Alliance Backs Striking Firefighters As FENZ Pay Dispute Escalates
The New Zealand Alliance Party has thrown its support behind striking firefighters, accusing both Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the Government of decades of neglect that have pushed frontline services to breaking point.
Alliance Party Backs Striking Firefighters
The Alliance Party is backing the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) as they continue their industrial action across the country.
Alliance Party Leader Victor Billot says the ongoing dispute is a damning indictment of the austerity politics that have hollowed out New Zealand’s essential public services.
“The government and FENZ management claim that these brief strikes put the public at risk,” says Mr Billot.
“Let’s be absolutely clear: what puts the public at risk is forcing firefighters to work excessive hours just to make ends meet. What puts the community in danger is sending crews to emergencies in ageing trucks with failing equipment.”
“Broken NZ” – A Wider Public Service Crisis
The Alliance views the fire service crisis as part of a broader systemic failure impacting the entire country.
Mr Billot says the situation facing our frontline emergency workers is another glaring symptom of a ‘Broken NZ’.
“Just like the catastrophic sewage infrastructure failures we are currently seeing at Moa Point in Wellington, the crisis at FENZ is the inevitable result of decades of underfunding.”
Successive governments have starved our essential services of funding, choosing tax cuts for the “sorted” and bloated management over basic safety and infrastructure, says Mr Billot.
Pay Offer, Inflation And Real Wage Cuts
The Alliance Party condemns FENZ’s current offer of a 6.2% pay increase over three years, noting that with current inflation rates, this amounts to a significant real-wage cut.
Furthermore, the Alliance is backing the NZPFU’s broader demands regarding health, safety, and operational capacity.
What The Alliance Is Demanding From Government
The Alliance Party is calling on the government to mandate FENZ to:
- Return to the table with a genuine, inflation-adjusted pay offer.
- Halt any proposed restructures that threaten jobs and operational capacity.
Commit to an urgent capital injection to replace the dangerously aging fleet of fire appliances.
Pass presumptive cancer legislation for all firefighters immediately.
“The Alliance Party stands 100% behind our firefighters.”
When the people we rely on to run toward danger are forced to strike to be heard, the issue isn’t disruption — it’s neglect. Firefighters do not lightly withdraw their labour. If the Government believes brief, controlled industrial action is risky, it should reflect on what years of underinvestment have already cost. The alarm bell isn’t the strike — it’s the warning they’ve been sounding for years.
