This week has been National Volunteers Week, the annual opportunity to celebrate the contribution volunteers make to our society. 

New Zealanders are great volunteers. Throughout our country volunteers make their presence felt constantly. They are the people who run the sports clubs, coach the kids’ teams, visit the sick and the elderly, run the school committees, and do the myriad range of other community things that make our society work. Volunteering New Zealand’s 2020 State of Volunteering Report estimates New Zealanders contribute 159 million hours of volunteer labour each year, amounting to just over $8 billion or around 3% of our Gross National Product. 

One of our largest groups of volunteers is volunteer firefighters. People are often surprised to learn that around 85% of our firefighters – urban and rural – are volunteers often sacrificing family life and time at work to community emergencies. Today, these are far more likely to be roadside or other emergencies, with less than 20% of fire callouts now being to actual fires. 

However, despite the overwhelming presence of volunteers in our fire and emergency services, and notwithstanding the legislation I put through Parliament in 2016-17 establishing Fire and Emergency New Zealand which gave legal recognition for the first time to the role of volunteers, there remain some areas where volunteer firefighters are not treated equally with their paid counterparts. The most obvious relates to Accident Compensation. 

The United Fire Brigades Association, the advocacy organisation which represents the volunteer 85% of our firefighters has recently highlighted an anomaly with regard to the treatment by the Accident Compensation Corporation of volunteer firefighters who suffer workplace related illnesses in the course of their firefighting work. The UFBA has pointed out that ACC covers paid firefighters, but not their volunteer counterparts, for certain cancers known to be related to firefighting duties, and job-related mental health trauma. 

The anomaly arises because paid firefighters are properly recognised as employees of Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and therefore covered by ACC in such situations, whereas volunteers, although legally recognised for the first time in the 2017 legislation, are, by definition, not so regarded. This is because they are considered to be “engaged” by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, but not “employed” by it. The problem lies with the ACC legislation which was last reviewed in 2014 – before the establishment of Fire and Emergency New Zealand. That means that ACC currently has no category for recognising volunteers in this way. Consequently, it still treats volunteer firefighting as a leisure activity. Yet, unlike their paid counterparts who work on a rostered hours basis, volunteer firefighters are constantly on call. Things clearly need to change. 

Data from an Australian study of volunteer firefighters has shown that the risk of Post-Traumatic Stress syndrome is significantly higher for those with the most frequent involvement with distressing incidents and the highest levels of cumulative trauma exposure. Volunteer firefighters frequently exposed to such situations face a significant risk of suffering mental health issues. 

Given the community’s reliance on volunteer firefighters, the implications of the current situation also have a wider impact. Already, many organisations – not just those working in emergency services – are finding it increasingly challenging to recruit and retain new volunteers. It will become even more difficult to do so if potential volunteers gain a sense that there is insufficient health protection available to cover them for the personal risks they will be exposed to. 

Aside from integrating volunteer, rural and paid firefighters into one national organisation for the first time, an important objective of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act was to ensure that all firefighters across the country were properly and equally resourced and trained for the vital work they carry out, regardless of their status. Since 2017, Fire and Emergency New Zealand has made much progress towards this goal, and a better service is being delivered to the public as a result. But now it is time to recognise the health risks volunteer firefighters are exposed to, in the same way we have always done with paid firefighters and to change the ACC legislation to provide for this. 

Volunteer firefighters seldom seek recognition for the work that they do, and they most certainly do not want to be paid for it. But they do expect to be able to carry out their often-dangerous work as safely as possible, and to be properly treated, rehabilitated and compensated for any injuries incurred as they do so. During National Volunteers Week the United Fire Brigades Association has been running an internal “Cheers volunteers!” campaign to acknowledge the contribution and sacrifices volunteer firefighters and their frequently long-suffering families make to serve their communities. 

A clear way the wider community could similarly show its support for the work of its volunteer firefighters – who already rank highly amongst the country’s most trusted professions – is to join the UFBA’s campaign for a better deal from ACC for volunteer firefighters.  

 

Over the last year there has been a series of official criticisms of the performance of the Ministry of Health. While some relate specifically to Covid19, others reflect upon the wider role of the Ministry. Nevertheless, the breadth of the criticisms should be of serious concern. Yet they seem to be water off a duck’s back. 

