Today the Minister for Internal Affairs announced the need to establish whether the fire service levy is the appropriate funding mechanism given response has broadened to include medical response and the increase in extreme weather events.

Sounds good – but there have been numerous reviews over the years, where groups from all sides of the debate have critiqued the limits of the fire service levy,  and that debate was live even before FENZ was established in 2017.

The issues are not solely about how FENZ is funded or whether FENZ is properly funded for the emergency response and activities it is required to undertake under the Fire and Emergency Act 2017.

Any review must also have the power to do a deep dive into the management of FENZ and the way in which the funding has been spent to date.

In the last couple of weeks we have continued to see FENZ senior leadership ignore the fundamental failures of the organisation.

FENZ CE Kerry Gregory published a video lavishing praise on outgoing Board Chair Rebecca Keoghan and sent an organisation-wide email complimenting the work of outgoing Deputy Chief Executive of Asset and Programme Delivery Sarah Sinclair.

All Senior Management and the Board should be held accountable for the dire state of FENZ.  Instead, the CE has failed to reference the dire state of the organisation and chooses to claim those responsible have undertaken their duties with diligence.

The NZPFU strongly believes that emergency response is being crippled by the failures of senior management, and that FENZ is now on a path to undermine current systems that are integral to emergency response.

The big elephant in the room is the current Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into the state and management of FENZ’s fleet and related matters.

In his email listing the Board Chair’s activities he ignores the fact that FENZ is finally under scrutiny for the serious mismanagement of the appliance fleet.  It is just as bizarre that he failed to mention this in his email extolling the virtues of departing DCE Assets and Programme Delivery responsible for the procurement and maintenance of assets including fire appliances.

Records and videos of the CE and Board Chair before the Governance and Administration Select Committee, even prior to the current Inquiry, demonstrated repeated failure to provide clear, unequivocal facts and data on the fleet including “new” appliances that are built on out-of-warranty chassis and have had a myriad of issues stalling the commissioning to stations.

The Inquiry has been provided evidence of:

• The failure to have, manage and implement a fleet procurement plan to ensure appliances are reliable, fit for purpose and sufficient relief appliances are available
• The failure to have a working maintenance and faults register.  This has been a massive issue as there are no systems to identify common or reoccurring issues between appliances, or to be able to inform firefighters of issues with particular appliances. On occasion FENZ has attempted to force a station to accept an appliance without disclosing the appliance was rejected by other stations due to serious safety concerns.
• The failure even to properly manage the recent procurement of fire appliances has been explored in detail.  
  
  -  FENZ was unable to confirm their definition of “new” when questioned about the appliances built on chassis that were stored for years and are out of warranty before even making it to a fire station.
  - A lack of a comprehensive quality control process upon receipt of the appliances and instead sending those appliances out to fire stations for training without thorough acceptance testing first. Firefighters are pleased to see “new” trucks arriving but are dismayed with the vast array of faults, including some serious safety issues, being used for training before the trucks are sent away to be brought up to standard.

No one has been held to account for the failure to implement a robust procurement plan to ensure fire appliances are fit for purpose, the failure to have a maintenance and fault recording system, and the failure to have an aerial appliance strategy that has supposedly been urgent work since 2019. 

No one has been held to account for the resulting impact on emergency response with fire trucks breaking down on the way to emergencies, or during firefighting operations, escalating the danger for firefighters and the community they are responding to.

Rebecca Keoghan was appointed to the FENZ Board in 2019 and appointed Chair in July 2021.

Despite steady increases in revenue (fire service levy) over her tenure,  the Board and CE are now claiming poor and pushing for savings well above those imposed by Government.   The answer they say is to restructure, slash jobs and are now commencing projects the NZPFU says will be dangerously detrimental to emergency response and the whole point of the organisation -  the protection of the public.  

There must be a full and robust inquiry across all activities of FENZ and its expenditure to expose what we believe has been serious mismanagement of funding with big bucks on building a corporate structure to the demise of operational response.

Here are a few examples of FENZ’s performance during the Board Chair’s tenure:

1. FENZ has barely increased the number of career and volunteer firefighters with levels approximately at 1990s levels.  

2. FENZ has less reliable career fire appliances and fewer aerial appliances than in the 1990s.

3. FENZ has reneged on an “agreement in principle” to increase career firefighter numbers to ensure the maintenance of minimum staffing levels resulting in ongoing closures of stations and trucks off-line due to lack of staffing.  

