want to go through quite a number of the amendments—can I, first of all, say that I acknowledge that we went through what I thought was a really good process in the select committee. We debated those issues robustly. There are a number of changes that have been made since the select committee hearing that have not been considered by the select committee, and I just want to highlight that as well.

Also in my tabled amendment—after receiving correspondence on this matter, and I am sure I will want to speak more extensively about this—is “to establish an independent complaints authority”. The reason behind that, again, is an acknowledgment of all of those who are providing those services, all of those people involved in this service who have asked that there be some independence, hence the reason for calling for the establishment of an independent complaints authority, so that there are much more transparent processes when dealing with complaints. That is the reason why I have asked for this particular clause to be considered by the Committee.

Also, within Part 1 of the bill, I want to talk about the changes to the clauses that relate to evacuation schemes. This brings to mind one of the key points of discussion for submitters, which was around the local committees and the planning processes that were included within Part 1 of this bill. I want to again acknowledge those people for bringing their thoughts and ideas around that. They had great concerns around how that would work and what the composition of that would be, and it is really good to see that the Minister, under these amended clauses, seems to have heard the voices of those people and has changed those clauses accordingly. So I acknowledge that.

Also, I do highlight that in Subpart 3, clause 8(1), which states: “There continues to be an organisation …”—that is not it. Sorry, Mr Chair. The same conditions that applied beforehand, under that clause, will continue to apply now. I look forward to making other contributions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate the call—[Interruption] Thank you, Mr Lees-Galloway, you will get your turn in a moment. A very warm welcome to you all this evening. It is great to see the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell—I will throw a few questions your way a little bit later on; I would like to hear some of your responses. The bill we have got here is the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Bill. I will be specifically talking to clauses 3 and 4—the “Purpose”—and then following with the “Transitional, savings, and related provisions”.

I think the opening statement really needs to be made with regards to this being the 17th review in 21 years, and yet, despite that very comprehensive—so-called comprehensive—review that has taken place, just last week we have had the Minister come out and say: “Well, maybe we should have actually included civil defence in this review, and we should include it, and, you know what, while we’re at it why don’t we shoot from the hip and let’s also include St John Ambulance.” Of course, it is all a little bit too late, and if after 21 years this is the best we can do then I think we need to scrap it and start again, because this really is quite a shemozzle when we look at it and we break it down.

With regard to the review, my question to the Minister is: was much done in relation to looking at other international studies that have been affected with amalgamation and the problems that they are having with the amalgamation? Of course, when you are looking at the size of the operation of the Fire Service throughout rural provincial areas, including all of our volunteers, and the fact that 83 percent of our operation is made up of volunteers, what sort of impact is that going to have, specifically, on our rural and our volunteer sector? All of the information that we have got from the Ferguson report and the Malone report, the review of causes and contributing factors of forest fires in Europe reports, and what is going on in California suggests that this is going to cause major problems within the organisation and its structure. So that is one point that needs to be looked at with the transition, and of course the burden of cost.

But when we look at the review and the contributions that have been put forward, the idea that we are going to be taking a levy on insurance to cover the cost of running our Fire Service really does not quite cut it. We really think that the Government needs to look at a better funding model than what has been proposed; specifically, around the fact that 7c out of every $100 spent on commercial properties is uncapped, and over 40 percent of the entire funding of Fire and Emergency New Zealand will come from that commercial sector, which is completely out of whack with all other sectors that are going to be contributing through their insurances.

We have got a member’s bill that is going to be addressing a very, very small part of it, in relation to insurance that is going to be affected by this levy. An example of that is if you get travel insurance, a very, very small component of your travel insurance looks after your luggage and your belongings, and, of course, that is captured under the insurance levy aspect—except for the fact that we have the very, very improbable possibility of there being an issue with a person who has got travel insurance who is going to require the assistance of the Fire Service, yet they are expecting to be paid for that. So there are a number of things that need to be factored into this.

