The latest Newshub Reid-Research Poll has found that one-in-five New Zealanders think the Finance Minister should resign over the Budget 2019 leak drama.
It comes after the National Party accused the Government of deliberately misleading the country by allowing New Zealanders to think the Treasury had been hacked despite the GCSB telling them otherwise.
- Jacinda Ardern denies GCSB warned Beehive before Treasury 'hack' statement
- Explained: Government provides Budget 2019 leak timeline to quash scandal
The poll asked New Zealanders if Finance Minister Grant Robertson should resign for how he handled National leaking Wellbeing Budget details ahead of its official release.
It found that most Kiwis - 63.9 percent - said he shouldn't offer his resignation, while 20.7 percent of people felt he should.
Interestingly, a quarter of Labour voters said Robertson should either offer his resignation, or said they were unsure.
When asked if he would offer his resignation, the Finance Minister told Newshub on Tuesday: "Absolutely not."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had a similar response. She said she "wouldn't expect that at all" of Robertson.
National has accused the Government of allowing Kiwis to believe they were criminal hackers when they had just used a simple search on the Treasury website to obtain Budget details.
"It was actually quite a different - very different - picture, the difference between criminal and not criminal. They sat on a lie," National leader Simon Bridges said.
When National released Budget details on May 28 two days before it was due to be released, Treasury said it was "deliberately and systematically hacked", and called in the police.
Robertson parroted Treasury's line, issuing a statement naming National and echoing Treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf's "hack" description.
An hour and a half later, the spies warned the Government it wasn't a hack. It wasn't until Thursday morning - more than 30 hours later - that Treasury admitted it wasn't a hack.
Ardern said she disputes that the Beehive let the country think National were hackers. She said the Beehive "made no accusation".
National hammered the Government in Parliament on Tuesday over the hack attack, but it partly backfired.
Ardern ridiculed Bridges for naval-gazing.
"This is the only thing that he thinks matters to members of New Zealand - these are all political calls and clearly this is his one and I wish him well."
Newshub.
