A petition has been set up calling for volunteer firefighters to get access to Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) protection.
Currently, if a volunteer firefighter is injured or suffered from a mental health issue as a result of their service, they are not covered by ACC unlike career firefighters.
The petition, started by Queenstown Volunteer Fire Brigade secretary Katherine Lamont, has already received more than 27,000 signatures.
United Fire Brigade Association (UFBA) benevolent fund chair Alan Burgess said volunteers were asking for fairness and to be treated equally with their paid counterparts.
Burgess, a 50-year-plus veteran with the fire service, was also the former Ashburton Volunteer Fire chief, and former UFBA president.
He said under the current legislation there was a big disparity between paid and volunteers and it definitely needed to be addressed.
“Volunteers are willing to respond 24/7,” he said.
“If they get sick or injured and can’t work they lose their income.
“It is not only them that are impacted but so are their families and in the case of self-employed firefighters, their business is impacted, which can affect communities,’’ he said.
“The flow on effect can be significant.”
Burgess said while the benevolent fund was available to help with immediate low-level financial needs, others could have more serious or long term issues that needed to be dealt with and in need of time off work to recover.
Burgess knows of two or three cases in Canterbury which would have benefitted from the legislation changes proposed.
“Fire and Emergency have good internal mechanisms to support volunteer and paid firefighters, but ACC rules need to be changed to be fair,” Burgess said.
Injuries on the job could include smoke inhalation or exposure to dangerous chemicals which could show up months, or years later in such things as a form of cancer, asthma, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal or hearing or vision loss.
Today, firefighters attend not only fires but medical events, crashes and accidents and these can have a lasting impact on their mental well-being as well.
Those paid to attend fires received ACC payments if they are injured as result of attending a call out, or later because they are diagnosed with a health issue such as some cancer as a result of their duties or they have mental health issues related to their service.
At present 12,000 volunteer firefighters are excluded from certain ACC benefits due to being classified as non-employees.
Lamont said the government had a duty of care which was missing.
The petition is asking for the government to change legislation to give volunteer firefighters the same ACC coverage and benefits as paid firefighters. It closes on April 30.
– The petition can be found at Petition of Katherine Lamont: Give volunteer firefighters the same ACC coverage as paid firefighters