• FENZ is currently driving down the number of career firefighters with cancelled recruit courses.  Volunteer brigades are also reporting difficulties in getting volunteer recruits trained.
• FENZ was working on an implementation plan that would have seen 4 recruit courses increased to 6.  Not only has that been shelved but FENZ has only conducted one recruit course this year with no guarantees of another full course.
• In Auckland, while trucks are offline and stations are sometimes closed due to lack of staffing, FENZ is intent on reducing firefighter numbers claiming a relief roster management established to maintain minimum crewing was “not authorised”.

4. Last year FENZ was left without one safe live fire training facility,  and there are ongoing safety issues with the only working facility at the National Training Centre.  Despite repeated investigations into burns during live fire training. FENZ is yet to respond to repeated recommendations for the development of a live fire training manual necessary to ensure the health and safety of the trainers and trainees.

5. FENZ has year upon year failed to meet standards of response while reported injuries and fatalities from residential fires increase year upon year.

• Response standards are to ensure that FENZ has the appropriate resources (firefighters and reliable appliances) in the necessary locations to ensure they can undertake necessary firefighting tactics to protect life and property.  If response times are not met it means there are insufficient firefighters or the pressures of response (location, traffic etc) need to be addressed.  Instead FENZ’s response to failing to meet those standards is to reduce the standards.  The previous target of reaching a structure fire within 8 minutes (career firefighters) and 11 minutes (volunteer firefighters) 90% of the time has been reduced to an 80% target.

6. FENZ has increased its reliance on contractors and consultants.

• In 2022 the consultancy and contractor costs were double what was needed when FENZ was established in 2017.  Every year the costs of consultants and contractors has escalated. 
• In 2025 a restructure was to disestablish 66 ICT roles yet in the same year FENZ had spent more than $1.8 million on ICT contractors. 
• That restructure was stalled after the NZPFU and PSA won a challenge in the Employment Relations Authority requiring genuine consultation.  But the relief is only temporary as FENZ is pressing on with its plans.

7. At least three reviews have been hugely critical of FENZ’s failure to have clear, procedurally fair, and timely,  complaint management processes.   FENZ has refused requests for information on the full expenditure on the costs of the developing and operation of complaint systems and processes including the use of contractors, lawyers and costs of settlements on the basis their systems do not enable identification of specific costings on specific matters. But here are some examples:

• FENZ spent more than $1 million on one case which was the subject of the 2025 Public Service Commission Independent Review conducted by Simon Mount KC inquiring into the management of a serious abuse complaint by a volunteer.  The 2025 report was scathing including findings that FENZ is still failing in some of the same issues identified in the  2019 Coral Shaw report.   Those costs include legal costs to ensure the ongoing suppression of those accused including management found to have failed in the handling of the complaint.
• From mid 2019 to mid-2024 FENZ spent more than $7 million establishing and running an internal Behaviour and Conduct office including external investigators.  The BCO was disestablished with the Board deciding in 2024 to move to external contracted provider, Fairway.

8. NZPFU members, including firefighters and 111 emergency dispatchers, have been taking strike action since October 2025.   This week they will have taken 40 one-hour strikes.   That is 40 hours where New Zealand was without career firefighters and 111 emergency dispatchers in their time of need.

9. FENZ has failed to present a new offer CE Kerry Gregory said they were working on in early March.  

10. At a meeting in December the Board Chair agreed to have updated financial information provided to the Union to assist with the bargaining.  It was never received and FENZ continues to refuse to provide it.  

11. There has been an anti-NZPFU member campaign including the use of CCTV to undertake surveillance of striking NZPFU members and their public supporters.  The Board chair undertook to inquire into the NZPFU allegations and never responded to the union  A complaint to the Public Service Commission has resulted in the Commission forwarding the matter of the Board Chair failing to provide the investigation and outcome to the Union to the Department of Internal Affairs.  The NZPFU has now also made a complaint to the Ombudsman.

12. FENZ was spending up to $90,000 a week on advertising the NZPFU strikes.  The largest group of career firefighters – Senior Firefighters with up to 10 years’ experience are paid approximately $80,000 base wages.

13. CE Kerry Gregory was named interim National Commander upon the resignation of the former National Commander supposedly pending the recruitment of the new National Commander.   Kerry Gregory has continued as CE and National Commander with no process or transparency.  As both he can have considerable control of information to the Board.

14. FENZ Board members awarded themselves, approved by the Minister Brooke van Velden, a pay increase up to 70% this year. 

• The Board Chair's daily pay (50 days commitment per annum) rose from $1283 a day to $1821.20 a day.   The Board Chair’s daily rate is nearly $100 more than the wages for a 42-hour week for a Senior Firefighter with up to 10 years’  experience.
• NZPFU members have not had a pay increase since July 2023 with lower ranks barely earning the minimum wage let alone the living wage.

