The $6,254,064 cost of rebranding New Zealand’s fire services is a shocking indictment on the merger of rural and urban services, which was meant to save taxpayer money.

The spending figures were tabled to select committee this month and can be found on page seven of this document. The expense covers signage and uniforms – not the restructure process itself. The rebrand is ongoing, so figures will increase.

“We have consistently opposed government rebrands, which always suck resources away from core services. But the price of this rebrand has left us stunned – we’ve never seen anything like it. This money could have paid a year’s salary for 145 trainee firefighters.

And the culture of waste within FENZ isn’t limited to rebranding. Delving deeper into the Select Committee report reveals further incredible expenses.

1. In the previous two years, FENZ spent $31 million and $32 million on external contractors. (p45)
2. In the previous two years, FENZ spent $1.7 million and $2.1 million on public relations/communications personnel. (p36)
3. FENZ has spent $122,731 sponsoring an episode of TV Three’s “The Block”. (p35)

This absurd level of spending reinforces the findings of our latest research report Cash to Ashes, which found that FENZ expenditure is skyrocketing, as it can spend its insurance levies without Budgetary scrutiny. The funding model for FENZ is simply not fit for purpose. We’re calling on Minister Tracey Martin to scrap the fire levy entirely, and set a reined-in budget for FENZ through the standard Budget process.

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that Tuturumuri School in the Wairarapa is currently open and employing four staff – despite having zero students. The Union tells this story in video form below.

This revelation is the result of a tip-off from a concerned taxpayer. The school is costing taxpayers $1,300 a day, and the school confirms two full time staff (a teacher and an aide) are required to be on site each day. Two part-timers (a caretaker and cleaner) are also still on the payroll.

After the school’s roll dwindled from seven at the beginning of last year down to two, the board voted to close the school. However, the Minister of Education has stepped in at the last minute to insist on yet another round of consultation (despite the school having gone through a similar process in 2018).

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke, who visited the school last week, says: “The situation at Tuturumuri is bizarre. Two staff members are forced to show up each day at a ghost school, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the Minister to make a decision. This is a case of provincial politics overriding common-sense. Clearly, the school has an important place in the region’s history, but now it’s time to turn off the taxpayer-funded life support.”

After contacting the Minister’s office, the Union received the following response:

“After consideration, I agreed to close it two years ago but was lobbied heavily to reconsider, including by National Party MPs, and I am doing that. There is a statutory process that must be followed when consideration is being given to closing a school. While this process is underway, the school remains legally open and the staff remain employed. I received a report on a potential closure from the Ministry of Education at the end of last week. It does not need to go to Cabinet.”

The Union has requested further information about costs and the Ministry’s consultation process. We await a response.

The 2017 amalgamation of urban and rural fire services has delivered huge cost increases for taxpayers, finds a new report from the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

Cash to Ashes: The inefficiency of fire service reforms can be read here.

Key findings:

1. The merger and centralisation of urban and rural fire services was meant to produce $47.7 million in efficiency savings by 2021/22. In practice, there have been no efficiency savings, and Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) has cost taxpayers $338 million more in its first three years than was forecast to Cabinet in 2016.
2. $163 million of the $205 million increase in forecast expenditure between 2017/18 and 2018/19 was dedicated to ‘Support Services’ – i.e. back office bureaucracy.
3. FENZ has increased spending by $43 million on ‘communications and computers’ over three years.
4. FENZ is spending $27.4 million on external consultants over three years.
5. FENZ is ‘gold plating’ its infrastructure. New stations in Lake Okareka and Wanaka cost $1.9 million and $4 million respectively, far more than comparable volunteer stations in Australia. FENZ has even opened a double-bay station, complete with training space, laundry, and kitchenette, in Tinui, a town of 20 people.
6. FENZ spent $17 million responding to the Pigeon Valley Forest fire – more than 17 times more than the response to the remarkably similar Hira Forest fire in 1981.
7. FENZ does not have to justify wasteful spending to Cabinet, as it collects revenue through the fire insurance levy, bypassing the Budget bid process.

Cash to Ashes recommends that FENZ be required to go through the scrutiny of the Budget bid process to secure its funding. The report also proposes abolishing the fire insurance levy entirely, and collecting revenue for FENZ from general taxation.

