In this year's Budget, cancer Minister Casey Costello gave Philip Morris a $216 million tax cut for their heated tobacco products, on the basis of "independent advice" which contradicted that produced by the Ministry of health. When she finally produced this "independent advice", it did not support her case at all, and looked like a collection of random shit she had found on google while "doing her own research". Now someone using FYI, the free OIA request tool, has finally force Costello to admit where her advice came from. And the answer is exactly what you thought it would be:
Which is I guess the flip side of National's public service cuts: Ministers who think they can just google shit up instead (and a Prime Minister and Cabinet who accept this).
Whether this meets the standards of competence and professionalism we expect from Ministers and which supposedly justify their enormous salaries is left as an exercise for the reader.
