New Zealand's career firefighters will vote on further strike action after Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) offered unionised members a pay rise below what it had already given its own non-union staff.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) will hold membership meetings at locations nationwide, from Whangārei to Invercargill, between October 18 and November 3. Members will vote on the offer and decide whether to escalate a dispute that has run without a settled collective agreement since June 2024.
At a bargaining session on October 1, the first in seven months, FENZ tabled a 2.2% pay increase. That is below the 2.4% it had already awarded non-union staff from July 1, 2026, following a Korn Ferry remuneration review.
According to the NZPFU, FENZ workplace relations manager Paul Stowers confirmed the offer was substantially unchanged from the position FENZ had held since December 2025. That was despite chief executive Kerry Gregory writing to the union in March 2026 to say FENZ was "working up a new offer."
NZPFU national secretary Wattie Watson said on October 2 that the offer "does not address the need for increased staffing of firefighters and dispatchers, safe systems of work, the impact of the restructure." She added that it makes no reference to the condition of FENZ's fleet or to the recommendations of Parliament's Governance and Administration Committee.
Watson also said the offer would impose a sunset clause on the union's occupational health monitoring programme, which the NZPFU says has enabled the early detection of occupational cancers among firefighters.
FENZ did not issue a public statement on the October 1 session.
The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has adjourned facilitation while members consider the offer. Under section 26 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, FENZ must allow members to attend union meetings on pay for up to two hours if they would otherwise be working.
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Industrial action has been running since August 2025, with more than 50 rounds of one-hour stoppages at career-staffed stations.
In March 2026, the ERA found FENZ had breached its statutory duty of good faith during a November 2025 restructure that affected approximately 700 positions, with more than 150 proposed redundancies. FENZ accepted the finding.
A FENZ spokesperson said in May 2026 that its 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." The spokesperson added that the NZPFU's last formal proposal would cost approximately three times as much as FENZ's own.
During each one-hour stoppage, FENZ has said it continues to respond to 111 calls, while acknowledging that response times may increase in some locations.
The Governance and Administration Committee published its FENZ fleet inquiry findings in September 2026, the same report the NZPFU says the pay offer ignores.
The committee found that more than 52% of FENZ's fleet was beyond its target age as of May 2026, up from 23% when the organisation was established in 2017. It described FENZ's claim that appliances were available 99.72% of the time as one that "appears intentionally misleading."
FENZ's board chair subsequently acknowledged that the organisation had provided "inaccurate and untimely information" to the committee. The committee also found FENZ has no standalone fleet strategy.
Read next: FENZ levy changes raise questions over emergency response capability
The dispute sits inside a funding structure with direct consequences for the insurance market.
FENZ's total revenue in 2024-25 was $838 million, with approximately 95% drawn from levies on property and vehicle insurance, according to the Department of Internal Affairs. The levy is budgeted to generate $904 million in 2026-27.
The levy is collected through insurance premiums, generally by insurers. Where cover is placed with an offshore insurer through a New Zealand-based broker, the levy liability falls on the broker.
The insured pool is also shrinking. A Consumer NZ report from August 2025 found the share of New Zealand households without house insurance because of cost rose from 7% in 2022 to 17% in 2025. Fewer policyholders means the levy burden falls more heavily on those who remain covered.
The Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand (IBANZ) and the New Zealand Underwriting Agencies Council (NZUAC) have each called publicly for the levy to be removed from the insurance sector and replaced with general taxation or council rates. The Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) has also questioned whether the current model remains appropriate, and has welcomed the government's review. The Department of Internal Affairs has confirmed its scoping exercise will not affect levy rates already set for the three years from July 1, 2026, and that any future changes would require public consultation.
For brokers with commercial property clients in areas served by career firefighters, the combination of documented fleet deterioration, an unresolved pay dispute and a funding model with no near-term reform path is a set of risks worth monitoring.