Former National Rural Fire Officer Murray Dudfield, ONZM, consulted on the report. Reflecting on its findings, he says:

“The annual rural fire costs in 2015/16, to local government rate payers, was $29 million. In addition the 2017 PWC report concluded that the 2015/16 expenditure of $389 million was appropriate for the NZ Fire Service functions and output responsibilities. Following the merger of urban and rural fire services on 1^st July 2017, the latest FENZ forecast of expenditure is showing a hefty spend of $617 million in 2020/21. The FENZ Board, in just year four of this merger, are planning an additional $228 million more than the 2015/16 budget. The merger was intended to produce savings and deliver cost effective benefits to all New Zealanders. However these savings and benefits are now disappearing in a puff of smoke unless the Minister gets involved. On behalf of all New Zealanders the Minister of Internal Affairs, Tracey Martin, must take urgent steps to ensure FENZ delivers the savings identified by Government in 2016.”

Mr Dudfield also joined Duncan Garner on The AM Show to discuss the report.

In a foreword to the report, Insurance Council Chief Executive Tim Grafton asks, “Why should those who insure be the ones that fund FENZ? Everyone benefits from FENZ services, not just those who take responsibility to insure themselves.”

Kiwi taxpayers in China have no one to turn to with New Zealand Embassy Officials having remained on holiday despite the Wuhan Virus turning New Zealanders’ lives in the province upside down.  The Embassy in Beijing remains closed for Chinese New Year.

This afternoon the Taxpayers’ Union received a tip-off that Kiwis in China cannot get a hold of any of the hundreds of New Zealand officials who work in the country.  “We called the Embassy and couldn’t believe that at 1pm Beijing time, despite the developing situation, the Embassy is closed,” says Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union.

“While Australia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs works with the Chinese Government to evacuate Australian citizens from Wuhan, New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs officials are quite literally still on holiday. It’s an incredible situation given events over recent days.”

“What is the point of a diplomatic post, if it’s not open when New Zealanders actually need it?”

“In Australia the Foreign Affairs Minister is front and centre in efforts to extricate Australians.  Here, not a word from MFAT or our Minister.”

“If you call our Embassy in Beijing, you are told it is closed for Chinese New Year, and to contact the MFAT’s emergency line based in Wellington.  We called the line asking who on the ground Kiwis stuck in Wuhan could contact.  MFAT advised us that New Zealanders should contact the World Health Organisation, or the New Zealand Ministry of Health.”

“According to MFAT, $50 million of taxpayers’ money was used for ‘elegant and sustainable new building to be the heart of its official presence in China’ on ‘a quiet leafy street in Beijing’. But at the very time New Zealanders most need help, the doors are locked.”

“And it’s not just people stuck in Chinese provinces.  We are hearing of widescale cancellations of orders from China for New Zealand goods and last minute cancelations of tour group bookings following the Chinese Government’s travel restrictions. These are the very officials Kiwi businesses rely on for advice.”

“If the sample of businesses we have spoken to is reflective of the potential economic impact, MBIE and MFAT should be hands on deck, not on holiday.”

“Minister Winston Peters, and the Ambassador Clare Fearnley, need to end their holiday and get back to work.  Chinese New Year or not.”

Sources:

Australian response: https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-australian-government-extricate-nationals-trapped-in-wuhan-health-news/b236a1dc-e019-46a0-a063-348bf236cb25

Cost of Embassy $50 million source https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12179737

Quote from MFAT website: “Our place in Beijing” https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/north-asia/china/new-zealand-embassy/our-place-in-beijing

Embassy contact details: https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/north-asia/china/new-zealand-embassy/contactfull

ENDS

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has formally submitted its design proposal for a 3.5-metre artwork in the Beehive entrance, pictured below.


The Union will refuse the $15,000 commission fee should its submission be chosen.

Perfectly placed to greet MPs and Ministers arriving for work, Don’t Waste It serves as a warning to would-be money-wasters in the heart of government.
 
For those New Zealanders not lucky enough to earn a politician’s salary, a five dollar note represents a meal, or the bus fare for a job interview. That small sheet of polypropylene can be the difference between hunger and happiness, poverty and opportunity.
 
