Ōtaki MP Tim Costley told a parliamentary select committee that Fire and Emergency New Zealand has delivered "platitudes" instead of fire trucks, as the agency faces scrutiny over a stalled fleet renewal programme spanning both medium appliances and aerial ladder trucks.

Costley, who helped spark the select committee inquiry into FENZ, told the committee he had heard "a lot of" "platitudes" from the agency about process and new documents. "We don't need more paper, we need more firetrucks," he said RNZ.

FENZ appeared before the inquiry on a Monday, represented by commanders Kerry Gregory and Megan Stiffler. The inquiry is a select committee process rather than oral or written questions in the House.

At the centre of the scrutiny are 30 Type 3 medium-sized appliances still not on the road after years of delays. Costley raised questions about how the supplier of those trucks was chosen. He also pressed FENZ on the status of its larger aerial trucks, the long-ladder appliances used for high-rise and complex incidents.

On the aerials, Costley questioned why FENZ reports had stated that five new aerial trucks on order had undergone "final" testing in mid-2025, when the trucks were still being tested. Stiffler told the committee that problems with the aerial trucks were unearthed last November as part of pre-operating checks RNZ.

As of the hearing, two of the five aerials were still in Brisbane being worked on. Three were in New Zealand.

FENZ told the committee it had opted for a new five-year strategy because fire appliance technology was changing fast. The agency also said changing demands on its operations were complicating the choice of new trucks and aerials. FENZ acknowledged it was improving its procurement processes, telling the committee those processes had not been robust enough RNZ.

The political pressure on FENZ's fleet management has been building across party lines. Chris Bishop, posting on his official Facebook page in April, praised Costley's scrutiny and said he was "v-concerned about the performance of FENZ," including its fire truck fleet. Bishop also shared a link to a parliamentary petition concerning FENZ hosted on the petitions.parliament.nz platform Facebook.

The New Zealand Professional Firefighters' Union has kept the issue in the public eye, posting on Instagram in November that the Government was pressed in Parliament on whether it still had confidence in FENZ as frontline fire trucks continued to be an issue Instagram. In June, the NZPFU noted on Facebook that Labour MP Tangi Utikere had referenced fire trucks being built to replace old ones in 2025–2026 during a parliamentary sitting held under urgency Facebook.

On the ministerial side, David Seymour, as Acting Minister of Internal Affairs, told Parliament in November that FENZ inherited a faulty logging and tracking system from 2017 Hansard.

The select committee inquiry gives MPs a sustained forum to probe FENZ's appliance procurement in detail, beyond the cut-and-thrust of question time. Costley's questioning of supplier selection for the Type 3 fleet and the discrepancy between FENZ reporting on aerial testing and the actual state of those trucks are the kind of specifics that select committees can pursue over multiple hearings, with documents and officials.

For FENZ, the challenge is twofold. The agency must explain why 30 medium appliances and five aerials remain undelivered, and it must convince the committee that its new five-year strategy and improved procurement processes will resolve the bottlenecks rather than add another layer of process. Costley's framing, that the agency is producing documents instead of trucks, will resonate with the firefighters' union and with communities waiting for renewed appliances.

The inquiry sits alongside the broader political dynamic: a National backbencher driving scrutiny of a Crown entity, with public backing from a senior Cabinet minister, cross-party interest from Labour, and an engaged union membership. FENZ's appearance before the committee is unlikely to be its last.