My time as President is coming to an end 31 July and it’s timely to reflect our successes of the past and our opportunities into the future.

Firstly, it has been an absolute honour to have been elected twice by you into the position of President and before that, Vice President. It has been a pleasure to represent you all and advocate and strive for better working conditions, better engagement, and representation across the organisation.

I am proud of what has been achieved of late, particularly the significant success on wages and conditions, but also a refocus for the organisation on the things that really matter, firefighter safety and wellbeing, staffing, fleet, and equipment.

My time on the trucks is currently paused, I have been, and continue to work on secondment at NHQ reporting to DCE SDD Rotarangi and working on a strategy and framework to operationalise Section 21, local planning. Local planning is something the organisation has struggled to grasp in a meaningful way, to address the right resources, training and locations based on evidenced based risk assessment we should be in, not just now but for the future. It’s an important piece of work and I am enjoying the challenge; however, it doesn’t come without concessions.

I miss my crew and the culture on station, I while I am surrounded by good people, doing great things, I see courage displayed to stand up to status quo bias every day, I also witness inefficiencies and frustration as action is stifled by requirements to produce papers continually justifying work. I still see decisions made with very little operational or frontline input, I am buoyed by the drive and competence of most people I come across wanting to do the right thing. I do not miss the nights, weekends, and public holidays! I have flexibility in working from home 2 days a week, I feel supported, even when I may have the odd imposter syndrome feeling and importantly, I am adding value.

My time at NHQ has reminded me how imperative it is that we have frontline people involved in this design work, providing perspectives on frontline safety, activities and what’s important to us all. If I can indulge in one last call to action, then this would be it, consider putting your hand up for secondments or positions in NHQ and project work, as they, and we, need you there.

We have been through some tumultuous times, especially during the early stages of my term. I am proud of the strong and productive relationships that have been forged between the national committee and all the local committees across the country. We have a very cohesive team, and I am very pleased that the succession plan is being executed with the recent elections of Joseph Stanley and Martin Campbell into President and Vice President respectively.  They will be well supported in their role in the executive as I was with the National Committee and Wattie in the secretary role.  I will take this opportunity to acknowledge the support, guidance, and strength that she gave me in my time as President.

One pressing concern I have now is the confrontational and combative culture we are in.  Not just member versus manager but member versus member.  Contrasting and conflicting views are inevitable in industrial relations and indeed in an organisation this size. But we must find a way to work through them productively and respectfully as this enables members and officials to focus their time on the issues that matter. I would encourage you all to resolve personnel and interpersonal issues at the lowest level possible, have the courage to approach who or what is bothering you front on, without escalating to manager level. Use your senior watch leaders, your officers, your Union officials for guidance and support.

There’s an old saying, that firefighters hate two things, change and the way things are. One thing I know for certain, change is inevitable. We must remain critical and objective in our thinking, considering if what is proposed will it make me safer, more efficient, will it serve our community better? If this is the case, (and I apologise for being corny) and change, as Sir Peter Blake would say, “will it make the boat go faster?” Then we should be open to change, appropriate change, good change. If we can work proactively with the proposed changes, we are in a much stronger position than simply reacting to the change when it happens to us.

Finally, we are better together, I know it seems like a throwaway line, however, to me it means the same as our strength is in our unity.

Thank you for the privilege of serving you these past six years.

Be curious, be brave, work with humour and most of all humility.

Stay safe.

Ian Wright
President (outgoing)
New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union