THE WHOLE EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM MUST GO!

The bombshell news that FENZ CE Kerry Gregory deliberately failed to notify the Minister, and that FENZ spent $500,000 on the as-yet-undisclosed issue that has been referred to the Serious Fraud Office, is just the latest in a litany of issues that should have had him sacked a long time ago. On the limited information available, it appears to be a serious matter involving the fire service levy, which is the primary source of FENZ’s $850 million budget.

If FENZ has been hiding a serious fire service levy issue, then the annual reporting, estimates information, strategic plans, and any actions directly affected by the levy must be put under intensive scrutiny to determine their accuracy and whether they can be relied or acted upon.

All major changes must be put on hold until the Board and Executive Leadership Team are held accountable. That includes current directions to reduce career firefighter numbers in Auckland, plans to reduce effective and efficient call-back procedures, and a restructure that will preserve the jobs of region managers but—in our view—will do nothing to refocus funding into strengthening operations.

• The judgement of Kerry Gregory to remain overseas on a FENZ-funded conference junket and then take personal leave when he knew the Select Committee Report into the dire state of the fleet—and the Serious Fraud Office referral—were to be made public, is very telling. He should be required to come back, front up, and take accountability, including providing an immediate resignation.
  
• In his absence, Deputy Chief Executive Corporate Services Darryl Purdy has been acting Chief Executive. He is responsible for the financial team and is akin to a Chief Financial Officer; therefore, he is highly likely to have known about or might even have had a part to play in the matter that is now before the Serious Fraud Office. He is not a credible stand-in in these circumstances.
  
• Immediate past Board Chair Rebecca Keoghan must certainly be held accountable despite recently being replaced, as should the current Board, whom the Governance and Administration Parliamentary Select Committee has heavily criticised for their failure to undertake due diligence on the dire state of the fleet.
  

The findings in the Parliamentary Select Committee report are damning.

We strongly believe the Report's findings are grounds for CE Kerry Gregory, Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler, former Board Chair Rebecca Keoghan, Deputy Chief Executive Corporate Services Darryl Purdy, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Asset and Programme Delivery Jim Stuart-Black, and Assistant National Commander Ken Cooper to be put before the Parliamentary Privileges Committee for providing incorrect and misleading information to Parliament through questions to the Minister, and to the Committee on many occasions including during their appearances before the Inquiry.

The Report records that the Committee’s views included:

"Firstly, specific answers given by FENZ leadership over three select committee hearings from 2024 to 2026 were factually wrong and perceived to be intentionally misleading. We came to believe that FENZ was either hiding, or hiding from, the truth. We believed the only way to find progress was to bring these issues into the public domain with clarity and transparency. It has been difficult to get that level of transparency through this inquiry."

"There has been a pattern of both incorrect and misleading answers. Examples include progress of Tranche 2 Type 3 appliances, and the 99.72 percent response rate. FENZ leaders would be far better placed if they just owned the mistakes made in the past (and during this inquiry), laid all their cards on the table, and started the recovery from a place of brutal honesty."

The findings of the report vindicate what the NZPFU membership has been saying for years. It is damning regarding the lack of effective and efficient management of procurement and commissioning of appliances, but also exposes broader failures of management—or in our view, exposes the true level of mismanagement.

The Report goes as far as recommending that FENZ’s decisions come under full scrutiny through a review of emergency response capacity and capability. The Committee was scathing of current senior leadership and firmly questioned whether they can be trusted with procurement at all.

Minister Brooke van Velden has had many opportunities to declare a loss of confidence and to require changes. Her declaration has come late and is primarily centred around the SFO issue.

However, when asked by media if she had trust in FENZ management, she listed the litany of issues, specifically mentioning "levy modelling, payroll, fleet procurement, and making savings in the back office."

The whole of the ELT must now be held accountable and responsible.