In the early stages of the pandemic the Crown Law Office advised the government that the first nine days of the Level 4 had been technically illegal because the Ministry had used the wrong legislation to impose it. That oversight was corrected by emergency legislation that was rushed through Parliament shortly afterwards. 

The Public Service Commission’s investigation into the disclosure of sensitive personal information by Michelle Boag and then National MP Hamish Walker found that although the disclosure itself did not come from the Ministry of Health, “the policy around the security of personal information within the Ministry of Health could have been tighter and the agency should have reviewed this earlier.” 

In December, the report from Sir Brian Roche and Heather Simpson of the COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Strategy advisory group into the management of Covid19 testing in the community and at the border was strongly critical of the Ministry for bad communication about the criteria for testing, and for keeping Ministers in the dark about concerns being raised by other agencies. That led the government to inject a further $2.8 billion into keeping current border controls and isolation facilities operating effectively until June 2022. 

Last month, the Auditor-General released a critical review of the government’s vaccine roll-out plan being managed by the Ministry, outlining several shortcomings, including adequacy of supply, whether there were sufficient vaccinators, problems reaching remoter communities and confusion among district health boards. He recommended the Ministry should “get moving” on the “non-regulated workforce-non-medical workers” to be trained to immunise. There is no evidence that is happening, with the vaccination programme still being centrally organised through district health boards, with insufficient medical practices and other community health providers being utilised. The Auditor-General concluded there was a “significant risk” the vaccine roll-out would not be completed on time, despite continuing claims from the government that it is presently running about 10% ahead of schedule. 

Clinicians in Dunedin last week expressed concern that the country’s vaccine supplies were running down “with not much transparency from the Ministry of Health regarding vaccine availability”. Earlier, the Covid19 Response Minister had blamed the looming shortage of vaccines on the fact that the vaccination programme was going so much better than expected. Yet, at the same time, there have been reports from around the country of key target population groups still waiting for vaccinations which are overdue. The Southern District Health Board said it was slowing its vaccination programme to protect its stocks until more vaccines became available. 

The management of the vaccination programme has become a weeping sore, with the Ministry increasingly looking not up to the task of ensuring the original intention of New Zealanders being fully vaccinated by the end of the year will be achieved, let alone of our ever being at the head of the queue as was so falsely promised by Ministers just before the election last year. There have clearly been faults in the vaccine ordering process, with the Ministry’s expectations of the ease with which a smooth supply line would be ensured now looking hopelessly naïve. 

But it is not only on the management of the Covid19 response that the Ministry has been found to be playing games with Ministers and the public when it comes to sharing information about what is going on. Last week the Public Service Commissioner slated the Ministry over its handling of a report on the state of mental health in New Zealand. The report had been released to the public but in a heavily edited and redacted form, leading the Commissioner to strongly criticise the Ministry and observe that its handling of the report had damaged its reputation with the public. 

The buck for all these failings rests with two people – the Minister of Health and the Director-General of Health. While the Minister is responsible overall to Parliament and the public for the state of the country’s public health, the Director-General is in turn responsible to the Minister for the performance of the Ministry of Health in delivering the government’s key policy objectives. 

In this instance, the primary responsibility for both the Ministry’s failings in the first place and for subsequently putting them right rests squarely with the Director-General. He alone is responsible for the operational conduct of the Ministry on these matters, whereas the Minister’s responsibility is to hold him to account for what has happened. 

Although the Director-General’s accountability is to the Minister of Health, he has been reporting to the Covid19 Response Minister on Covid19 matters, thus splitting the responsibility between the two Ministers. It appears this split has complicated the accountability process somewhat which may partially explain the gaps that have occurred. 

The problem is further compounded by the high positive public profile the Director-General has been allowed to develop during the Covid19 response. Not only has this made it more than likely that he has taken of his eye off the ball on some of the more basic issues he is responsible for, but also has given him a level of public immunity to any Ministerial rebuke. (Remember the criticism this time last year when the then Minister of Health was roundly attacked for his apparent temerity in “throwing the Director-General under a bus” over failures to manage the border control system properly.) 

