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Portrait of Tim Costley
Photo via Wikipedia
MP · #21

Tim Costley

Ōtaki · New Zealand National Party
Pecuniary interests
11 items
Directorships
4 declared
Recent meetings
0 logged

Bg Background Methodology →

Research run #48 · 5 May 2026
Every claim below links to its source. Click any footnote [1] in the text, or expand the citation index after the bio, to see the verbatim quote and the page it came from.

Tim Costley is a National Party [15] Member of Parliament for the Ōtaki electorate [12].

Costley served as a helicopter pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), beginning from 2001 [2]. According to a single reputable secondary source, he held various leadership positions as an officer within the RNZAF during that period [3]. The same source indicates he served as Equerry to Prince William [5].

Costley is reported to have studied at Massey University, according to a single reputable secondary source [10]. Outside his military career, he is described in a single reputable secondary source as a founder and trustee of The Missing Wingman Trust, a trust associated with the RNZAF [6][9]. He is also noted, according to a single reputable secondary source, as a trustee and beneficiary of the Costley Family Trust and the RV Shankleton Trust [7][8].

He was selected as the National Party candidate for Ōtaki on 18 November 2019 [14]. Costley was elected to Parliament as the Member for Ōtaki, with his term recorded as beginning on 14 October 2023 [12]. According to a single reputable secondary source, he has served as a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee [13].

Generated 5 May 2026 · model claude-sonnet-4-6
AI-generated biography. Assembled by an LLM from public sources (Wikipedia, Hansard, Beehive, Parliament register, news archives). Every claim is backed by a verbatim quote in one of the cited sources below and tagged confirmed, unverified, or disputed based on corroboration. Use as a starting reference, not a final source — cross-check anything load-bearing.
2 confirmed 14 unverified 0 disputed
Verify the bio — expand the citation index 16 sourced claims

Education

Career

Political offices

  • [11]
    Held the office of MP for Ōtaki. unverified
  • [12]
    Held the office of Member of Parliament for Ōtaki (from 14 October 2023). unverified
  • [13]
    Held the office of Member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee. unverified
  • [14]
    Held the office of National Party candidate for the safe seat of Ōtaki (from 18 November 2019). unverified

Party affiliation

Civic roles & honours

Looked for, not found

  • Unable to fetch the Palmerston North Boys' High School forum post (2016) about Squadron Leader Tim Costley's detailed military career - DNS resolution failed for stratus.pnbhs.school.nz
  • Tim Costley's education details (Victoria University of Wellington, Cranfield University master's degree) could not be confirmed via verbatim quotes from fetched pages - LinkedIn profile confirms Cranfield University but was not directly fetched
  • Tim Costley's parliamentary select committee memberships in the 54th Parliament could not be fully confirmed from fetched sources

The researcher checked for these topics across the allowed public sources but could not find verbatim-quotable evidence. Absence here doesn't rule the fact out — it just means no journalist-accessible source covered it at the time of the run.

01 Positions

03 Pecuniary interests (2025) Methodology →

as of 2026-05-27 02:17
Beneficial interests in, and trusteeships of, trusts
Costley Family Trust (trustee and beneficiary) — Costley Family Trust (Trustee)
Missing Wingman Trust (RNZAF) (trustee) — Missing Wingman Trust (Trustee)
RV Shankleton Trust (trustee and beneficiary) — RV Shankleton Trust (Trustee)
Company directorships and controlling interests
Bluebottle Property Limited – rental property — Bluebottle Property Limited (Director)
Gifts
Overnight hunt – New Zealand Game Animal Council — New Zealand Game Animal Council
Tickets (x2) and hospitality at All Blacks game at Wellington Regional Stadium – AIA New Zealand — AIA New Zealand
Real property
Family home – Waikanae
Flat – Wellington
Rental property (x2) – Palmerston North
Retirement schemes
Defence Force Superannuation Scheme – Mercer — Mercer
Mercer KiwiSaver — Mercer KiwiSaver

04 Directorships Methodology →

as of 2026-06-04 17:19

06 Trusteeships & beneficial trust interests

08 Recent meetings (as minister) Methodology →

No meetings recorded.

09 Recent Hansard speeches

12 In the news Methodology →

33 articles

Coverage from RNZ, Stuff, NZ Herald, ODT, 1News, Newsroom and The Spinoff that mentions this person. Click any source to expand. Article body markdown is captured separately and used for AI summarisation downstream.

RNZ 11
Stuff 7
NZ Herald 5
The Spinoff 5
1News 4
Newsroom 1
  • From The Detail: Firefighters are battling bosses under pressure to cut costs, but FENZ's failures have seen the organisation face Parliamentary scrutiny The post Fanning the flames of firefighters’ discontent appeared first on Newsroom .
    2026-05-05

12.5 Heard on radio

2 segments

Verbatim segments from podcasts and radio where this person was the speaker, attributed via the voice-reference library. Click play to stream the original audio from the publisher, pre-seeked to the moment the segment starts. Transcriptions are automated and attributions are manually reviewed, but cannot be guaranteed to be absolutely accurate — the seek point or speaker label may occasionally drift; the linked episode is the source of truth.

13 Commentary topics Methodology →

6 topics · 12 weeks

Topics where op-eds, blogs and press releases have mentioned this person, week-by-week. Each row links through to the topic detail in the discourse lens.

14 Press topics Methodology →

6 topics · 12 weeks

Topics where major news outlets have reported on this person. Each row links through to the topic detail in the press lens. Compare to the discourse rows above to see where reporting and commentary converge or diverge.

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