From the mind of Hamish

My views on news, current events, sports and the general goings on in my life.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Earlier this week I saw this story in the news. A very quick synopsis is that there was a fire on the Kapiti Coast that destroyed two houses which firefighters believe would not have been a destructive if a full time fire fighting crew were on the Kapiti Coast. As it turned out, the Volunteer Fire Service took too long to arrive.

This got me thinking, would a private solution be better? In New Zealand under the Fire Service Act 1975 the New Zealand Fire Service is a Crown Entity. As a Crown Entity they receive public funding. In my view, government run organizations are far less reliable and efficient than privately run organizations. So, what would a private fire brigade on the Kapiti Coast cost?

According to Kiwi Careers the average professional fire fighter earns between $30,000 and $50,000 a year. To man one appliance 8 fire fighters are required. Let's say there are 3 appliances at the station, there are 3 shifts of 24 fire fighters working 8 hours a day totaling 72 professional fire fighters on the Coast. Salary alone would cost $2.9 million, which evenly spread amongst Kapiti's 45,000 residents is $64 a year. Not bad huh? Would you pay $64 a year for the protection the fire brigade provides? Of course that figure is per person, a better calculation would be per household. With 2.4 people per household there are 18750 households on the Kapiti Coast, therefore the per household cost per year would be $153.60 a year. Still not a lot of money.

Now, one of the problems with this solution is that in a libertarian society there is no use of force or coercion to collect money. So would every household pay up? Probably not, but those who weren't paid up would simply not have access to the fire brigade should they need them. Of course, in a libertarian society there would also be no boundary to people setting up competing fire brigades, so perhaps the figure of $153.60 per household a year would come down.

In reality the figures I have arrived at do not take into account equipment and operating costs, if we allowed $500,000 a year in operating costs (a fire appliance costs around $200,000) the figure increases to $180.27. With a 90% uptake of the fire brigade's protection the cost is $200.30 per household a year.

This is a very affordable option for residents. And of course, residents without fire brigade protection would pay considerably more in insurance premiums. For mine, $200.30 a year is a no brainer, I would pay it happily. If there were competing fire brigades, perhaps you could pay for the closest station, or the best rated brigade.

The point is, you would have a choice. Having the government take your money with force, and spend it on a fire brigade that doesn't even cover your area hardly seems fair or just. Fire departments could easily be privatized as my brief run down of the figures shows, why do we continue to pay for a service that not all New Zealanders can access?

Note: All stats quoted from Statistics New Zealand