{"id":346450,"date":"2026-03-25T04:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T04:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/346450\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T04:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T04:35:10","slug":"ambulance-association-calls-for-dame-kerry-prendergast-to-resign-from-wellington-free-ambulance-after-loss-of-licence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/346450\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambulance Association calls for Dame Kerry Prendergast to resign from Wellington Free Ambulance after loss of licence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cShe has to resign from her position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Quin said Wellington Free Ambulance has previously disciplined staff for their actions outside of the workplace, and noted the organisation\u2019s code of conduct requires staff to follow the law and disclose pending or recent driving offences.<\/p>\n

He believed if a paramedic had their licence suspended for speeding in their own time, Wellington Free Ambulance would take action under the code of conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re the chair of the Wellington Free Ambulance, you should be setting the standard,\u201d said Quin, who is a paramedic himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s had a hundred demerit points, so that\u2019s a fair bit of speeding she\u2019s done in two years to get up to the suspension.\u201d<\/p>\n

The admission came during an appearance on Newstalk ZB\u2019s Wellington Mornings show when Prendergast was asked by host Nick Mills about a recent story that speeding fines were skyrocketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a bit heavy on the accelerator and I\u2019m really sorry,\u201d the three-term former mayor said.<\/p>\n

\"PrendergastPrendergast said she was too busy looking at the road to notice the screen in her tesla telling her to slow down. Photo \/ Catherine Hutton<\/p>\n

Prendergast said she did not notice her demerit points accumulating, and was shocked to learn that her licence had been suspended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so easy in a Tesla to put your foot down and suddenly, vroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the Ambulance Association\u2019s comments, Prendergast declined to comment further, saying she had already apologised publicly.<\/p>\n

She has been part of the Wellington Free Board since 2013.<\/p>\n

Wellington Free Ambulance also declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The organisation has previously supported national road safety campaigns encouraging drivers to slow down and stick to speed limits.<\/p>\n

Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cShe has to resign from her position,\u201d he said. Quin said Wellington Free Ambulance has previously disciplined staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,11428,3110,682,1559,115,2947,2082,2740,4975,71,8455,42,118785,19339,2225,5836,5829,10934,43,1118,156137,3056,205,25260,4969,61,40,38,41,39,52],"class_list":["post-346450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-ambulance","tag-association","tag-being","tag-called","tag-calls","tag-dame","tag-for","tag-former","tag-free","tag-from","tag-getting","tag-headlines","tag-kerry","tag-licence","tag-loss","tag-lost","tag-many","tag-mayor","tag-news","tag-of","tag-prendergast","tag-resign","tag-role","tag-speeding","tag-tickets","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}