The Press SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1964. Discipline In Fire Brigades

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1964. Discipline In Fire Brigades

Although the committee of j inquiry into, the Wellington i Fire Brigade dispute care-| fully limited its findings to: local matters, the report should be a useful guide to the Government in considering how to deal with the disturbing decline in fire brigade discipline in New Zealand generally. The public, who pay for fire protection through rates and insurance premiums, have been dismayed in recent months by a succession of disputes and partial strikes that must have impaired both the efficiency and morale of brigades. Local quarrels have merged' into a national issue. The Wellington committee advised a national code of discipline that could be understood and appreciated by Wellington firemen. It is astonishing that so important a service, with great responsibilities to protect life and property, should have no such code, particularly since it has come, at least nominally, under national control. The committee also recommended for the Wellington brigade, and implicitly for all brigades, an independent appeal authority deriving its powers from statute, not from an industrial award, to determine

finally matters of discipline. Like the police and the armed services, the fire service cannot safely relax its vigilance while the ordinary course of industrial argument is pursued.

When the Government considers the relationships between firemen and fire boards it should take the opportunity to examine the whole organisation of the national fire service and the constitution of its various agencies. The origins of recent troubles might well be traced to basic defects in the system, about which unions, fire boards, insurance companies, volunteer firemen, and others interested might have definite views. For example, is the present partnership between local government and insurance offices the best system of local direction? Though the complaints of the Wellington firemen were seen to have little substance, it would be naive to believe that firemen’s unions are solely to blame for the general unrest. The public have a right to expect the Government to take whatever steps are necessary to restore fire brigades to the position where they can take a pride in themselves and can command national confidence.