The information was dropped into him anonymously.
This gave him material for a chat with his audience about the fire service, a Crown agency, “being maorified despite Chris Luxon’s promise to wind back maorification in New Zealand.”
This development at Fire and Emergency New Zealand was not the subject of a press statement, so far as PoO can find.
And while Plunket has flushed news of it into the public domain, the so-called legacy media have ignored it.
But sure enough, PoO followed Plunket’s steer and found a document headed
Chief executive Kerry Gregory explains that as part of the first phase of “the Strategic Implementation Programme: Aligning the organisation”, he is beginning a consultation focused on how the service better aligns its functions “to support the delivery of our Strategic Direction”.
This is the first stage of a wider review on how the service is set up and where functions could be better connected across the organisation.
Gregory is apt on occasion to abandon plain English in preference for language that will require most of his audience either to bypass the stuff they don’t understand or consult their te reo-English dictionaries.
Example:
E mihi ana ki a koutou, thank you in advance for your engagement, your whakaaro (thoughts), and for helping shape the future of our organisation. Ngā manaakitanga, Kerry Gregory
This development at Fire and Emergency New Zealand was not the subject of a press statement, so far as PoO can find.
And while Plunket has flushed news of it into the public domain, the so-called legacy media have ignored it.
But sure enough, PoO followed Plunket’s steer and found a document headed
Proposal
Fire and Emergency
Realignment of our functions
10 July 2025
This is the first stage of a wider review on how the service is set up and where functions could be better connected across the organisation.
Gregory is apt on occasion to abandon plain English in preference for language that will require most of his audience either to bypass the stuff they don’t understand or consult their te reo-English dictionaries.
Example:
E mihi ana ki a koutou, thank you in advance for your engagement, your whakaaro (thoughts), and for helping shape the future of our organisation. Ngā manaakitanga, Kerry Gregory
1 Plunket was exercised by the section headed…
Proposal 3: Changes to the Kaupapa Māori and Cultural Communities Branch
I’m proposing to realign the functions of the Kaupapa Māori and Cultural Communities Branch so that this important mahi is more closely connected with other capability-building efforts across the organisation.
The proposal involves moving our Pou Takawaenga Māori, Māori Liaison Officers into a renamed Operational Response Branch, aligning their work more closely with our broader operational and engagement efforts. This reflects the current operating delivery mechanism where this team is embedded at the District layer. Similarly, our Pou Whirinaki, cultural capability team would transition to the People Branch, where they can work alongside teams focused on leadership, development, and organisational culture.
These proposed changes will help us embed kaupapa Māori throughout all areas of our work. By integrating our internal cultural capability initiatives with our wider efforts to build a safe, positive,and inclusive workplace, we can create stronger, more consistent outcomes. It will also allow us to better align our engagement with Māori communities and our operational work, leading to greater reach and impact. Rather than keeping this work within one branch, this approach encourages the whole organisation to take shared responsibility for delivering on our Rautaki Māori.
I am also proposing the creation of a Pou Ārahi Kaupapa Māori and Cultural Communities role to provide strategic and operational cultural leadership ensuring that te ao Māori perspectives, values and tikanga (protocols) are ingrained in how we function. This role would help ensure our services, policies and programmes are culturally appropriate and effective for the many different cultures across Aotearoa NZ.
This role is proposed to sit outside the Executive Leadership Team, as their primary responsibility would be to influence strategy, policy and operations through guidance and partnership rather than being directly accountable for the delivery of our functions.
By sitting outside ELT, the Pou Ārahi can work across multiple teams and layers to remove barriers to embed te ao Māori and cultural perspectives into our work to keep us accountable to our commitment to Māori as tangata whenua. They can maintain independence to focus on their specialist advisory mandate without being tied to day-to-day operational management of the organisation.
Having this role report directly to the Chief Executive means they can represent and promote the priorities of the CE, both internally and externally particularly with various cultural communities to build trust and strong relationships with iwi, hapū, Māori organisations, and cultural communities.
The role would help ensure we stay responsive to cultural needs, aspirations, and feedback.
I want to be really clear: this is not about taking kaupapa Māori out of the organisation. These proposed changes would help us ensure the work of kaupapa Māori becomes a part of everything we do by encouraging all parts of the organisation to take ownership, rather than it being siloed in one area.
The following functional changes and associated reporting line changes are proposed:
- Pou Takawaenga moving to Operational Response Branch
- Pou Whirinaki moving to People Branch
And now, dear PoO reader, you will have seen for yourself what is proposed.
Kerry Gregory declined to talk with Plunket until his staff have had time to provide feedback on the proposals.
And feedback from the public?
It is not officially being invited, apparently.
PoO can only imagine that there will be responses in favour and responses opposed.
But may we suggest that this cultural carry-on should be embraced only if somehow it makes the service more efficient and enables fire fighters to put out fires faster and/or more effectively than before.
Fair to say, one comment on YouTube said:
I am a volunteer with FENZ and I would like to give New Zealanders some comfort around this. All volunteer Brigades are independent of FENZ and are separate organizations or entities. We expect FENZ to provide us with the fire stations, fire trucks and equipment to do our jobs. All this other nonsense that they try to communicate is ignored as we treat all New Zealanders the same when it comes to an emergency. Kerry Gregory will not show as he is incapable of answering most questions about the organization, just have a look at the word salads he serves up at the regular select committee hearings. We as volunteers serve our communities, not FENZ.
That’s comforting – but this commentator spoke only for volunteers.
What about the others?
Above all, there should be pressure for assurances that firefighters will not not demand a karakia before they respond to every emergency and do not whistle in a kaumatua for guidance on the mauri of the water which they are about to blast through their hoses.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
1 comment:
Luxon was voted in because he was supposed to get rid of all the Maorification and the demonization of non-Maori culture, but it has gotten worse under him. Voters need to ditch National and vote ACT or NZ First if they want to avoid being second class citizens. But most National Voters, like most Labour voters, will just follow their preferred party like sheep while complaining about the consequences.
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