New Zealand's political opposition has denied hacking the Treasury department to obtain highly secure state budget documents and says the Ardern government is conducting a "witch hunt".
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The country's centre-right National Party on Tuesday released what it said were details from the Labour-led administration's much-anticipated national budget, but refused to say how it got the information.
Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf later announced the department believed its systems had been "deliberately and systematically hacked" and confirmed there had been 2000 attempts to access budget documents over two days.
The matter had been referred to police, he said.
Opposition leader Simon Bridges on Wednesday said the government had been left embarrassed and was looking for scapegoats.
"There has been no hacking under any definition of that word. There has been entirely appropriate behaviour from the National Party the whole way through. There has been nothing illegal or even approaching that," Bridges said.
"They are not in control of what they are doing so they are lashing out and they are having a witch hunt."
He accused both the Treasury department and the finance minister, Grant Robertson, of misleading the public, but repeatedly refused to say how National had obtained the information it released.
Robertson on Wednesday said he had never suggested the opposition had been behind the attack, and had just repeated advice from the Treasury that the leaked information appeared to be the result of a hack.
"No one has made any accusations," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern added.
In an earlier statement, Robertson said he had contacted National to request it not release any further details.
The budget details released prematurely by the opposition on Tuesday included figures of planned funding across a range of government departments.
Robertson confirmed some of the figures were correct but said others were not.
It came just two days ahead of what New Zealand's government has labelled its "Wellbeing Budget", which it says will shake up government budgets by measuring elements of public welfare, such as mental health and child poverty, alongside the usual economic indicators.
Australian Associated Press