We believe that the funding model and the levy should be scrapped, and that we should be funding the Fire Service out of the general tax pool because, of course, the other part of this bill is somehow turning the Fire Service into a collection agency. It is required to have a department set up specifically to go and collect money from those people who refuse to pay. The simple fact is that in a commercial reality, if you have got people who refuse to pay their levy, and it is left to the Fire Service to go and collect that money, then the reality is that if they do not pay it, what is the Fire Service left to do? I mean, it is an integral part of our emergency service providing systems, and now, all of a sudden, it is going to be spending time, effort, energy, and money in setting up procedures—something that the Inland Revenue Department is specifically designed to look after—to go out there and gather revenue for themselves. The last thing we want to see is the Fire Service making decisions because someone has not paid their Fire Service levy and, therefore, it says: “Well, we’re not going to go and attend that fire because they haven’t actually paid their subs.”

To finish—I will be taking a few calls tonight—if 40 percent of your funding is actually received through your commercial property levy, then surely that funding is going to be more concentrated into the cities to ensure that they get the funding as opposed to the rural fire services, which will be marginalised.

Can I go directly to clause 33 in Part 1, which is titled “Duty of FENZ in relation to volunteers”. I think most people who might be watching or listening tonight might not quite understand the intricacies of how the new entity was structured in the past, but I think they would recognise that the New Zealand Fire Service, as we have known it, is made up of professional firefighters and volunteers.

I think that in order to maintain the optimal level of volunteers in our volunteer fire brigades, there are some duties that the legislation says the new entity has to adhere to. But there is, I guess, to use a word from a famous movie, a “vibe” about clause 33, and that is that volunteer firefighters are doing the job of volunteering in their fire services because of a love for it, because of the good for the community, or because they might enjoy the experience of being part of a volunteer fire brigade. Because of that, there is a duty within clause 33 for Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) to, essentially, in plain English, look after them. Subclause (1)(a) of clause 33 says that “FENZ must take reasonable steps—(a) to recognise, respect, and promote the contribution of FENZ volunteers”. Subclause (1)(c) goes on to say that FENZ must also “develop policy and organisational arrangements that encourage, maintain, and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers.”

This is not an issue to be taken lightly, because in the departmental report for this piece of legislation, the officials—and I acknowledge them in the House today—did say that of all the Fire Service brigades around the country, nearly one in five brigades is operating with fewer than 80 percent of their target numbers of volunteers. So, in essence, we are saying that it is hard to make sure we have got the optimal number of volunteers, so getting people on board and keeping them is a real issue for the Fire Service.

I do not want to go too much into an Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I have got in respect of Part 2, but I guess what I am saying is that if you have got people within the volunteer fire service, FENZ has to make sure that it works hard to keep them in there and keep them motivated to want to continue to volunteer. There are some things, though, that get in the way. If you make the experience of volunteering for a fire service cumbersome, if you make it administration heavy, then I think you take the risk—and the officials have pointed this out—that you will not have the ability to attract new people to volunteer for the Fire Service. This comes to the duty that FENZ does have—I think subclause (1)(c) did point to that—“to develop policy and organisational arrangements that encourage, maintain, and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers.”

I do have an SOP in respect of Part 2 that goes to the issue of traffic management plans for some of the basic work that our volunteer fire brigades do. They are mandated by law to check fire hydrants in their communities. They have no choice; it is their job, it is their responsibility, to go out and maintain those hydrants. If it is cumbersome, and if there is no looking to the future to be able to maintain firefighters and attract volunteer firefighters, I do not think that FENZ is doing a good enough job in respect of clause 33(1)(c) to develop policy and organisational arrangements to encourage, maintain, and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers.

I guess the nightmare scenario there is that if we do make things more difficult, if we do burden our volunteer firefighters right around the country with unnecessary red tape—I hazard a guess that most members of this House have to manage their own group of volunteers—and if we put things in their way that take their heart and their passion away from what they are doing, they simply will not do it anymore. They will stop being volunteers in the community, because they will say: “The burden of that task and that administration outweighs the pleasure that I have to volunteer my time to do work for the community.”

