FENZ board members get 79% pay rises as industrial dispute drags on
Wednesday, 1 April 2026
Fire and Emergency’s board members are today getting pay rises of up to 79% amid prolonged industrial action.
A departmental briefing, obtained by The Post, recommended Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden approve large increases to board pay packets in December.
FENZ’s deputy chair and board members are in line for the biggest boosts; increasing from $31,762 to $57,000 per annum and $25,410 to $45,600 per annum respectively from April 1, 2026 - both increases of 79%.
The briefing also recommended the FENZ chair’s annual fee rise from $64,150 to $91,560 - an increase of 42%.
Read more:
Firefighters push on with strike as negotiations continue to drag
Union ramps up action as firefighters set to walk off the job twice a week
The briefing noted the Public Service Commission had been consulted on the increases and advised they were within the new fee ranges set by Cabinet last year, and justified.
FENZ also confirmed that the proposed increases could be afforded from within its baseline budget.
The coalition hiked the fees paid to directors of 22 Crown-owned companies last July with the aim of bringing them to 85% of the market rate in 2025 and to 90% of the market rate in 2026.
Professional Firefighters' Union president Joe Stanley said the fee increase coming into force during industrial action was a blow.
“For the board members to get nearly 80% increase in their board fees while at the same time asking those employed personnel within Fire and Emergency New Zealand to consider an offer that is much, much lower, that is a bit of a slap in the face.”
Labour’s internal affairs spokesperson, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, said firefighters deserved more.
“It's completely out of touch for the Government to allege it doesn't have money to pay firefighters properly yet give almost 80% pay rises to board members.
“Firefighters do incredible, life-saving work and it's shameful how poorly they’ve been treated under this Government.
“This Government has made life harder for Kiwi workers. At a time when the cost of living is soaring, they need to get this right for one of our critical emergency services or risk losing more Kiwis to across the ditch.”
Minister in charge Van Velden said she backed the FENZ board having more “financial weight” to attract the best talent in the market.
“We're not going to get the best people putting up their hands to serve the public on these Crown entity boards if they know that they'd be significantly going backwards financially.”
She added FENZ board members hadn’t had a pay rise in at least seven years.
“For the last collective bargaining round Fire and Emergency staff received a 24% pay increase. So it is not the case that these things are equal.
“They're also very different types of jobs and so I'd say to all of the firefighters out there, if you have concerns about the management of Fire and Emergency, the costs, the equipment, the trucks, the training, it is the role of the board to hold management accountable for all of those things.
“So it's in everybody's interests that we have the best people around the table holding the chief executive and higher management to account so that our levy payer and taxpayer money is actually being used to its best ability.”
Stanley - who’s been a firefighter for 15 years - said he understood the importance, responsibility and difficulty of board positions and wouldn’t be criticising the pay increases if the organisation wasn’t “falling down around [his] ears”.
“We're not concerned what the board members get as long as they do their job properly, which is the big concern. We're raising issues around the appropriateness and the usability of our equipment and our resources, especially our fire trucks.”
“I've never seen our equipment this bad. I've never seen the infrastructure that we have to rely on to respond to our community's needs every day this bad before and I've never seen a relationship between NZPFU members that run Fire and Emergency New Zealand, that allow it to operate, and its management get this bad either.”