In addition to CE Kerry Gregory, Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler, Deputy Chief Executive Corporate Services Darryl Purdy, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Asset and Programme Delivery Jim Stuart-Black (who was also a key resource for his predecessor Sarah Sinclair), DCE Janine Hearn, and Deputy Chief Executive Prevention Stephen Hunt must also be held to account.

DCE People Janine Hearn must be held to account on various significant issues:

• The People Branch is responsible for HR issues including payroll, complaints, standards of conduct, workplace relations, bargaining, and health and safety practices, including providing a safe workplace.
  
• Janine Hearn has the authority to settle bargaining, yet has failed to present any formal offer since July 2025 (which 98% of NZPFU members rejected). Today, NZPFU members strike for the 63rd time. FENZ has paid all non-NZPFU staff a 2.4% increase, which they have never offered to the NZPFU.
  
• The People Branch has overseen a payroll system debacle, including a new system that was abandoned prior to going online because it was not fit for purpose. That cost approximately $70 million and left FENZ paying millions in licensing fees as a result.
  
• A second "new" payroll system was commissioned, and FENZ is refusing to pay historic reimbursements and corrections on the basis that it is waiting for the system to go online. This wage-theft conduct is a recent development under her watch, where FENZ has attacked well-established contractual entitlements—including parental leave payments, which forced the Union to go through the ERA and Employment Court to have the entitlement properly reinstated.
  
• FENZ now has three Whanaungatanga Reports (the latest expected to be publicly released in a couple of weeks) which demonstrate a devastating level of mental health issues among firefighters and dispatchers. The research, which is internationally acclaimed, demonstrates that exposure to traumatic events is only part of the story—working for FENZ and the organizational pressures of what the NZPFU sees as a dysfunctional organization are a very real part of the cause of these mental health issues.
  
• As DCE People, Janine Hearn must take responsibility for FENZ’s failure to cultivate a fair and reasonable culture with transparent and effective complaint processes where employees are not unfairly targeted or victimized. At least five reports have criticized FENZ’s lack of effective and fair complaint processes, and recent evaluations of the current processes are also critical. FENZ spent approximately $1 million on the Simon Mount KC Report into a review required by the Public Service Commission regarding serious complaints made by a female firefighter. That report found serious and systemic issues with the manner in which her complaints were handled, repeating issues previously raised by other inquiries into the complaints system. The million dollars spent by FENZ included successfully ensuring that the accused, and those responsible for failing to properly and fairly investigate the complaints, would have their identities suppressed. Some of those criticized in the report remain in senior management positions at FENZ.
  

All of them, including Stephen Hunt, are pushing a restructure that will protect the jobs of upper management and, in our opinion, has nothing to do with refocusing the organization back toward emergency response.

Mr. Hunt has yet to demonstrate any real understanding of the dire situation he is responsible for, including the fact that there is not one operational hot fire training facility in New Zealand. He has yet to demonstrate any urgency or focus on the critical failings of the training arm, nor has he done anything to prevent career recruit firefighters from graduating to fire stations without ever having experienced live fire.

The NZPFU and PSA again had to litigate to stop the restructure that was tabled in November 2025, with the ERA finding FENZ had failed to consult with the Unions. What followed was a tick-the-box exercise by FENZ, and the Unions are again looking at all options to stop this nonsense.

All those working and volunteering for FENZ must have confidence that FENZ is diligently ensuring they are properly resourced so they can safely and effectively undertake their duties.

The New Zealand public must have confidence in their fire and emergency service to respond in their greatest time of need. Currently, the NZPFU membership does not have that confidence. The three 111 fire emergency call centres are more often than not understaffed. Fire stations are regularly closed, or fire crews are running short due to a deliberate reduction in staffing. Fire trucks are failing at stations, en route, and at incidents, putting the lives of firefighters and the public they respond to at heightened, avoidable risk.

It is the NZPFU’s strong belief that the current senior leadership of FENZ cannot be trusted to provide the necessary fire and emergency service required under the FENZ Act or expected and deserved by the community.

In unity,
Wattie Watson
NZPFU National Secretary