‘Budget leak’ referred to police after Treasury says it finds evidence of hacking

Treasury has referred the apparent leaking of Budget information to police, saying it has sufficient evidence to indicate that its systems have been deliberately and systematically hacked.

But National leader Simon Bridges has hit back very hard, saying National had acted "entirely appropriately" and that finance minister Grant Robertson was attempting to smear his party to cover up incompetence - and would need to resign.

In a statement on Tuesday night, treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf said Treasury had taken immediate steps to increase the security of all Budget-related information and would be undertaking a full review of information security processes.

"Following this morning's media reports of a potential leak of Budget information, the Treasury has gathered sufficient evidence to indicate that its systems have been deliberately and systematically hacked," Makhlouf said.

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"The Treasury has referred the matter to the police on the advice of the National Cyber Security Centre."

The news came after Bridges released a large list of figures National said were from Budget 2019 on Tuesday morning, but refused to discuss how the information had got into his hands.

CACHED PUBLIC PAGE SHOWS DOCUMENTS 

A page on the Treasury website briefly had links to documents matching the policy areas with details released by Bridges today.

The page, which has been taken down but is cached by Google, shows links to every estimate for 2019/20 year in the various votes National released figures from today, except for the Serious Fraud Office.

The documents themselves were not cached and now return errors when opened.

A spokeswoman for Treasury said that nothing had been removed however.

"The documents weren't uploaded to a publicly available website and then removed," she said.

BRIDGES: WE HAVE ACTED APPROPRIATELY

Bridges refused to describe the information as a "leak" instead just saying it came into his hands on Monday. Later on Tuesday he released further figures he said had come into his hands throughout the day.

Following the Treasury statement, Bridges tweeted that "The National Party has acted entirely appropriately. [Grant Robertson] has falsely smeared us to cover up his and The Treasury's incompetence. When what has occurred is revealed, he will need to resign."

Robertson said it was an "extremely serious matter and one for the police."

"We have contacted the National Party to request that they do not release any further material, given that the Treasury said they have sufficient evidence that indicates the material is a result of a systematic hack and is now subject to a police investigation.

"What New Zealanders care about are the issues that will be dealt with in the Wellbeing Budget on Thursday, and that is what we continue to be focussed on."

Earlier in the day Robertson said that some of the details released were correct, while others were wrong.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the Government would wait until after the Thursday budget to look more deeply into the matter.

The National Party has been asked for comment.

Makhlouf said that there was no evidence that any personal information held by the Treasury had been subject to the alleged hacking.

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