Brooke van Velden attacks Firefighters for striking because of her Government’s policies!!
Pakūranga blaze during firefighters’ strike sparks blame game between Fire and Emergency and union
Tensions continue to grow between the firefighters’ union and their employer after an Auckland business was gutted by a blaze while crews were on strike this afternoon.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand accused firefighters of “gambling with the public’s safety” amid a years-long pay dispute.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) hit back, calling the comments “disgusting” and claiming the organisation was throwing stones while the building was still burning.
The blaze broke out this afternoon at an industrial building housing a Middle Eastern grocery in the suburb of Pakūranga, next to the Pakūranga Highway.
One person is in a serious condition at Middlemore Hospital.
Jesus wept ACT Party politicians are unbelievable aren’t they?
Attacking Firefighters for striking because of their Government’s policies!!!
Look.
Whatever way you vote.
There are people who deserve our support and well wishes.
Ambulance staff.
Teachers.
Drs.
Nurses.
FIREFIGHTERS!
People who run towards the danger.
They deserve our utmost support!
What do they have?
A Hard Right Government who borrows for tax cuts we can’t afford, landlord tax loopholes, Big Tobacco, Big Dairy, Mining, Big Oil while hollowing out public service budgets!
This Government have dangerously underfunded the Fire Service and the Union is forced to strike because of that dangerous underfunding, for Brooke and Parmjeet to turn it into a political event is sickening!
We shouldn’t be cutting $50million each year from firefighting budgets! These people are our heroes who risk their lives on our worst day!
Underfunding Firefighters and then weaponising their strike against them FOR COST CUTTING THAT ACT HAS AGREED TO is outrageous!
ACT gleefully mutilate the State as part of their Chainsaw Libertarianism Dogma.
Friends don’t let friends vote ACT.
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Message for the morons who will inevitably want to attack Unions.
Feel free to tell your employer you no longer want the things Unions fought for.
Wave goodbye to your annual leave, sick leave, and maternity leave.
Tell your boss you’re happy to work for slave wages in dangerous conditions.
In fact, just tell them that they can lock you in the basement with bread and water until they need you for something.
The timing of that fire is peculiar. I wonder who lit it?
A Middle Eastern grocery which overall have a reputation for budget facilities and minimum safety compliance catches fire and you think it’s peculiar and imply arson? Evidently they do an investigation so unless you have inside knowledge I would wait for real evidence before rushing to cast doubt.
I am rebuked. Nobody lit the fire. Spontaneous combustion of vegetables? Self ignition of herbs and spices?
Seriously, is there anything at all that this CoC and its motley ministers can get right? It’s one circus after another. This CoC keeps cutting funds and bringing in policies that are ill thought out, not discussed with those affected, and certainly not transparent. Brooke seems to be embroiled in every forum. She is inexperienced, naive and a knee-jerker. It has been distressful watching the results of the CoC’s cruel, biased treatment of the needy but their denigration of our service workers is a new low. Stop it now. Read the room. Get it right just for once! How much longer do we need to tolerate this ‘out-of-control’ mob mentality? Can they not go now so we get a chance to SAVE OUR COUNTRY?
Our Left Parties need to do a Mayor Mamdani and get down to stand on the picket line to make a video address to the nation vowing their solidarity with the Firefighters and the justice of their demands..
If our Left parties can’t do that in opposition, we know that they won’t do it in government.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/39N8Zf7YqbE
To show they can work together in government, the Left parties need to show they can work together in opposition.
This government gambles with people’s lives physically and financially on a daily basis. Van Velden and Parmar are hypocrites.
In the annals of history Van Velden will be Van Velden who?
Brooke the crook should ask the landlords for 100 million to be returned which cold fund new equipment and better wages .After all it is landlords property they save everyday .
She would praise volunteers. The rich would use the poor to do their work and serve their needs and not even reimburse them, That is how these people voting ACT and so on think.
Caring about all people and trying to run a country in a modern, effective way is anathema to them – they are reverting to ancient tyopes of wealth and slavery, Enough is never enough for the poisoned minds of the money -mad and sharing distributing and having a happy, busy country where all are respected is not in their mindset.
And fire fighters being the most important people in the country, and the most needed and far more than politicians who are proving expensive drains on us are our problem to be solved, and we must look after our water purveyors and our fire prevention and the fighters who are dedicated to their task. They are higher than police in a respect and service ladder of worth.
When workers go on strike, management and the paymasters generally pick up the tools and get the job done.
All workers should call a general strike for a week, and if the babbling Brooke van de Kut doesn’t want the country to burn she can pick up a fire hose and jump on the nearest shiny red truck.
Do something useful once in your life.
Labour, Greens, TPM take note; To take on the Right, this is how great leaders are made, and great movements are forged.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani began his rise to the leadership of America’s biggest city by joining taxi driver hunger strikers, not because he knew where it would take him, but because it was the right thing to do. Mayor Mamdani said, “We won that protest and won more than $475 million in debt relief for drivers”
Now Mamdani is in the position to appoint a “champion” for the drivers to the role of New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commissioner.
.
From YouTube:
Mayor Mamdani Nominates a Chair and Commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC)
NYC Mayor’s Office
61.6K subscribers
4,788 views
LaGuardia Airport Queens, NY
January 13, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHmFUybWKI&t=3s
@2:18 minutes:
And as I said to one of our hunger strikers, Richard Chow, from the stage on election night November 4th, “My brother we are in City Hall now.”
” Mayor Zohran Mamdani began his rise to the leadership of America’s biggest city by joining taxi driver hunger strikers, not because he knew where it would take him, but because it was the right thing to do. Mayor Mamdani said, “We won that protest and won more than $475 million in debt relief for drivers”
Good post Pat. You are 100% on the nail.
Mamdani will be there to confront Trumps legacy in the years ahead I have no doubt as a presidential contender.
Our failure is that we as yet have no Mamdani , Sanders or O.C who will step up to confront the same enemy we are facing here in New Zealand…and they are formidable to defeat which means we have to realign our opposition and provide our people with a real alternative and program of change.
Kiwis are waiting to vote for hope.
If Bernie Sanders was here he would be on the front line with the guys and women who when we are at risk will be there to save us and confront fires of all kinds and attend the worst aspects of road crash’s and fatalities. Many of those who serve are volunteer’s and that is one of the finest attributes that those of our people who will confront danger and death as volunteers. They are an example of the best of our Kiwi kin.
Another term of these parasites will do irreversible damage to our country unless we stop them.
At least the Americans have a choice. Its time we had our own patriots. We all loved this country once.