The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) has declined a process put forward by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) that would have Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) and the union exchange their full revised bargaining positions through simultaneous written correspondence. In a response issued June 25, 2026, the union’s National Committee of Management told the ERA it regards written exchanges – whether submitted directly or channelled through the authority – as an inadequate path forward, and has called on FENZ to attend in-person bargaining to table the revised offer its chief executive said was being prepared more than three months ago.
The development is the latest in a collective bargaining dispute that has run since the expiry of the 2021-24 collective agreement on June 30, 2024, and has so far failed to produce a successor agreement. A meeting between FENZ senior leadership and the NZPFU National Committee in late May ended without resolution on any substantive bargaining matters, with no new wage offer tabled and no date set for a return to facilitated bargaining.
The ERA’s proposal would have both parties submit revised positions in writing simultaneously, with the authority then assessing whether further facilitated bargaining was required. The NZPFU National Committee said it was not convinced this would produce a constructive outcome. In its written ERA response, the committee stated: “The NZPFU is averse to bargaining by correspondence as any proposal should be provided in bargaining so that it can be fully discussed and negotiated. We need to be in the room to actually negotiate – something we do not think has really occurred at all in facilitation.” The union also indicated concern that FENZ’s preference for a written process may be designed to prompt the ERA to issue public recommendations that FENZ anticipates would reflect its own position.
In a March 5 email, FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory told the NZPFU that management had reviewed its position and was preparing a revised offer, stating he was “planning for the offer to be tabled at facilitation.” In its June 25 ERA response, the NZPFU National Committee stated: “Chief executive Kerry Gregory wrote to the Union in March stating that FENZ was working up a new offer, but it is yet to be produced. FENZ has not provided any reasonable grounds for not producing it.”
FENZ’s position, as stated in May, is that the NZPFU had itself committed to tabling a new proposal in January, which had not been delivered, and that the union had declined to return to facilitation unless FENZ first produced a materially different offer. On the substance of its position, a FENZ spokesperson told Insurance Business NZ in May: “Our offer provides an increase of 6.2% over three years and compares favourably with the majority of public sector settlements that have been offered and ratified,” adding that the NZPFU’s last formal proposal was approximately three times its own in cost. Each party has attributed the stall to the other.
The parties have been in ERA-facilitated bargaining since December 2025, with the most recent session held Feb. 13, 2026, before talks were adjourned without further meetings scheduled. Industrial action has been under way since August 2025, including rolling one-hour national stoppages at midday on Mondays and Fridays at career-staffed stations, and additional bans on administrative and non-emergency duties introduced after a February 2026 member vote in which more than 93% of attendees across 25 meetings voted to continue and extend the action.
The NZPFU’s ERA submission cited the financial impact of new levy settings applicable from July 1, 2026, pointing to what the union describes as a discrepancy between FENZ’s internal revenue forecasts and the figures provided to the government during the levy-setting process. That discrepancy has drawn ministerial attention. According to RNZ, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden told Parliament at a scrutiny hearing that consultation had proceeded on outdated FENZ modelling, stating: “We went out and consulted on old information, which when questioned was updated and revised, which is how we went down from a 5.2% figure to a 2.2% figure, because the modelling was simply out of date based on the forecasts.”
The redesigned levy, which takes effect July 1, 2026, applies to insurance contracts covering loss or damage from fire and to motor vehicle insurance, including third-party-only cover for the first time. The motor vehicle levy moves to a flat $25 per vehicle, up from $9.53. The maximum annual residential levy drops from $119.50 to $107.40, while non-residential property is levied at 7.76 cents per $100 sum insured with no cap – shifting from an indemnity-value basis to a sum-insured basis, which may increase the levy on some commercial properties even as the rate declines.
The ERA’s March 2026 finding that FENZ breached its statutory duty of good faith and failed to meet consultation obligations with both the NZPFU and the Public Service Association (PSA) during an organisational restructure launched in November 2025 has been accepted by FENZ. The NZPFU said the decision has direct bearing on consultation-related matters that remain unresolved in bargaining, and that it forms part of the changed context requiring direct discussion rather than written correspondence. The union also said FENZ has confirmed it will not proceed with an earlier in-principle agreement to increase minimum crewing numbers, and that FENZ has commenced reducing career firefighter numbers in Auckland.
The Parliamentary Governance and Administration Select Committee launched an inquiry into the FENZ vehicle fleet in April 2026, covering the condition of career and volunteer appliances, future fleet requirements, procurement processes, and whether FENZ has kept Parliament accurately informed about fleet matters. National MP Tim Costley, who wrote to the committee seeking the inquiry, said he was “increasingly concerned by the fleet issues within FENZ that continue to provide more questions than answers, and by the confusing and contradictory nature of those answers.”
Under the updated levy framework, where a New Zealand insurer underwrites the policy, the insurer is liable to pay the levy; where a New Zealand-based broker places cover with offshore insurers, the broker bears responsibility for its share. Levy is payable by the 15th day of the third month following policy commencement or renewal on or after July 1, 2026. For insurers and brokers, the more significant longer-term question may be structural: the minister has asked the Department of Internal Affairs to investigate whether there are better ways to fund FENZ than the current insurance levy system, a review that, depending on its findings, could alter the basis on which the levy is calculated and applied beyond the current 2026-29 levy period. The union has said it remains available for direct bargaining and is calling on FENZ to bring its revised offer to the table. NZPFU national secretary Wattie Watson said in the union’s June 25 statement: “It is long overdue for FENZ to meet with the NZPFU for the purposes of bargaining – they say they have a revised offer – present it at bargaining.”
