{"id":66958,"date":"2025-10-09T03:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/66958\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T03:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:41:07","slug":"police-should-have-alerted-government-of-press-secretary-allegations-sooner-review-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/66958\/","title":{"rendered":"Police should have alerted government of press secretary allegations sooner, review finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4K6BN61_Michael_Forbes_png\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1050\" alt=\"Michael Forbes\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: LinkedIn\/Michael Forbes\n<\/p>\n<p>The review prompted by the scandal surrounding ex-Beehive press secretary Michael Forbes has found that the police should have alerted the government earlier under the &#8220;no surprises&#8221; convention.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Christopher Luxon ordered the &#8220;deep dive&#8221; in June after Forbes quit his job due to revelations he had covertly recorded audio of Wellington sex workers.<\/p>\n<p>Police had investigated a complaint in July last year but opted not to charge Forbes, who at the time was working for Social Development Minister Louise Upston.<\/p>\n<p>The Beehive was never informed of the investigation until media started asking questions earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>In its report, released Thursday afternoon, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) said its process and procedures were &#8220;sound&#8221; but could, and would, be strengthened.<\/p>\n<p>It makes 14 recommendations, including striking an arrangement with police to ensure they immediately alert the government if they accessed a DIA-issued device.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;DIA has already started to implement the recommendations and will continue to work with other agencies to ensure that the lessons learned are shared and acted upon,&#8221; deputy secretary for partnerships and commissions, Hoani Lambert said.<\/p>\n<p>More to come&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: LinkedIn\/Michael Forbes The review prompted by the scandal surrounding ex-Beehive press secretary Michael Forbes has found that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-66958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66958","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=66958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}