Faafoi KrisKRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I go directly to clause 33 in Part 1 which is titled Duty of FENZ in relation to volunteers". I think most people who might be watching or listening tonight might not quite understand the intricacies of how the new entity was structured in the past but I think they would recognise that the New Zealand Fire Service as we have known it is made up of professional firefighters and volunteers.I think that in order to maintain the optimal level of volunteers in our volunteer fire brigades there are some duties that the legislation says the new entity has to adhere to. But there is I guess to use a word from a famous movie a "vibe" about clause 33 and that is that volunteer firefighters are doing the job of volunteering in their fire services because of a love for it because of the good for the community or because they might enjoy the experience of being part of a volunteer fire brigade. Because of that there is a duty within clause 33 for Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) to essentially in plain English look after them. Subclause (1)(a) of clause 33 says that "FENZ must take reasonable steps—(a) to recognise respect and promote the contribution of FENZ volunteers". Subclause (1)(c) goes on to say that FENZ must also "develop policy and organisational arrangements that encourage maintain and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers."This is not an issue to be taken lightly because in the departmental report for this piece of legislation the officials—and I acknowledge them in the House today—did say that of all the Fire Service brigades around the country nearly one in five brigades is operating with fewer than 80 percent of their target numbers of volunteers. So in essence we are saying that it is hard to make sure we have got the optimal number of volunteers so getting people on board and keeping them is a real issue for the Fire Service.I do not want to go too much into an Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I have got in respect of Part 2 but I guess what I am saying is that if you have got people within the volunteer fire service FENZ has to make sure that it works hard to keep them in there and keep them motivated to want to continue to volunteer. There are some things though that get in the way. If you make the experience of volunteering for a fire service cumbersome if you make it administration heavy then I think you take the risk—and the officials have pointed this out—that you will not have the ability to attract new people to volunteer for the Fire Service. This comes to the duty that FENZ does have—I think subclause (1)(c) did point to that—"to develop policy and organisational arrangements that encourage maintain and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers."I do have an SOP in respect of Part 2 that goes to the issue of traffic management plans for some of the basic work that our volunteer fire brigades do. They are mandated by law to check fire hydrants in their communities. They have no choice; it is their job it is their responsibility to go out and maintain those hydrants. If it is cumbersome and if there is no looking to the future to be able to maintain firefighters and attract volunteer firefighters I do not think that FENZ is doing a good enough job in respect of clause 33(1)(c) to develop policy and organisational arrangements to encourage maintain and strengthen the capability of FENZ volunteers.I guess the nightmare scenario there is that if we do make things more difficult if we do burden our volunteer firefighters right around the country with unnecessary red tape—I hazard a guess that most members of this House have to manage their own group of volunteers—and if we put things in their way that take their heart and their passion away from what they are doing they simply will not do it anymore. They will stop being volunteers in the community because they will say: "The burden of that task and that administration outweighs the pleasure that I have to volunteer my time to do work for the community."I will speak in more detail when we come to Part 2 but I think we must be very careful not to put impediments in the way of volunteers and we must do all we can under clause 33(1)(c) to make sure that we are clearing the way to make sure people who volunteer are doing what they came to volunteer for and that is go out there help the community make sure that they are preventing the kinds of things that we do not want to happen like fires and not sitting around tables doing administration work that is unnecessary because then we will have people saying "That's enough for me" and as a whole the community will suffer."