15. FENZ has repeatedly failed to have the systems in place to accurately pay staff wages and entitlements. 

• After two years FENZ abandoned a new payroll and HR system wasting more than $650,000 per annum in licensing costs in addition to $1 million paid for the initial licensing and $30 million on the failed design and build.
• FENZ is partway through a new $100 million build to replace the current system that was identified as in danger of collapsing more than 6 years ago. 

Importantly, the Board has not held the senior management of FENZ to account for the vast array of failures.

Kerry Gregory’s video complimenting the Board chair was followed with an email to all FENZ personnel complimenting DCE Assets and Programme Delivery Sarah Sinclair “on making a significant difference during her tenure” including “taking strong steps along the journey of reshaping our asset delivery and reporting” , yet makes no mention of the widespread failures in the management of fleet or the significant issues in the management of fire stations.

Here are some examples of the issues in the fire station management portfolio:

1. Lower Hutt City’s fire station closed permanently in December 2021 due to mould.   The loss of this station has increased response times as crews now come from Avalon to cover central Lower Hutt and the Western Hills.  The location was supposed to be temporary after the closure of the Waterloo station in 2007.  Now 20 years later there is no new site and no plans to replace the central city station.

2. The rebuild of Tauranga station which FENZ has known for more than a decade had an earthquake rating of 14% was stalled and delayed despite firefighters and other staff expressing their grave fears for their safety and the impact on their wellbeing.

3. Auckland City Station is riddled with asbestos with frequent outbreaks of exposures over the past few years.  In 2021 Auckland City asbestos remediation and refurbishment was the number 1 rank in FENZ’s stations list of priorities. During DCE Sinclair’s tenure it lost that priority and work is yet to be planned.

• In 2025 the upper floor was sealed to prevent exposure and under Sarah’s management was then re-painted without proper notification of safety plans. This was sealed after FENZ testing, verified by the NZPFU consultants, recorded the seriousness of the brown asbestos in the ceiling.  
• Trades and firefighters had been going into the ceiling to repair and maintain facilities for years without any notification of the asbestos.
• The testing confirmed exposure to asbestos including an administration staff member having asbestos fall on her desk.  
• In an era where there is allegedly no funding for extras there was no reason to paint an area that was out of use for safety reasons and could not be used without remediation – the full removal of the asbestos!   When asked why it was being painted Ms Sinclair’s response was worrying  - that FENZ might re-open the floor in the future.  Paintwork does not negate the need to remove the asbestos.
• In 2025 new asbestos consultants were contracted that did not provide test analysis for some tests taken.   FENZ management allowed re-access to rooms previously sealed due to asbestos concerns without checking for the results of those tests.   Firefighters saw the asbestos and it came to light that there were outstanding tests that when analysed identified the presence of asbestos.  That resulted in the closure of Auckland City station on a Friday night while other testing and actions took place.
• Upon identification of the presence of asbestos areas including appliances have had to have precautionary cleaning which should be done to standard.  Instead FENZ sent the trucks to workshops for a general clean – not by certified asbestos cleaners or to the standard required.
• Asbestos was identified in a tank (randomly selected for testing) that firefighters' breathing apparatus are filled from.  As a result there is a possibility that asbestos was transferred into BA cylinders that firefighters are currently using.  FENZ did not notify the firefighters – it was the NZPFU’s consultant that raised the issue after receiving requested information that had been difficult to obtain.  Ms Sinclair is yet to provide information promised on the date of commissioning of the firefighters BA cylinders that would assist in understanding the extent of the risk.  Nothing has been done about the risk.  BA cylinders that had been selected in 2023 for testing went missing untested and FENZ did not notify the Union that they could not find them or that they had not been tested.
• In the past month roof damage resulted in asbestos exposure in the firefighters’ gym at Auckland City – repeated exposures for those that work and occupy the station.  

 The above are only a snapshot of the issues which must be exposed.

This is why a full and robust inquiry into the management of FENZ must take place.

FENZ was established with a $300 million boost in 2017.

Since its inception the revenue from the fire service levy has approximately doubled,  the number of management and support staff has doubled while firefighter numbers (career and volunteer) have largely stagnated.

FENZ has wasted millions on failed or abandoned projects, consultants and contractors, and building a corporate culture at the expense of a fire and emergency service meeting the needs of the New Zealand public.

In unity,
Wattie Watson
National Secretary

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