Yet none of this excuses the Ministry’s day-to-day failings. Notwithstanding the extraordinary impact of Covid19, the Director-General’s primary responsibility remains unchanged from what it always has been – to ensure that the Ministry is fit for purpose across all its different areas of responsibility at all levels, now including Covid19, and able to deliver the government’s policy objectives. While his rapport with the public and positive media profile are additional positive attributes that can help the government in the promotion of its various health messages they are not substitutes for his basic role of running the health system effectively. 

It is up to the Minister of Health, bolstered if necessary by the Public Service Commissioner, to ensure the Director-General provides the professional leadership and day-to-day management the Ministry needs to function effectively.

 

The recent story that the Cashmere Lounge, a popular, high quality local restaurant in my neighbourhood may be forced to close for at least a few weeks highlights a serious issue. In this instance, the restaurant’s head chef is going on parental leave shortly, and local labour shortages mean that the restaurant has not been able to secure a suitable replacement. 

This is occurring against the backdrop of an overall 93% nett drop in immigration since the outbreak of Covid19 which has hit the hospitality industry especially hard. To make matters worse, as the industry now looks to join the road to recovery, higher wages across the Tasman look that much more attractive, even for New Zealanders who have traditionally not seen the hospitality industry as attractive. Cashmere Lounge is not the only restaurant caught this way, nor will it be the last. 

But the issue runs deeper than that. Immigration New Zealand’s approach to the hospitality sector’s needs over the years has been largely dismissive. It remains convinced that there is a large pool of New Zealand chefs and hospitality workers ready and willing to work in the sector, if only given the opportunity. This is despite the constant warning from industry groups about how hard it has become to recruit suitably qualified local staff, and that businesses are suffering as a consequence. 

There were many occasions during my time as an MP when I had to make representations to Immigration New Zealand on behalf of local ethnic or specialty restaurants seeking to hire trained staff from overseas, because no-one suitable was available locally. While often ultimately persuadable of the merit my constituents’ cases, Immigration’s doggedly persistent view that the restaurants’ needs could be met from within New Zealand was as infuriating as it was downright ignorant. There was a consistent failure to recognise that being chef in a restaurant often demanded a professional skill level and management expertise way beyond being a “cook”. 

Immigration was consistently incapable of understanding this point, opting instead for the more simplistic Plod-like view that cooking was just cooking after all, which anybody could do after a bit of training. They also believed that ethnic chefs or waiting staff were really just using their role as a back-door way of getting their families permanent residence in New Zealand. It was not only ignorance but also arrogance in the extreme, bordering in many cases on downright racism. 

This is not to decry the skills and capabilities of those professionally trained local chefs and hospitality staff. They are as good as any in their jobs and should be acknowledged for their expertise. But there are never likely to be enough of them to meet either the existing requirements of the hospitality sector, let alone the considerable new growth potential likely to occur as the country recovers from Covid19. 

However, the situation is likely to get worse in the future, directly because of new government policy. In its immigration policy reset announced a few weeks ago the government made clear that there will be a dramatic reduction in the levels of immigration compared to what was happening before Covid19. Moreover, the previous emphasis on skills-based migration is to be replaced by a new emphasis on whether New Zealanders can do the jobs required. 

The upshot will be that Immigration’s hitherto tunnel-vision approach will continue and probably intensify, most likely leading to the temporary or permanent closure of more restaurants around the country. A parallel situation is also likely to occur in other key industry sectors – like aged care, and horticulture – where chronic shortages over the years have been filled by short- or long-term migration, and where New Zealanders so far have shown little to no interest in becoming involved. 

Putting New Zealanders first when it comes to local employment is all very well. But it has to be based on more than wishful thinking. It needs to be properly evidence-based that the goal can be achieved. Despite the government’s optimistic rhetoric, there is no substantive evidence of a large number of New Zealanders showing any interest in doing the necessary work that migrants currently carry out. 

As for the hospitality sector, the prospects look grim. Wellington’s annual “Wellington On a Plate” festival celebrating the quality and diversity of the city’s many bars, cafes and fine restaurants gets underway shortly. In a city often described as having more restaurants per head of population than New York, this annual event is a popular showcase of the Wellington restaurant scene. But when the government’s recent policy changes are added to the staffing difficulties top restaurants like the Cashmere Lounge are facing right now, it could well be the last time such an event takes place at its current level. 

The message from all this is clear. The government’s well-meaning but impractical immigration policy will not help our hospitality sector recover from Covid19.