Government must stop ‘short-sighted’ FENZ job cuts, PSA says
The Public Service Association (PSA) says the government must step in to stop Fire and Emergency’s (FENZ) new proposal to cut almost 170 jobs.
FENZ is circulating its restructure proposal to its staff this afternoon but told RNZ it would not release it publicly.
It previously promised not to cut frontline firefighter or comms centre jobs
But thePSA said the proposal amounted to decimating the agency’s front line support staff and would undermine firefighting in a bid to save $70m a year.
“The government must step in and stop these short-sighted cuts – FENZ is telling its workers to do more with less, which will impact FENZ’s ability to deal with emergencies and prevent future emergencies,” said national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
The proposal included cutting 46 roles in the Operational Response branch central, as well as four wildfire specialists at a time when Tongariro had been hit by such a fire, the PSA said.
It was also proposing to cut 45 roles in the prevention branch that worked to reduce risk and harm before emergencies occur, Fitzsimons said.
All the Right are good at is short term politics.
We are on a dangerously warming planet now and what is this Right Wing Government doing?
Why they are cutting the funding to the very Emergency Services we will need to deal with that climate change.
The wildfires and the storms coming our way have to be resourced in a totally different way
The danger for the polluters and the alt-Right is that with every passing year, the scientific evidence for climate change only gets stronger and the extreme weather becomes impossible to ignore, what this will do is force the political class to take the issue seriously.
We need a massive upgrade of Civil Defence and far more resources spent on ensuring our infrastructure has the flexibility to withstand these types of extreme weather events.
We need RSAs and Maraes to be built up into Community civil Defence Hubs and we need a solar panel campaign to ensure a flexible electrical grid alongside better battery cell towers.
We need a Civil Defence that is far better resourced than they are now with permanent clean up crew staff on stand by because this doesn’t get better right?
The 230km hour winds we just experienced only get worse, as heat continues to pour into the atmosphere because of human made pollution, the extreme weather gets worse and worse, we need a new Civil Defence regime that reflects the reality of what we are seeing.
Dr Bryce Edwards highlights that the recent local council elections had lobby groups like ‘The Local Government Business Forum’ — a coalition including Business New Zealand, the New Zealand Initiative, and Federated Farmers — openly calling for voters to elect candidates with “commercial and financial acumen” and a “pro-growth and pro-development mindset”, part of the problem here in NZ is that business lobby groups can mask their polluter interests with dark Ag money that the wider electorate can’t see.
The reason the astro-turf alt-right are so focused on undermining local councils and Government is because the polluter interests that fund these groups want a Government so undermined that when the realities of climate change finally get into the heads of muddle NuZilind, there isn’t a Government with the capacity to do anything about the Polluters.
Why are you allowing the polluters to manipulate you with this level of ease?
Look at the list of environmental roll backs to appease the polluter class…
Fast-track Approvals Act (2024) — established a permanent minister-led fast-track approvals regime that lets ministers green-light (or fast-track) major projects — including mining, ports and other infrastructure — with reduced public and environmental scrutiny. Critics say it weakens protections, limits Treaty obligations and risks approving projects previously refused for environmental reasons.
Repeal of the Clean Car Discount (2023) — the Clean Car Discount (aka Clean Vehicle Discount) was removed by statute at the end of 2023, removing a key demand-side policy designed to accelerate uptake of lower-emission vehicles. Environmental groups say this reduces incentives to electrify the vehicle fleet
Water Services Acts Repeal / “Local Water” changes (2024) — the coalition repealed the Water Services Entities Act / Three Waters framework and replaced it with localised arrangements. Critics argued repeal undermined some water-quality and regulatory improvements intended under the previous reform and reduced centralised capacity to manage freshwater outcomes (though supporters framed it as returning control to local councils).
Crown Minerals Amendment / Repeal of 2018 offshore exploration ban (2025) — Parliament voted to reverse the 2018 ban on new offshore oil & gas exploration, reopening New Zealand waters to petroleum exploration and changing the Crown Minerals rules to enable permits. This is a major policy reversal from the previous government’s climate-aligned commitment.
Changes weakening decommissioning / trailing liability rules — amendments to the Crown Minerals regime (and associated ministerial practice) have narrowed or made discretionary the previous automatic trailing-liability rules for oil & gas decommissioning — critics say this increases the risk taxpayers will shoulder cleanup costs if operators fail.
$200 million co-investment contingency for new gas fields (Budget 2025) — the Government explicitly tagged NZ$200m over several years as a Crown co-investment fund to “de-risk” new gas field investment. Environment groups say this is effectively a fossil-fuel subsidy. The move also prompted NZ’s exit from the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance.
Withdrawal from the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance (BOGA) (June 2025) — NZ left the international coalition dedicated to phasing out oil & gas production after indicating it would reopen exploration. The withdrawal was widely criticised internationally and domestically as abandoning a phase-out commitment
Budget 2025: cuts and reprioritisations critics say undermine climate action / conservation — environmental NGOs and climate analysts flagged the Budget as deprioritising climate mitigation and conservation: cuts to some climate programmes, reductions in policy capacity at DOC, proposed staff cuts in conservation and limited new funding for emissions reductions programmes. NGOs described the package as a step back for climate policy.
Legal challenge over the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (2025) — lawyers’ groups and NGOs have taken legal action arguing the government’s updated emissions reduction plan is legally inadequate and “dangerously” unambitious under NZ’s Zero Carbon Act—an indication that independent legal opinion sees the plan as backsliding.
…this Government is a Climate Denial Government who are refusing to do anything about the coming adaptation because they are paid by the polluters.
At some stage you are going to realise you have been played.
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