Gabriel Makhlouf investigation to give a 'more fulsome picture' of Treasury's actions around Budget data breach - PM

June 5, 2019

The State Services Commission launched an investigation into the outgoing Treasury secretary on June 4.

The investigation into Gabriel Makhlouf will paint a "more fulsome picture" into the events that led to a back down of hacking allegations by Treasury, just hours before the release of the Budget, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

It was announced yesterday the State Services Commission (SCC) would investigate after "recent questions" were raised into Treasury Secretary Mr Makhlouf's actions and statements around Budget material that was released early by the National Party last week.

"I do think it's important that we have the full picture, that's something the SCC is going to provide," Ms Ardern said today. 

On questions around the advice that was given to Finance Minister Grant Robertson and to herself, Ms Ardern said it was "up to SCC what they choose to look into and how they choose to look into it".

"They have said they will cover off the nature of the advice that was provided to the Minister."

Treasury said in a statement on May 28 it had gathered enough evidence that its systems had been "deliberately and systematically hacked", after National released parts of the Budget that day. 

Finance Minister Grant Robertson then released a statement saying the release of the material was "extremely serious and is now a matter for the police", as well as urging the National Party to not release any more of the information.

On May 31, the day of the official Budget release, Treasury confirmed a feature in its website search tool was exploited by an unknown person or persons, and police concluded this did not break the law.

National Party leader Simon Bridges today told RNZ the situation was either "bungling incompetence, and I think we can all believe that could well be the situation, or you have some broad form of deceit and... dirty politics". 

Mr Robertson said Mr Makhlouf told him on Tuesday night (May 28) he had already referred the matter to the police and "described it in a way that has been publicly reported, so I certainly reject the latter part of Mr Bridges' accusations".

"There is now an investigation to get to the bottom of what happened and we should all await that."

Mr Robertson said he was 100 per cent confident of the time line of events, he would "fully cooperate" with the investigation and it was "entirely a matter" for the SSC if Mr Maklhouf should stand down while the investigation was taking place. 

"I acted on the advice of the Treasury throughout this process... I think if people put themselves in my shoes with the information I was provided by the Treasury, I acted appropriately in response to that."

"I'll leave it to the New Zealand public to judge the ethics and the morals of what happened here, the investigation the State Services Commissioner will do is about what Treasury did, in terms of what the Opposition did I think the public will make their judgment."

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