Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) is back before the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) after the Public Service Association (PSA) and New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) filed jointly on October 6, 2026, seeking compliance orders to enforce a ruling the ERA made against FENZ in March.
The filing lands at a moment when FENZ’s leadership is under pressure from several directions at once – and when every broker placing property or vehicle cover in New Zealand is collecting levies that fund the agency.
The PSA and NZPFU are seeking orders to prevent FENZ from making any decisions on the restructure, dismissing union members, or altering their terms and conditions until it meets its obligations under collective agreements and employment law.
According to the NZPFU, the unions wrote to FENZ’s new board chair Raveen Jaduram in September asking him to suspend the restructure before returning to the ERA. That request was declined.
PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons made the unions’ position plain: “FENZ was told by the Authority it broke the law. FENZ has no business forcing through a process the Authority has already found unlawful.”
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The restructure was announced in November 2025, affecting around 700 roles across the organisation. Of those, 97 non-firefighting positions were proposed for disestablishment, with a further 66 roles to be significantly changed.
The PSA and NZPFU filed urgent proceedings shortly after the announcement. In a determination dated March 18, 2026, ERA found that FENZ had not consulted the unions early enough to allow meaningful input on whether the restructure should proceed at all.
It found FENZ had breached its statutory duty of good faith under the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the consultation clauses in both collective agreements, stating that FENZ’s conduct was not consistent with “an employer who is being active and constructive in establishing and maintaining a productive employment relationship that involves being responsive and communicative with the other party to the employment relationship, which in this case is the Unions.”
FENZ accepted that ruling – then in September wrote to staff indicating it was continuing with the restructure regardless.
Acting chief executive Darryl Purdy said the organisation considered the engagement process had run its course, with key issues identified and considered by all parties. “While we have genuinely sought consensus with our unions, there is a fundamental disagreement with some of the unions as to whether any structure change should take place at all,” Purdy said.
He cited the toll on staff, noting the process had stretched to nearly 11 months. “We are also acutely aware of the impact this prolonged process has had on our people, who have been telling us clearly that they need to see a conclusion to the change process begun nearly eleven months ago,” he said.
FENZ declined to comment further while proceedings are active.
The ERA proceedings are not the only front on which FENZ is under pressure.
On September 17, 2026, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden publicly declared she had no confidence in chief executive Kerry Gregory, saying he had withheld information about a serious incident for a full year. The matter has been referred to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), according to 1News.
“Having information of a significant nature withheld from me is not something I would expect of a senior official within the public service. This is a serious breach of trust,” van Velden said, as reported by 1News.
FENZ confirmed a historical matter relating to the period before 2021 had been referred to the SFO. The SFO confirmed it received the referral and was assessing the information.
The NZPFU noted in its October statement that the unions raised the minister’s loss of confidence and the select committee’s findings when writing to the board chair, arguing that a restructure designed and driven by the chief executive should be examined before being pushed through.
FENZ is funded almost entirely through levies collected on property and vehicle insurance premiums. Levies supplied approximately 95% of FENZ’s $838 million total revenue in 2024/25, according to the parliamentary annual review, and came in $29.8 million, or 3.6%, below budget.
From July 1, 2026, the levy framework changed for commercial clients, shifting from indemnity value to sum insured for commercial property under the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Regulations 2024. Livestock and forestry clients now also fall within scope for the first time.
Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand (IBANZ) chief executive Katherine Wilson has described the arrangement as inequitable. “Access to FENZ services is quite rightly available to all New Zealanders, but those who pay insurance premiums are unfairly burdened with funding them,” Wilson said.
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A parliamentary inquiry published September 15, 2026, by the Governance and Administration Committee found that more than 52% of FENZ’s appliances were beyond their target age as of May 2026, up from 23% when the agency was established in 2017. The report criticised FENZ for providing inaccurate information to the committee, with some of that information described as “deliberately misleading,” according to the NZPFU’s October statement.
When appliances fail or are unavailable, fires burn longer – a direct input into loss severity for property underwriters and brokers advising clients in high fire-risk sectors.
The ERA proceedings on the October filing remain open. No determination date has been set.
