02/04/2025
Your Volunteer Fire Brigade needs your support.
We are reaching out to ask for your support in a petition started by a fellow volunteer in Queenstown. The petition calls for changes to ACC legislation to provide volunteer firefighters with the same coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts.
Currently, volunteers are excluded from cover relating to any work-related gradual illness, injury, disease or infection – this means that if a volunteer firefighter develops something serious as a result of their firefighting duties, such as cancer, heart/lung problems, or even hearing/vision loss, we are not eligible for ACC compensation. Simply because we are not paid to do this work.
But we respond to the same types of emergencies as our paid colleagues and therefore, are exposed to the same risks and toxins.
This issue extends to “Cover for work-related mental injury”. Volunteer firefighters, like paid firefighters, see some seriously traumatic situations, and that can have a big impact on our mental health. But volunteers are not covered by ACC for this either.
It's important that when our Volunteers need help, help is there to support them.
We would appreciate your support in this matter and thank you to those who have already signed or shared.
The petition is open for signatures until April 30, 2025.
