Source: Radio New Zealand
Great Barrier Island eastern coastline (file photo) RNZ / Kate Newton
Fire and Emergency New Zealand has axed the only paid role on Aotea Great Barrier Island.
Documents seen by RNZ show the new arrangement – sending staff from the mainland — will cost the fire service more than retaining an officer on the island.
Aotea Great Barrier Island is home to around 1250 residents, 50 of whom are volunteers in the local fire brigade.
The island’s voluntary chief fire officer, Wayne Anderson, says volunteers have been supported by a paid, part-time, person on the island since 2000, when the role was funded by Auckland City Council.
In 2017, that position transferred to Fire and Emergency, which ended the contracted role on April 24.
Going forward, staff from Counties Manukau will provide support for the island, a FENZ spokesperson said.
Aotea Great Barrier local board chair, Izzy Fordham, said the community was “pretty devastated” by the decision to cut the on-island role.
“To me, it just doesn’t make sense, and it’s not making sense to our volunteer fire committee, and it’s certainly not making sense to the community,” she said.
“It’s a really vital role for the island, and there seems to be some thinking within the higher management of FENZ that it can be run from the mainland… but that’s not really going to work that well.”
A FENZ spokesperson said the organisation looked at keeping the on-island role, taking into consideration the workload, existing district support, and incident data.
That data showed, on average, crews attended five medical call outs and two structure fires each year.
Mr Anderson said those figures didn’t reflect the times volunteers dealt with floods, or supported the island’s sole paramedic.
However, the low call-out numbers reflected years of fire prevention work which was now at risk, he said.
“It’s going to affect our risk reduction plans definitely because they’ll be flying someone over who nobody knows. We’re a small community, everyone knows everyone, and respect is big, but a stranger going to a house, putting in a smoke alarm, is not going to happen.”
Mr Anderson said that due to the island’s isolation, it needed to be well-resourced, but it was being abandoned.
“Especially in a severe weather event or a tsunami, we’re going to be on our own for quite a few days,” he said.
“In (Cyclone) Gabrielle, the airport was closed for two days. and we had no ferry for a week. The island was cut off into four pieces because of landslides and flooding.
When things escalate, where are these resources, how are these resources going to get here?”
Internal FENZ advice seen by RNZ showed that flying staff to the island would cost more, be less practical than keeping the on-island role, and impact support for mainland stations.
Travel to the island was not straight-forward, Mr Anderson said, and the ongoing impact of rising fuel prices on flight costs and frequency was unknown.
FENZ staff travelling to Aotea from Auckland would “spend a lot of time at the airport,” he said.
“… we do get a lot of cancellations because of weather, and sometimes you’ve spent a long time in the airport waiting for the fog to clear, waiting for the rain to clear.”
According to FENZ, the contract for the on-island support officer was put in place in 2022, with an agreement to review “its ongoing need against broader organisational priorities”.
“This decision to not appoint a permanent role was not made due to cost,” a FENZ spokesperson said.
“Currently a group manager visits the island approximately four times a year. The future arrangement will see the island supported by specialists, including risk reduction advisors, community readiness and recovery advisors and volunteer support officers. These arrangements will have a more regular schedule, likely to be monthly.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand