Mitchell Clayton: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5613. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I am very privileged to stand up on behalf of New Zealand First for our estimates debate on the Māori other populations and cultural sector. I am going to talk specifically about the internal affairs section.Before I get started I just want to bring everyone’s attention back to just before we went on our dinner break. There are a number of fine men and women in this Chamber and one whom I consider to be one of those fine gentlemen is Chris Finlayson. So I was as perplexed as many other people in the Chamber when he was completely off-base and off-tangent in some of his remarks when he was referring to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. It got me thinking that perhaps the problem was that he was just a little bit “hangry”—a little bit hungry and angry prior to dinner—and so I have brought him along a Snickers bar which we could perhaps put in a little wee glass box out the back and break it in case of emergency so that next time he gets angry in the Chamber he can go out the back and relax himself. I hope he returns well rested and ready to fight.Specifically what I would like to talk about this evening is the Fire Service. Yet again we see another review in the Fire Service. This is the 17th review in the Fire Servicein the last 21 years—17; this is the 17th review. It begs the question: what is going on? When I trawl through the Budget that was released this year there is not a single solitary cent not a dollar being put forward for our Fire Service and yet the Government is sitting down and spending more money yet again to review the system. It is not fit for purpose it does not work and there is no funding allocated to allow this very crucial organisation which supplies so much for our communities to move forward.Let me just go through some of these statistics. We have got 17000 career firefighters around New Zealand currently. We have got 8300 urban volunteers giving up their time risking their lives in helping out in those communities and another 3500 rural volunteers.At the moment we have an absolute state of disrepair in a number of the buildings that are actually housing our Fire Service equipment. We have got 79 career stations 360 volunteer stations and 187 rural fire forces and the buildings they are operating out of are barely fit for service. I mean we are seriously putting our Fire Service people in some perilous situations if this Government does not come up with a better funding model.Let us talk about that funding model because what we are currently hearing from the Minister of Internal Affairs—the “Minister of Reviews” is what we should be retitling him—is an idea that we are going to put search and rescue and the urban search and rescue into the Fire Service. Well that does make sense. Accolades are to be given where credit is due and credit is due there. However the silos in which this Government places all of our emergency serviceproviders are not fit for purpose. We have got the likes of Surf Life Saving New Zealand providing safety education and saving lives and which is also doing the job of search and rescue and working hard and volunteering its time efforts and energies on the beaches around New Zealand—77 surf clubs around the country. Then of course you have got Coastguard which does another fantastic job of rescuing people at sea—search and rescue looking for them—and yet there is very little correlation or an organisation that can be put under a single heading that enables it to be funded as a whole and to be taken seriously as an emergency serviceprovider.When we look at whether it is a fit for purpose issue and what the Fire Service actually provides with its urban search and rescue and with its search and rescue around the country—it puts out fires. Who do we call when the rain comes down and the floods come in Mr Muller? That is right—your local fire brigade. The number of times it has been out there on the streets pumping water clearing out people’s houses—when your cat gets stuck in a tree who do you call? The local fire brigade Mr Muller—that is correct.And of course as we go on the Fire Service is the first port of call when we have an issue relating to emergency service providers. Who do we call when there is a car accident? Who comes along and issues and administers first aid? It is the Fire Service. Yet we have got these silo situations where the Government is putting these organisations into various blocs and underfunding them and there is complete and utter under-investment within this service.Let me just bring your attention—I am speaking quite quickly because 5 minutes goes so fast when you are in the Chamber—to an Official Information Act request. It was the Minister’s briefing so it was officially released. It says: “There is an under-investment in rural fire reduction and readiness and the changing service scope is making it difficult for the commission to adapt to new demands.” We need to be fit for purpose; we need to be up and ready for the 21st century. I doubt that this review is actually going to do much with regard to what the Government is going to do to put funding into this absolutely vital—