Thursday, December 12, 2013



A $510,000 waste of money

The Rebstock witch-hunt into leaks from MFAT has finally reported back, and found... nothing:

An investigation into who leaked information about restructuring plans at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has failed to positively identify who was responsible.

A public version of a report to State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie from Paula Rebstock said the investigation was "unable to find definitive evidence of who was responsible for the unauthorised disclosure of the Cabinet Papers''.

However Ms Rebstock reported "a strong suspicion" that the leak of the Cabinet Papers was made a temporary staff member working within Mr Rennie's own department.


For $510,000 I'd expect something more than "a strong suspicion" and smears. If this is what the government considers "value for money", we should be demanding our money back.

The full report is here.