I will speak in more detail when we come to Part 2, but I think we must be very careful not to put impediments in the way of volunteers, and we must do all we can under clause 33(1)(c) to make sure that we are clearing the way to make sure people who volunteer are doing what they came to volunteer for, and that is go out there, help the community, make sure that they are preventing the kinds of things that we do not want to happen, like fires, and not sitting around tables doing administration work that is unnecessary, because then we will have people saying “That’s enough for me”, and as a whole the community will suffer.

There are a few clauses in Part 1 that I would like to speak to, but I would like to begin by speaking in support of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of my colleague Adrian Rurawhe, particularly with reference to the change he proposes to the name of the organisation Fire and Emergency New Zealand—to add the word “Services”, so the name would be Fire and Emergency Services New Zealand. To people who have just tuned in, that might seem like a minor change. People might question why a member would put up an amendment to the name of the organisation. They might question what difference that could possibly make. But, actually, to the personnel themselves, and to those personnel who submitted during the select committee phase of this bill, this is an incredibly important aspect.

We all recognise the service of fire and emergency personnel—the fact that they perform an important service, and that they serve our communities. In fact, one need look no further than clause 3, the purpose clause of this legislation, which says: “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) reform the law relating to fire services, including by strengthening the role of communities and improving the support for volunteers in the provision of fire services, and, to that end,—(i) to unify Fire Services by establishing Fire and Emergency New Zealand…”. We are unifying our Fire Services, strengthening the role of communities, and improving the support for volunteers in the provision of fire services, yet that word “services” has fallen out of the name.

If members are unsure about how important this is to the service personnel themselves, the Professional Firefighters Union described the name as objectionable and contemptuous of the history of the many years of service provided by the women and men who have dedicated their time to the service of our communities. Surely, if this Parliament recognises the important service of those firefighters and other emergency services personnel, and if we want to strengthen the role of communities and improve the support for volunteers and, in fact, improve the support for the professionals in our fire and emergency service, surely we could do the simple thing of acknowledging the service that they have provided and acknowledging the depth of feeling from them around the name of the organisation.

We all think of the fire “services”. We all think of the emergency “services”. I do not think it is that onerous a change for us to make as a Parliament, to simply add that word to the name of the organisation to recognise the people who actually work at the front lines providing those services. I would appreciate some comment from the Minister on that. It may seem trivial, but it is very important to the people who work at the front line for us, serving our communities. I would like to know from the Minister why the change has not been made.

We have a significant ministerial SOP that makes multiple changes to the legislation. Why is the change proposed by my colleague Adrian Rurawhe not in the Minister’s SOP? Given that it is not in the Minister’s SOP, is the Minister of a mind to support Adrian Rurawhe’s proposal; if not, why not? It is not that onerous, it is not that difficult, and if it is not the course of action that the Government wants to take then I think members on this side—and, in particular, the service personnel who are actually working for us at the front line, often putting life and limb on the line to keep our communities safe and to aid and assist people when they are in an emergency situation—would appreciate the explanation from the Government as well as to why it cannot do that one simple thing.

The other section of Part 1 that I would like to speak to is clause 28 through to clause 32. Clauses 28 to 32 deal with the prescribed health standards for operational personnel. I think all members of the House and all submitters recognise the importance of having health standards for our operational personnel who serve in our fire and emergency services, because they are doing physically demanding work, and to be safe themselves and for their colleagues to be safe and to ensure that members of the public to whose assistance they are coming are as safe as possible, we do need there to be health standards for the operational personnel.

However, I think that we also need to acknowledge that this legislation does allow for operational personnel to be dismissed should they not meet those health standards. This legislation is actually quite prescriptive. Initially, when I saw this—being someone who has an interest in employment relations and workers’ rights—I was interested to see how this legislation would interact with the Employment Relations Act and the Health and Safety at Work Act and other employment legislation.

I was concerned, at first, that it may in some way undermine that legislation. However, I have to say that, because it is somewhat prescriptive, this legislation actually provides a fair amount of protection for those operational personnel—acknowledging that there needs to be a standard of health and a standard of fitness that personnel need to meet. It is not prescribed in the legislation; it is over to the board of Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) to set those standards. But, actually, there are procedures. First of all, those standards have to be communicated. The Law Society actually recommended that the standards ought to be publicly available on the FENZ website. I think that would be a minimum. They would need to be well communicated to the operational personnel themselves, as would the steps that must be taken in order to demonstrate that an operational service person no longer meets those standards, the opportunity to appeal, and the opportunity for redeployment to non-operational tasks so that their experience and their knowledge can be retained in the organisation. I actually think that this legislation is quite admirable on that front.

