The obvious question

Stuff has a story about ACC lying in an OIA response, and how it was exposed by a whistleblower under the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act 2022. Its the usual story: journalist hears about expensive party, sends in an OIA request, is pressured to agree to limit scope to parties which cost over a certain amount in an effort to prevent disclosure, then when it turned out that it did cost more than that due to travel costs, they decided they were really travelling for "other work" so they could pretend those costs didn't count. And everyone involved knew it was wrong:

Another staffer disagreed with the manager.

Their message said: “‘other work’ This is wrong. Fundamentally wrong.”

In the discussions, ACC staff had said they did not believe that all of those 11 staff would have flown to Wellington had the farewell function not been held.

The manager admitted it was dodgy. “Everybody knows that,” they said. They then said they would personally sign off the response.

That statement indicates a willingness to take responsibility for the illegal decision. Which raises the obvious question: have they? Have they faced an employment process over it? If not, why not? Because knowingly violating your legal obligations as a public servant is the very definition of "serious misconduct". And people should be fired for it.