A senior Māori firefighter has filed a Waitangi Tribunal claim against Fire and Emergency New Zealand.
He says the organisation's continually ignored and neglected Māori-led solutions including an education programme he's been running for over 20 years.
Career Firefighter Allan Brown will retire early next year and said he hopes his Waitangi Tribunal claim can provide future industry change.
“There are inequities within Fire and Emergency New Zealand that sideline and marginalize people like me and this kind of work,” Brown said.
“In my mind, FENZ are falling short of their treaty obligations.
“By putting in a claim of bias, putting in a claim of discrimination, I can address concerns of inequities of what I've seen in FENZ.”
Māori are three times more likely to die in a fire than non-Māori.
The 64-year-old provides educational fire safety services to schools along the East Coast to combat fire safety disparities.
Brown said he has spent $30,000 dollars on his work, but FENZ hasn’t contributed anything and continues to neglect vulnerable Māori communities.
“People who live in poverty may not have the resources or the information available to them to keep themselves safe from fires and other dangers, the unpreparedness for an emergency may mean a slower response which can lead to serious injury or a loss of life,” Brown said.
A FENZ statement agreed Māori are disproportionately affected by fire risk but said it's already working with iwi on initiatives and scaled-up existing ones to better reach communities.
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