Rescue chopper funding
It is central government rather than the region’s ratepayers that should be filling the funding gap for critical emergency services such as Northland’s rescue choppers, the Northland Regional Council says.
The council is currently consulting on a proposal to stop its funding of emergency services as part of its long-term plan 20242034.
Submissions on the proposal can be made until Friday, but the council’s deputy chairperson Tui Shortland said the message from the community to date was clear: “These are critical services and the public does not want to see them put at risk by uncertainty around funding.“
Shortland said the council 100% agreed that the services were critical.
“For us, the real question is why things like critical health services are having to be topped up by council rates?
“Why aren’t these critical life saving services being funded properly by the government in the first place?”
Shortland said councils were being asked to deliver more and more and ratepayers were reaching their limit on what they could afford: “This is putting very real pressure on council’s ability to raise rates to deliver on its core roles and functions – such as flood management, biosecurity, climate resilience, water and catchment management.”
She said providing funding to support emergency services was not a regional council function and the council’s proposal to stop annual funding contributions to emergency services would free up $1.1 million a year to deliver core work while keeping rates down.
Connections were being drawn between the council’s Civil Defence role and provision of emergency services as a reason to continue council funding those services, which include St John, Surf Lifesaving, Coast Guard and rescue helicopters, she said. There were many partner agencies that responded during Civil Defence responses, including police and Fire and Emergency NZ, but that did not mean that councils should fund these agencies.
“Council rates are essentially being used as a collection mechanism to fund emergency services ... putting pressure on our capacity to fund core council services. Those who wish to make a contribution to emergency services could continue to do so through the various fundraising initiatives those agencies run.”
She said the council supported the Northland Emergency Services Trust and other emergency services to advocate to government for a funding model that provided better certainty for these services.
“We have already heard from the Northland Emergency Services Trust ... [that] helicopter services enables specialist medical services to be concentrated in central locations, saving the government millions in costs annually. This further supports council’s view that the government should be wholly funding helicopter rescue services.”