Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Makhlouf departs with questions hanging in the air, emissions still not moving the right way, and ministerial roles in housing reshuffled. A few months ago, you’d probably be forgiven for not knowing the name Gabriel Makhlouf. Until yesterday, he was the secretary of Treasury – an … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Forum puts insurance costs into focus, two new polls show opinion turning against cannabis legalisation, and Makhlouf saga likely to be aired in parliament today. A major forum in Wellington has highlighted problems faced by the insurance industry and those wanting to buy their services. It’s a … Read more
Treasury has been haemorrhaging talented economists for years and the budget leaks were just the tip of the iceberg for a department in crisis, writes Eric Crampton of The New Zealand Initiative. If the Canterbury earthquakes taught us anything, it’s that the immediate response to a disaster is a very different thing from the rebuilding that … Read more
The process by which information from the Treasury website was extracted has been the subject of much speculation, and a lot of confusion, writes Alexander Stronach in a post that has exploded since originally being published at The Understatesman The Treasury data breach has been a shitshow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger disconnect between … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Govt gives and takes with first Wellbeing Budget, Treasury Secretary under immense pressure, and dozens of kākāpō sick from fungus. The question was asked in yesterday’s Bulletin – what does this government value enough to put real money towards? In the end, the Budget that was delivered wasn’t … Read more
Grant Robertson should apologise, and the Treasury secretary should offer his resignation, writes Danyl Mclauchlan Information Technology, or IT is not an ancient discipline, like politics or the law, but it has its own traditions and the most hallowed tradition of all, held sacred by engineers and other technical specialists the world over is to … Read more
Police have rebuffed the Treasury secretary’s complaint about purported hacking of Budget information. So what really happened, and has Simon Bridges been vindicated? Metaphors abound when it comes to claims of hacking. Yesterday, following suspicions that the National Party had accessed parts of the Treasury website thought to be secure, the head of the most … Read more
A brief technical explanation about what the ‘hack’ amounted to would be a lot more useful than all the bluster and nebulous waffle we’ve heard so far, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Treasury’s budget documents are – potentially – very valuable information. They might affect currency valuations, or bond prices, or company share prices, or any number … Read more
As Treasury says it’s registered thousands of attempts to hack its secure site and Simon Bridges accuses Grant Robertson of maliciously lying, the wellbeing budget is about to become the hell-fleeing budget for someone The press releases started rolling in at 10 on the dot yesterday morning: “National reveals Budget details.” At 1.30pm: “National reveals … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Treasury calls in police after claims their system was hacked, protesters against coal get mayoral support, and massive teacher strike today. Last night, political journalism twitter was nothing but a steady stream of shocked emojis. And the reason for that was a series of dramatic developments in … Read more