Treasury admits to accidentally publishing more confidential information

Secretary to the Treasury Carelee McLiesh.
Secretary to the Treasury Carelee McLiesh. Photo credit: YouTube

Treasury has admitted to accidentally publishing more confidential information, with details of the Government's financial statements uploaded almost a week early.  

A section of the Government's financial statements - which revealed a $7.5 billion surplus - was uploaded to the Treasury website on Thursday 3 October, five days ahead of its release. 

The material was on the website for approximately one hour, Secretary to the Treasury Caralee McLiesh said in a statement. 

She said the error was discovered by the Treasury and the content was removed promptly, and the information was not accessed by anyone internally or externally. 

"While the information was not accessed and the error was fixed quickly, the fact that it was on our website is unacceptable," McLiesh said. 

Finance Minister Grant Robertson is aware, and McLiesh said she has apologised to him. 

"This is very disappointing," Robertson said in a statement. 

"It emphasises the importance of the Murray Jack review and the Treasury implementing the recommendations from that. I expect better."

Murray Jack is leading a State Services Commission investigation into the Treasury's handling of the Budget 2019 information that was published online before its official release in May. 

The day Budget 2019 was released, National leader Simon Bridges revealed a search tool on the Treasury website had been used to uncover classified material, after the Treasury had claimed it had been hacked. 

Jack's investigation is looking into whether Treasury misled the Finance Minister before he issued his public statement echoing the Treasury's stance that it had been hacked. 

McLiesh took over from former Treasury boss Gabriel Makhlouf, who is part of the investigation into his allegations of the Treasury being hacked. 

He has since moved to Ireland to become Central Bank governor.

McLiesh said Treasury has looked into how the latest error happened, and found that it was a "human error" that led to the content being "passed into the wrong place". 

"Those involved took quick action to fix the error as soon as they discovered it. We have implemented process changes to prevent this happening again."

McLiesh said the Treasury accepts full responsibility for the error. 

"I will have more to say about the steps we will take to improve our information governance, controls and processes within the Treasury when the Murray Jack Inquiry reports."

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