Taxpayers understand the value of money, because they work for it. But too often, politicians take money from us only to fritter it away on pet projects, political fads, and minor extravagances. The taxpaying public can never be too firm in its opposition to government waste. It is in this spirit that we submit our proposal.

For most of us, Christmas is about giving. For the Tax Man, it’s all about taking.

Islay wraps up the year with a special episode of Taxpayer TV, revealing the incredible reach of the “Tax on Christmas”.

You can view the video on Facebook here.

Taxpayers can now browse the specific pay rates, ranked, for public sector chief executives.

This year taxpayers will pay $62 million in salaries for the 140 public sector CEOs. The average is paid $443,000, and 53 earn more than the Prime Minister.

Many of these individuals make major decisions about services that impact millions of taxpayers' lives. Publicising their salaries serves to promote accountability and transparency at the highest level.

Other Rich-Listers lead obscure QUANGOs (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations) that generate little value for taxpayers. We hope the Public Sector CEO Rich List provokes debate over the necessity of these positions.

Taxpayers can also download the table as a spreadsheet to sort by type – such as Tertiary Education, DHBs, and so on.

The publication of this Rich List comes after the State Services Commission agreed to release this year's Senior Pay Report using specific pay rates rather than salary 'bands', in light of correspondence from the Taxpayers' Union and the Ombudsman.

Figures relate to the 2018/19 and 2017/18 financial years and were provided by the State Services Commission's Senior Pay Report. The Report uses estimates in cases where the final remuneration level is not yet determined.

CEOs that did not hold their position for the full year have had their salary figures annualised by the Union.

The list excludes local government (ratepayer-funded) chief executives.

This op-ed is written by Louis Houlbrooke, Communications Officer at the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

The wistful days of Jacinda Ardern’s “no new taxes” pledge are long gone.

Last week, Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage proposed lifting landfill levies from the current $10 per tonne to $60 per tonne by 2023.

Like higher fuel taxes and road user charges, Sage’s proposed rubbish tax will eat directly into family budgets, through more expensive rubbish bags, higher rates, fees at the landfill, and costs passed on by businesses.

Her tax is expected to swell government and council revenues by $220 million a year, or more than $120 per household. And that’s on average – the tax will hit harder for larger families who produce more waste and tend to be poorer. By itself, the cost could be tolerable, but it comes on top of other new taxes, higher rates, and generally increasing living costs.

Intensifying poverty is the obvious downside to any tax, but a rubbish tax has further consequences – results that fly right in the face of Sage’s environmental focus.

Despite the bad rap landfills get, their use is often a best-case scenario. Take the five million-plus mattresses on which Kiwis currently sleep: these will not last forever, and they cannot be recycled. It is simply irresponsible to punish New Zealanders for sending these mattress to a landfill when the next-most-likely alternative is dumping it at your local park, river, or roadside.

Even in the case of rubbish that can be recycled, we cannot rely on wishful thinking about flawed, real-world human behaviour. The bane of illegal dumping faced by councils up and down the country suggests that even now, the ‘tidy Kiwi’ stereotype doesn’t hold up the way we like to imagine.

Have you ever called your council to get rubbish on your street cleared? Good luck with that. It’s not hard to guess what will happen when littering is made even more attractive.

Finally, there’s the question of what happens to the revenue that is collected. While half will be sucked directly into the budgets of local councils, the remaining funds go to the Government’s ‘Waste Minimisation Fund’.

This slush fund pays out large quantities of our money to companies embarking on eco-friendly projects. Recipients include large businesses like The Warehouse, Z Energy, and Fletcher, sometimes taking millions at a time for projects like tyre recovery and recycling old TVs.

There is no clear-cut way to judge which of these projects are mere PR stunts, and if they actually need funding or could have simply proceeded without taxpayer help.

So far, the fund is limited to $10 or $12 million a year, and has escaped serious political scrutiny. If Sage gets her way and the size of the fund balloons, it will need close monitoring as businesses up and down the country judge how to get their hands on this dosh.

In other words, we can expect the Government to have powerful allies as it pushes its tax through Parliament. Those families bearing the cost will need to push back hard – and the Taxpayers’ Union will be joining them. Submissions on the proposal are now open to the public.