{"id":482469,"date":"2026-06-17T21:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482469\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:15:08","slug":"immigration-scandal-winston-peters-accuses-mbie-officials-of-constructive-theft-from-public-over-failed-tech-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/482469\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration scandal: Winston Peters accuses MBIE officials of \u2018constructive theft\u2019 from public over failed tech project"},"content":{"rendered":"

He told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning they appeared to be guilty of \u201cconstructive theft\u201d rather than incompetence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew full well that the information for the ministers was so bad they disguised it and kept it from those ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if misleading and lying to people was a crime, Peters said no, but \u201cstealing their money is – and the taxpayer\u2019s been robbed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Challenged on his definition of stealing, Peters said officials \u201cspent money on a hopeless cause without the intent to fulfil it\u201d and he genuinely believed they had committed \u201cconstructive theft\u201d – but that was up to a court to decide.<\/p>\n

The independent review<\/a> concluded officials\u2019 reporting to ministers was \u201cinconsistent and, at times, overly optimistic or misleading\u201d, but stopped short of saying officials lied.<\/p>\n

A fresh investigation by Sir Brian Roche of the Public Service Commission will consider whether deliberate deception was involved.<\/p>\n

Peters also pointed to wider issues with MBIE, the mega-ministry that incorporates Immigration NZ.<\/p>\n

MBIE, which was created by National minister Steven Joyce in 2012<\/a>, was a mistake and was far too big, with a \u201clong history of incompetence\u201d, Peters said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s covering too many areas and it\u2019s not doing the job competently.\u201d<\/p>\n

MBIE\u2019s new chief executive Nic Blakeley has acknowledged the ministry\u2019s governance was ultimately responsible for the project\u2019s failure. <\/p>\n

He told Ryan Bridge TODAY the \u201coverwhelming\u201d value of the public service was of integrity, but he wanted to strengthen checks and balances at MBIE<\/a> and set a culture where staff could speak up about their concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning they appeared to be guilty of \u201cconstructive theft\u201d rather…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[80175,123609,199983,121383,12513,1888,71,917,54106,13489,83832,300,111,43,139,69,1118,10711,1523,6729,3263,3109,312,9644,3271,12633,35028,370,14168,14043,6728],"class_list":["post-482469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-33m","tag-accuses","tag-constructive","tag-doomed","tag-failed","tag-first","tag-from","tag-immigration","tag-imprisoned","tag-leader","tag-mbie","tag-money","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-officials","tag-over","tag-peters","tag-project","tag-public","tag-says","tag-scandal","tag-should","tag-spent","tag-taxpayers","tag-tech","tag-theft","tag-upgrade","tag-winston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}