Allan Bruce: Time for Fire Service 'freeloaders' to pay their way

Fire services are becoming universal emergency service providers. Photo / Greg Bowker

When it comes to paying for the New Zealand Fire Service too many people are being ripped off.

As a primary responder to a raft of emergencies, the Fire Service is vital to the protection and economy of the nation. With more than 10,000 highly skilled, well-equipped and dedicated paid and volunteer personnel nationwide, firefighters typically arrive within minutes of being called. They attend not only fires but also vehicle and other rescues, medical emergencies, floods, storms, earthquakes, hazardous chemical incidents and structural collapses, as well as urban search and rescue, and Civil Defence emergencies.

Up to 50 per cent of these incidents are non-fire related and funded by an entirely inequitable system.

According to the Fire Service Commission's 2008-09 annual report to the Minister of Internal Affairs, fire services responded to 22,490 fires and 22,410 non-fire emergencies.

Chairwoman Dame Margaret Bazley stated, "The numbers demonstrate that New Zealand's fire services are less and less fire-only services and more and more universal emergency service providers."

So why do only prudent fire insurers fund the fire service in urban areas?

Of the more than $300 million annual budget, about 96 per cent of Fire Service revenue comes from a levy on fire insurance paid by property owners. Unbelievably, neither central nor local government contributes to the Fire Service in urban districts.

Although everyone benefits, only property insurers pay. The rest of the community "freeloads". The nation's fire-insured property owners have been ripped off for decades.

Successive governments closed a few loopholes in the insurance premium-based system. However, efforts to tackle underlying inequity failed. One reason is a particularly pernicious attitude that "it ain't broke, so it don't need fixin".

Since the money materialised, fairly or not, this view gained a foothold allowing the problem to remain substantially hidden.

Nevertheless, the inability or (more likely) unwillingness to rectify inequalities in the funding methodology is not the end of the matter. There is substantial evidence fire levy funding was primarily responsible for disastrous industrial disputation in the 1990s when the Fire Service was in a continual state of management crisis.

Armed with reports recommending alternative funding sources, justifiably aggrieved financial stakeholders failed to convince successive governments using a direct approach, so they lobbied to reduce the spiralling levy instead.

Which meant less money for the Fire Service.

Radical legislative changes were generated, most of which were unnecessary. Government instructed Fire Service commissions to direct newly appointed civilian executives (replacing uniformed fire commissioners) to dramatically cut costs. As a result, devastatingly unrealistic plans were implemented including dramatic reductions in fire commanders, frontline firefighters and fire trucks.

This threw the entire Fire Service into chaos as it strove to reduce an already tight annual budget of about $170 million by $30 million.

With their backs to the wall, firefighters fought for community support to prevent decimation of the service. Continuing media attention resulted in a costly Citizens Initiated Referendum over frontline firefighter numbers.

Morale and efficiency plunged to all-time lows with resignations and retirements at all levels of a great proportion of the most experienced and highly trained personnel, including many top fire commanders.

After 2001, with a senior fire officer once more in the key position of chief executive/national commander and a supportive commission under the leadership of Dame Margaret a new world's best-practice Fire Service re-emerged.

However, despite this necessary "backtracking" a real danger persists. Industrial disruption will erupt predictably again as financial stakeholders battle to keep the fire levy in line.

Hope of permanent resolution to the inequitable financing did emerge four years before the 2008 election when the Government had a crack at restructuring the Fire Service funding along with an excellent proposal to bring together the ridiculously bifurcated system of operations under the Fire Service Act 1975 (for urban fire protection) and Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977 (for the rest of the country). Regrettably, a meeting of minds during the four-year review was elusive and groups put together under Internal Affairs' direction ended up little more than talkfests.

Then when the election was called in 2008. the prime concern of MPs reverted to retention of seats, and all hope evaporated.

Had that effort succeeded, a solution to the dilemma of conflicting funding methodologies would have occurred by combining the two acts.

This would have mitigated the fire disaster at Tamahere in the Waikato by eliminating the system that placed the hazardous complex outside the direct jurisdiction of the Hamilton Urban Fire Brigade.

In 2008, the Insurance Council declared a key objective to remove the levy from insurers and implement a property-based levy system for the Fire Service.

So it was naturally disappointed at the impasse, stating: "The council believes this was an opportunity to enhance the efficiency and funding of the Fire Service. With no change happening we will continue to advocate a better way to fund the Fire Service." And there's your smoking gun.

Further trifling with the current method is a waste of time and money. Bipartisan action implementing a property-based system with an appropriate proportion from the Consolidated Fund (general taxation) ensures everyone supports their Fire Service.

The evidence is already in. It is time for government action.

* Allan Bruce headed the Auckland region's fire and rescue services from 1976 to 1982 and South Australia's urban fire and rescue services from 1982 to 1989.