A report into the leaking of Cabinet papers on the restructuring of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was a colossal waste of money, Labour's Phil Goff says.
The State Services Commission asked for the inquiry after the Government became outraged at information being leaked to Goff, the party's foreign affairs spokesperson.
The investigation and legal defence – which cost the commission $510,000 – found that the source was most likely a temporary staff member at the State Services Commission, who used to work for the Labour Party, but could only say there were strong suspicions that person was responsible.
Goff says the 18-month inquiry was expensive and inconclusive, and all it does is expose the damage done to an effective ministry and a committed group of civil servants in the name of cost-cutting and ideology.
But State Services Minister Jonathan Coleman said Goff is a central figure in the report and is implicated in senior public servants compromising their political neutrality.