Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): There are a few clauses in Part 1 that I would like to speak to but I would like to begin by speaking in support of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of my colleague Adrian Rurawhe particularly with reference to the change he proposes to the name of the organisation Fire and Emergency New Zealand—to add the word Services" so the name would be Fire and Emergency Services New Zealand. To people who have just tuned in that might seem like a minor change. People might question why a member would put up an amendment to the name of the organisation. They might question what difference that could possibly make. But actually to the personnel themselves and to those personnel who submitted during the select committee phase of this bill this is an incredibly important aspect.We all recognise the service of fire and emergency personnel—the fact that they perform an important service and that they serve our communities. In fact one need look no further than clause 3 the purpose clause of this legislation which says: "The purpose of this Act is to—(a) reform the law relating to fire services including by strengthening the role of communities and improving the support for volunteers in the provision of fire services and to that end—(i) to unify Fire Services by establishing Fire and Emergency New Zealand…". We are unifying our Fire Services strengthening the role of communities and improving the support for volunteers in the provision of fire services yet that word "services" has fallen out of the name.If members are unsure about how important this is to the service personnel themselves the Professional Firefighters Union described the name as objectionable and contemptuous of the history of the many years of service provided by the women and men who have dedicated their time to the service of our communities. Surely if this Parliament recognises the important service of those firefighters and other emergency services personnel and if we want to strengthen the role of communities and improve the support for volunteers and in fact improve the support for the professionals in our fire and emergency service surely we could do the simple thing of acknowledging the service that they have provided and acknowledging the depth of feeling from them around the name of the organisation.We all think of the fire "services". We all think of the emergency "services". I do not think it is that onerous a change for us to make as a Parliament to simply add that word to the name of the organisation to recognise the people who actually work at the front lines providing those services. I would appreciate some comment from the Minister on that. It may seem trivial but it is very important to the people who work at the front line for us serving our communities. I would like to know from the Minister why the change has not been made.We have a significant ministerial SOP that makes multiple changes to the legislation. Why is the change proposed by my colleague Adrian Rurawhe not in the Minister's SOP? Given that it is not in the Minister's SOP is the Minister of a mind to support Adrian Rurawhe's proposal; if not why not? It is not that onerous it is not that difficult and if it is not the course of action that the Government wants to take then I think members on this side—and in particular the service personnel who are actually working for us at the front line often putting life and limb on the line to keep our communities safe and to aid and assist people when they are in an emergency situation—would appreciate the explanation from the Government as well as to why it cannot do that one simple thing.The other section of Part 1 that I would like to speak to is clause 28 through to clause 32. Clauses 28 to 32 deal with the prescribed health standards for operational personnel. I think all members of the House and all submitters recognise the importance of having health standards for our operational personnel who serve in our fire and emergency services because they are doing physically demanding work and to be safe themselves and for their colleagues to be safe and to ensure that members of the public to whose assistance they are coming are as safe as possible we do need there to be health standards for the operational personnel.However I think that we also need to acknowledge that this legislation does allow for operational personnel to be dismissed should they not meet those health standards. This legislation is actually quite prescriptive. Initially when I saw this—being someone who has an interest in employment relations and workers' rights—I was interested to see how this legislation would interact with the Employment Relations Act and the Health and Safety at Work Act and other employment legislation.I was concerned at first that it may in some way undermine that legislation. However I have to say that because it is somewhat prescriptive this legislation actually provides a fair amount of protection for those operational personnel—acknowledging that there needs to be a standard of health and a standard of fitness that personnel need to meet. It is not prescribed in the legislation; it is over to the board of Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) to set those standards. But actually there are procedures. First of all those standards have to be communicated. The Law Society actually recommended that the standards ought to be publicly available on the FENZ website. I think that would be a minimum. They would need to be well communicated to the operational personnel themselves as would the steps that must be taken in order to demonstrate that an operational service person no longer meets those standards the opportunity to appeal and the opportunity for redeployment to non-operational tasks so that their experience and their knowledge can be retained in the organisation. I actually think that this legislation is quite admirable on that front.From the point of view of looking at how we might support staff throughout workplaces around New Zealand who through accident or injury or through poor health become unable to fulfil the duties that are ordinarily expected of them—I actually think that this legislation could be model legislation for how our employment relations legislation might deal with that situation. Although there are certain prescribed health requirements for operational personnel in this case there are a lot of examples where people through injury or illness become incapacitated and unable to perform the duties that are ordinarily required of them.This legislation is actually—at first blush I was concerned that it would undermine the Employment Relations Act; I actually think we could use this to enhance the Employment Relations Act. I must say I acknowledge the work of everybody involved: the unions the Government Administration Committee and the Minister in crafting legislation that so appropriately upholds and supports the rights of our service personnel. Given that we are doing that—given that we are acknowledging that they have rights in the workplace and that they have a dangerous and arduous job to do—I come back to my original point which is to ask why we cannot give them that simple acknowledgment that what they do is provide a service to our community and that they serve our community. Can we not acknowledge that in the name of the organisation? They asked for it; it is what they want and I think it would be a simple thing for this Parliament to do and if the Government is not willing to do it I think we need an explanation."