When budget details were leaked Treasury and Finance minister Grant Robertson went large on claiming that the leak was a hack. In fact, it wasn’t a hack, it was stupidity and lackadaisical oversight from Treasury.
A scathing report into the accidental release of sensitive Budget 2019 information by the Treasury has found poor procurement processes and governance failures by senior leadership were to blame for security flaws in its website not being identified earlier
The inquiry into the accidental release of Budget 2019 information before Budget day has reported back on the “rushed” development of a new Treasury website. The State Services Commission launched the inquiry after the National Party trumpeted figures it had been able to obtain from the Government’s Budget appropriations online, on the eve of the coalition’s first Wellbeing Budget.
Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf initially told media the Treasury had been “deliberately and systematically hacked” and that he had referred the matter to police, but National leader Simon Bridges later revealed his party had obtained the data simply from searching the Treasury’s website.
Unfortunately, Gabriel Makhlouf sashayed out of his job for the greener pastures of Ireland and can’t be held to account for his screwups and lies.
Grant Robertson, however, is an open target after he doubled down on his allegations.
The inquiry found that the Treasury did not have effective governance or oversight processes to manage the Budget process from start to finish, with known risks like the indexing problem not receiving appropriate consideration.
“This is consistent with the failure by senior leadership to pay attention to core operational performance as reported by the inquiry,” the report says.
The buck stops at the top, and since Makhlouf scarpered that leaves Robertson in the gun.
Responding to the findings, National’s finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith said Finance Minister Grant Robertson needed to take responsibility for Treasury’s “extensive failures” and apologise for suggesting that National had gained the Budget information as the result of a hack.
“Mr Robertson swallowed the lines of his agency. He accepted their excuses, didn’t ask the right questions and even when it became clear he was wrong – he then doubled down,” Goldsmith said.
“This is one of the biggest failures in Treasury’s history and it happened under his watch.”
Newsroom
Yes, it did. To be fair to Grant, he was probably thinking about the next Treasury morning tea shout and all those yummy little sausage rolls he stuffs into his jacket pockets.
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