A bill that would give volunteer firefighters the same accident compensation cover as their paid colleagues was pulled from the members’ ballot at Parliament on Thursday, handing a long-running campaign its first real chance of becoming law.
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s Accident Compensation (Extended Cover for Fire and Emergency New Zealand Personnel) Amendment Bill would extend ACC cover for work-related illness and injury to the roughly 11,800 volunteers who make up the bulk of Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s frontline. McAnulty, who served seven years as a volunteer firefighter himself, told RNZ the current gap was “a massive oversight that needs to be corrected”.
“Firefighters put themselves on the line to protect New Zealanders. They deserve an ACC system that recognises the risks they take,” McAnulty said in a Labour Party statement released after the draw.
The distinction the bill targets is narrower than most people assume, and that is part of why the campaign has been so hard to win. Volunteers are already covered by ACC for physical injuries, and for mental injury that flows from a physical injury. What they are not covered for is mental injury caused by exposure to trauma on the job, or the range of gradual-onset work-related conditions that a paid employee doing exactly the same work would be able to claim for. A career firefighter who develops a psychological injury after a fatal house fire can claim. The volunteer standing next to them at the same fire cannot.
The reason sits in the architecture of the scheme rather than in any deliberate decision about firefighters. ACC’s work-related cover attaches to employment. Volunteers are not employees, so for the purposes of the legislation their firefighting sits outside the work category altogether. The United Fire Brigades’ Association has argued for years that this leaves volunteer firefighting classified alongside recreation, an outcome nobody designed but nobody has fixed either.
UFBA chief executive Bill Butzbach welcomed the draw. “This is about fairness. Volunteer firefighters respond to the same emergencies, face the same dangers,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “To the communities they serve, there is no distinction between a volunteer firefighter and a paid firefighter.” Butzbach said the association congratulated McAnulty on bringing the issue before Parliament and looked forward to working with all parties to see the legislation progress.
The association puts volunteers at 86 percent of Fire and Emergency’s frontline workforce. Fire and Emergency counts more than 11,800 volunteers across about 590 brigades. Outside the main centres, the crew that turns out to a crash on a state highway, a scrub fire, a chemical spill or a flooded farm road is almost always a volunteer crew. In much of rural New Zealand there is no other option.
This is not the first attempt. A petition seeking ACC parity for volunteer firefighters gathered 36,549 signatures and was considered by Parliament in 2025. The response acknowledged the value of the service but declined to change the law, with the concern being precedent rather than cost. Parliament said it did not consider it practical for all types of volunteers to be provided with ACC workplace coverage. That is the argument the bill will have to beat, and it is a genuine one. New Zealand runs on volunteers, from surf lifesaving to search and rescue to St John, and a change written loosely enough to cover firefighters could be read as covering everyone.
The money involved is small. Officials estimated the annual cost of extending cover to Fire and Emergency volunteers at about $244,533, which works out to roughly $20 per volunteer per year, according to figures reported by RNZ in February. Against a scheme that pays out billions annually, that is a rounding error. The obstacle has never really been the invoice.
The Government’s position is the open question. ACC Minister Scott Simpson has said his focus is on making the scheme sustainable for future generations rather than expanding it, a line he has held consistently through the levy debates of the past two years. A members’ bill needs a majority at first reading to get to select committee, and with the coalition holding the numbers, the bill goes nowhere unless at least one government party breaks ranks or the Government decides the politics of voting against volunteer firefighters in an election year are unattractive. McAnulty has said he expects broad support and that New Zealanders would be surprised to learn volunteers are not already covered.
Two other bills came out of the ballot in the same draw. Labour’s Rachel Brooking had her Building (Energy Efficient Office Buildings) Amendment Bill drawn, which would require office buildings to meet energy performance standards. “Energy efficiency should be a core responsibility for commercial buildings,” Brooking said. “My Bill will drive better energy efficiency decisions, reduce emissions and help lower power bills for businesses.” National MP Andrew Bayly’s Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill, which would make failing to disclose child abuse a criminal offence carrying up to three years imprisonment, was also drawn.
All three now join the queue for members’ days, where a first reading can be months away. For the firefighters, the draw does not change anything on the ground. It just means that for the first time the question gets asked on the floor of the House, with every MP’s vote recorded, rather than being answered in a select committee response nobody reads.
With the 2026 general election ahead, ACC, volunteering and the state of rural emergency services are all live issues. If you are weighing up where the parties stand, our voting tool lets you compare policies side by side.
Are you a volunteer firefighter, or do you have one in the family? Should volunteers get the same ACC cover as paid crew, and where should the line be drawn for other volunteers? Share your view in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply