Rural fire-fighting fund of $1/2 M

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 2

Rural fire-fighting fund of $1/2 M

A $500,000 rural fire-fight-ing fund will be set up, the Minister for Local Government, Mr Highet, announced in Christchurch yesterday. Addressing the Counties’ Association Conference, Mr Highet said that the fund would be set up because the Government wanted to minimise anomalies for the rural sector in the present system of fire service funding.

He said that the change came out of the review on Fire Service funding and he hoped the new funding package could be introduced as soon as possible.

The Counties Association had been “very vocal” about the fact that rural dwellers had to pay for the Fire Service, which was an ur-ban-based service from which they did not benefit.

The Fire Service provided full protection for 89 per cent of New Zealand’s population and a partial service for 10 per cent. The remaining 1 per cent of the population in remote rural areas received no protection at all.

In addition, many rural risks, such as crops and natural vegetation, were not

usually insured or were not insurable agains the risk of fire.

The Government recognised that a rural firefighting fund should be set up for the rural sector. “This rural fire fund, which will amount to $500,000, will be established to meet the costs of country and district rural fire authorities actually incurred in suppressing particular types of fires which occur in country areas,” he said.

“The fund will be met wholly out of the Fire Service levy paid on contracts of fire insurance and will ensure that there is a further direct return to the rural insured from that levy.” The Government had decided to extend the scope of the fund to include fires which occur as a result of a controlled burn-off, provided a valid permit had been issued and complied with.

Costs over and above the first $2500 would be met from the rural fire-fighting fund.

Mr Highet said he hoped that a Fire Service Amendment Bill could be introduced and passed by Parliament this year, so that the

new funding package would be in place for the summer fire season.

He did not outline other apsects of the funding package, which he said would affect insurance companies and other commercial interests.

Mr Highet told the conference, which will be his last as the Minister of Local Government before his retirement in November, that he was disappointed at the lack of progress made on alternative sources of local body finance. But he said that local authorities were partly to blame. “You can hardly expect the Government to consider this issue until local government itself decides what it wants,” he said. Local authorities should work to produce a thoroughly researched and well grounded case for alternative sources of finance. The simple cry for more money was not enough.

The case would have to overcome statistics which showed that the financial circumstances of territorial local authorities were not “what we are led to believe.”