From the point of view of looking at how we might support staff throughout workplaces around New Zealand who, through accident or injury or through poor health, become unable to fulfil the duties that are ordinarily expected of them—I actually think that this legislation could be model legislation for how our employment relations legislation might deal with that situation. Although there are certain prescribed health requirements for operational personnel in this case, there are a lot of examples where people, through injury or illness, become incapacitated and unable to perform the duties that are ordinarily required of them.

This legislation is actually—at first blush, I was concerned that it would undermine the Employment Relations Act; I actually think we could use this to enhance the Employment Relations Act. I must say, I acknowledge the work of everybody involved: the unions, the Government Administration Committee, and the Minister, in crafting legislation that so appropriately upholds and supports the rights of our service personnel. Given that we are doing that—given that we are acknowledging that they have rights in the workplace and that they have a dangerous and arduous job to do—I come back to my original point which, is to ask why we cannot give them that simple acknowledgment that what they do is provide a service to our community and that they serve our community. Can we not acknowledge that in the name of the organisation? They asked for it; it is what they want, and I think it would be a simple thing for this Parliament to do, and if the Government is not willing to do it, I think we need an explanation.

Mr Chair, thank you for that excellent choice. My apologies to my colleague Damien O’Connor. I hope he is able to make a contribution soon. Can I just say that during the time since this bill was first introduced to the House, we have seen the Kaikōura quakes; we have seen the Wellington quakes, and then the Wellington floods. We have seen the fires in Christchurch and then the fires in Hanmer. I do wish they would stop doing those natural events just after we have—it is pretty horrific. And, of course, in the last week or so we have seen the floods in Coromandel and then, more recently, in West Auckland, and they are not the only horrific natural events; they are just the biggest ones that have captured the media attention and, obviously, our attention. But every day we have events that occur in our communities where we rely on our volunteer or professional firefighters to be at the forefront of what must be pretty awful situations, often—particularly in rural or small communities.

I think that the work we do on this bill—the way we proceed through the Committee stage, where we really have to look at individual clauses and take care that we have got the detail right—will be a tribute to the work that those firefighters do around the country, and I, frankly, do not care whether they are volunteers or professional or rural or forest firefighters or whether they are employed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) or the New Zealand Fire Service or whether they are volunteers in their local community—they are all amazing people who do a huge amount of work to keep us safe and, often, at the cost of their own family and at the risk of their own well-being.

It is one of the reasons why I so strongly support the first amendment that my colleague Adrian Rurawhe has moved, and I want to acknowledge and thank him. What he did was listen to the pleas of the firefighters in our various discussions with them at the Government Administration Committee. He then listened to the advice that we got from the officials about the basis of the name of the new organisation and then he balanced that up. I think he did a very considerate job and a very good job.

I want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, Mark Mitchell, and say that I hope he is going to take a few calls tonight. He should be able to, because he knows a bit about this bill. Before his huge promotion to the dizzy heights of being a Minister he was a more humble member of our select committee, but he actually does know the detail of this legislation well. He may well have moved on and no longer care about these things, but I live and hope that he might make a contribution before the end of the night.

So just going back to the tabled amendment that Adrian Rurawhe has moved—let me tell the Committee the theory, as I understand it, of why the new organisation is proposed to be called Fire and Emergency New Zealand. So with the amalgamation of the various bodies that are coming into one organisation it is very clear that it is a genuine amalgamation and it is not the New Zealand Fire Service becoming the master body, with the others joining it. This is a new organisation where they are all equal players. That was my understanding of the logic of not having the word “service” in the name, because “New Zealand Fire Service” is obviously the current regime of professional firefighters and it may have been seen as being the master body and the others were being subsumed into it—that is not the intention of the bill.

