New Zealand First is moving to ban private use of fireworks.
As a kid I, my mates, parents and relatives had great fun letting a few off at big family events – New Years, Guy Fawkes and the occasional birthday. Lighting sparklers to wave around and Catherine Wheels that spun crazily on the ground, as well as low level devices with names such as Vesuvius that you placed on the ground and a fountain of sparks would go up – it was all fun and games until we started to realise the socio-economic cost of it.
I think my first awareness of the cost of fireworks accidents and misuse to the community came when fire crackers were banned in 1992. For some time beforehand, pressure had been mounting from people who had had lit crackers thrown at them, or let off on properties with disastrous results. From scrub fires in tinder dry conditions where fire bans were in force to pets and people being injured by exploding devices.
I remember times in the 1990’s where the week before Guy Fawkes – and a couple of days afterwards – would be like a living in a war zone. From as soon as dinner was over, until bed time, the sky would be lit up by a constant barrage of fireworks going off. Sometimes I went to the end of the drive just to watch up and down the road, the fireworks going off. As the decades wore on though, the novelty seems to have worn off. So far in the Guy Fawkes period for 2025 I’ve heard less than 5 minutes of fireworks going off in my neighbourhood. Maybe people have simply had enough. Maybe – being a not very wealthy area – many people simply cannot afford them (I have no idea how much fireworks cost these days, and don’t really care to find out either).
Anyone who has been a firefighter or volunteer fire firefighter will probably have a story or four of having to deal with the aftermath of fireworks fun gone wrong, or simple stupidity. As a kid I remember going to several community displays until one night one at a school that I think the Fire Service was in attendance at went horribly wrong when a skyrocket misfired and struck a girl in the audience. As a young adult who went to firework displays in North Hagley Park, I remember walking through Little Hagley and having to dodge unsupervised fools letting off fireworks among the trees.
Despite this, for years, I was a bit of a libertarian on the matter – personal responsibility trumps all I would claim. Why be the fun police who cannot stand the sight of people having fun and feeling the urge to trample on it? I still had smokeballs, which you put on the ground, lit the match and then watched coloured smoke – red, blue, pink, green, yellow, purple come out. Our family had a stash of fireworks that lived in our cupboard for years because we forgot they were there, until someone had a clean out one day and decided that that night we would finish them off. It went well until a gust of wind blew some burning embers of one into the school next door and think a couple of hastily filled buckets of water were dumped over the fence.
My resistance included writing letters Ministers in Parliament suggesting that we move our annual fireworks period to a more practical date – mine was Dominion Day on 26 September – which is nearly 6 weeks earlier and in colder, wetter weather that would dampen the potential for fires. The earlier sunset hours would mean that displays could be held at an earlier time and hopefully discourage late night fireworks being let off. I also had an idea that only those over 18 with photo identification could be allowed to purchase fireworks and had to have that with them when letting them off, though I never quite figured out how this could be enforced.
Anyone who has worked at the R.S.P.C.A. and seen a wounded animal that was struck by errant or misused fireworks will know the horrifying sight of burns or lacerations, and the upset that it would have caused its owners. Anyone who has a pet that has been struck by fireworks, or seen them cower in places that they are not normally allowed to go – our late labrador would come and hide in the kitchen or the laundry when fireworks started going off – will know the anguish of watching their pets distress, and the anger if the fireworks are being used recklessly. Once our labrador started being terrified of thunderstorms we simply led her to the garage where her sleep pad is and locked her in until it passed, and that became the standard practice as soon as fireworks started going off.
In recent years though, not necessarily a case of me simply deciding I didn’t like them any more, I have moved from wanting private fireworks. The fun of letting them off still appeals, but the simple fact that a public display is always many times more impressive – and noisy! – than anything a private display will conjure up, and at Sparks in the Park accompanied by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, has won the day. Having them going off nearby at 0200 in the morning when I am trying to get some sleep before a 0415 get up is really off putting.
And, finally, there is always that question about why do we even acknowledge something that did not even happen in New Zealand – the events that led to Guy Fawkes being something to let fireworks off for happened over 200 years before British arrived in New Zealand. They were nearly 42 years before Abel Tasman sailed past in 1642 and 164 years before Captain Cook visited in 1769.
So, irrespective of where one sits on the public vs private debate on fireworks, I think that this is an activity whose end is simply coming about because society – for better or for worse – has moved on. And whilst the New Zealand First Members Bill is still that, and not an Act of Parliament, there is still a year in which it could be moved through Parliament before the next election has to be held. And if it does, maybe we have a date with the end of private sales of fireworks somewhere on the horizon.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 