What did Ministers know and when?

Paula Bennett released:

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and GCSB Minister Andrew Little need to tell the truth about what information they received from the GCSB and Treasury about how sensitive Budget information had been accessed, National’s Deputy Leader Paula Bennett says.
“Reports this morning that there was a desperate 11th hour phone call to Andrew Little from the head of the GCSB to say Treasury’s website had not been hacked shows that senior Government Ministers knew they were releasing false information to the public.
“It is inconceivable that the GCSB Minister didn’t immediately phone Finance Minister Grant Robertson and the Prime Minister to give them that information.

The report states that the phone call to Little occurred before Treasury and Robertson made their public statements claiming a criminal hack of Treasury, and a Police referral.

It is clear that Ardern and Robertson must have known that the hacking claim was false, either before Robertson did his press release or within minutes of it going out. Yet they said nothing for two days, despite having been told by the CGSB there was no hack.

Even worse the Treasury statement implied GCSB were the ones that had determined this was a criminal hack and should be notified to the Police. The reality is GCSB was telling their Minister it wasn’t.

Again there must be an independent inquiry into how this deliberate lie was allowed to be promulgated. The SSC inquiry can’t look at actions of Ministers or their staff.