I think that the officials who considered it, did so very carefully. I think they understood how big a shift that this was going to be, and I think—with the best intentions in the world—the name of the new organisation, as proposed, reflects that. What I think Adrian Rurawhe’s amendment has done is reflect the deep commitment to community that our firefighters give, regardless of which part of the organisation they are in. And they do it not for the money, not for the glory—they might like the uniform—but, actually, they do it because of their sense of service. It is a big call and we should respect them for that. That is why I support the amendment to have that word “service” recognised in the name.

I would just like to make a few brief comments on another part of the tabled amendment in Adrian Rurawhe’s name and that is the addition in clause 3—so we are still on Part 1, obviously; that is what we are debating at the moment. Some of the submitters who made representations to us talked about the fact that they felt it was quite an internal organisation.

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak positively about this bill—Labour does support it. But it has raised many issues through the process. I guess that the size of a bill is not necessarily an indication of its importance, but the size of the officials report is, because there were a large number of submissions brought to the Government Administration Committee—I was not on it—and officials have responded accordingly to a large number of points where amendments have been made. So I would like to acknowledge the select committee, I guess, for taking on board the wisdom.

Anyone who has been to a Fire Service event or, in particular, a gold service award event appreciates the passion and commitment of people up and down this country to, effectively, be the front line of emergency management in the vast majority of New Zealand. In the rural and provincial areas in particular, we do not have the benefit of paid staff and services that are fully funded. We are relying on volunteers and integration between the Police, the Fire Service, and often the ambulance. I have to say that in my experience it is often the Fire Service that turns up to an accident, particularly on a road that might be 15 or 20 kilometres out of town. Such is the level of response and preparedness of the Fire Service in rural areas.

Can I say that the kinds of things that were addressed through the submission process may seem insignificant, but to the submitters they were important. I guess it does indicate the haste with which the Government has tried to push this through. One in particular is clause 76, where clarity had to be made—a change was made to the legislation—to ensure that people could not opt out of the levy by insuring with offshore companies that did not have a base here in New Zealand. So a tweak had to be made to make sure that the intermediary in that process would be liable for the levy. It is absolutely essential that the levy that is being imposed is imposed in a fair way that maximises the return to the Fire Service and Fire and Emergency New Zealand. I could not help thinking that its expertise in crisis management, as it will be now with Fire and Emergency New Zealand, should perhaps be applied to the housing situation in New Zealand. The Government could do well to ask it for some advice.

There was another technical issue. I am not trying to be pedantic here, but such was the level of scrutiny by the select committee, where there was no clarity on levies that could be applied on a pro rata basis where contracts were not for the full-year term and how that could have been applied. That has been clarified.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Levies are in Part 3.

Sorry—yes, I know. I guess I am referring to the detail that the committee has paid attention to in the bill.

Can I say that the mandate of the Fire Service to cover both fire and non-fire services is a very important aspect of it. My experience, and that of anyone who spends some time on the road, is that the Fire Service is expected to be, I guess, emergency management at serious accidents. The police get there but the Fire Service is the one that has the expertise and the equipment to actually often extract people. So the title in the bill is appropriate, but, as was raised by submitters, the word “service” has been taken out. I know for many people—when I attend gold star events—that the service component, their commitment to that, is the underlying drive of their extraordinary commitment to the Fire Service. I hope that they see that it is a change in title; it is not a change in intent by Parliament. But it is one of those things that obviously was raised.

Can I raise one other important thing—and it is in a general sense—and that is risk management. These are people who are managing risk every single time they go to an event. We have through this Government a risk management regime, or health and safety, which some say is over the top. I just hope that we do not see the Fire Service or the Fire and Emergency New Zealand people subjected to unfair criticism through their risk management practices.

I move, That the question be now put.

Adrian Rurawhe’s consequential amendments to Part 1, inserting “Services” and changing the name of FENZ to FESNZ—is it, how do you pronounce it; what is the terminology?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Fire and Emergency Service New Zealand.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, I know what it stands for, but how do you pronounce it? Anyway, it is out of order as contingent on the amendment already negatived.