Fire and Emergency faces tough questions over decision to ground its watercraft

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) faced tough questioning at the Governance and Administration Select Committee in Parliament on Wednesday, much of it focused on the organisation’s banning of all powered watercraft used by local fire stations during water emergencies.

FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory acknowledged that the decision not to deliver a service was tough on communities, but said the organisation had to prioritise what capabilities they were willing and able to invest in.

He also said that FENZ was trying to work with the local councils, iwi and other community groups in Waikato to see if the Ngāruawāhia and Huntly rescue vessels could be run by someone else.

“There’s no doubt that those vessels add value into the community, the question is whether it’s Fire and Emergency’s [job] to allocate resource and financial impact into there to build that capability or whether that sits somewhere else in the community,” Gregory said.

He said it would cost millions to build that capability for New Zealand.

Waikato MP Tim van de Molen, who was on the committee, pushed back against this.

He said the brigades had built their own capability and had never asked FENZ for financial support or resources.

“In this instance we are not asking you to spend millions of dollars. The community fund-raised for the boat themselves, it funded all their own training requirements, they get donations to fund the fuel for it, it’s zero cost on FENZ to operate that and it has been operating safely for decades, why will you not let it continue?” van de Molen asked.

He suggested that FENZ was putting a checklist ahead of the safety of the community.

Gregory rejected that assessment.

“It’s not a checklist, it’s a responsibility of the organisation and we take that very seriously, the safety of our people, because they work in such dangerous situations,” he said.

FENZ deputy national commander Megan Stiffler told the committee she had international recognition for swift water rescue work. She suggested that the vessels used by Ngāruawāhia and Huntly volunteer fire stations were unsuitable.

“The motorised watercraft that I have seen you would never build in a swift water or water rescue programme of work,” she said.

Instead, she said FENZ supplied unmotorized watercraft to provide water rescue. This included land-based rescue where firefighters might throw a bag to someone in the water for them to grab, or paddled inflatables which can travel over shallow water.

Gregory said that what was offered by local stations was a legacy of a time before urban and rural fire services where unified under a new funding model and legislation in 2017.

“Eight years in it’s the right time to look at our organisation and say ‘are we fit-for-purpose, are we right-sized, where do we need to invest, where do we need to divest in and how to we make sure we are sustainable as an organisation going forward so that we can support New Zealanders’ so that’s what we are focused on,” he told the committee.

Van de Molen did not seem to accept this when it came to the grounding of Ngāruawāhia and Huntly’s watercraft.

“They’re both volunteer brigades, they have had for several decades motorized water response capabilities, they have had sign-off for that from the CEO of FENZ post-merger, they have compliance certificates from Maritime NZ to operate that, they have skipper courses for the personnel that operate that, they have MOSS system [Maritime Operator Safety System] – have a certificate of compliance for that – so I’m interested in what has changed?” he asked Stiffler.

She replied that FENZ had to authorize and task the crews for rescue and they would not be building that capability.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand