Parliament and the Public Service Commission have launched separate inquiries into claims that Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials concealed information about a troubled biometric systems project from both ministers and a select committee.

Two parallel inquiries

The Speaker has sent privilege complaints to the Privileges Committee for examination, following complaints lodged by Labour MP Phil Twyford and Parliament's Education and Workforce Committee. At the same time, the Public Service Commission has opened its own probe into whether ministers were kept in the dark.

The commission has appointed Michael Heron KC to conduct its investigation, with terms of reference examining ministerial communications and the Public Sector Code of Conduct. That inquiry is expected to take several months, with no fixed timeframe beyond "as soon as practicable". The parliamentary inquiry will receive advice from Attorney General Chris Bishop.

Cost blowouts and accounting practices

The controversy centres on the Biometric Capability Update project, which has been operating since 2018. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford delivered a report to the Education and Workforce Committee outlining what she described as multiple MBIE failures in managing the programme.

Twyford, a former immigration minister, said the report revealed that a series of ministers received partial and misleading advice, while the project's financial management was designed to avoid exceeding the $35 million threshold that would have triggered Cabinet scrutiny. He also said that MBIE staff who raised concerns about the project's progress were moved sideways or out.

The project's initial whole-of-life cost was $19.49 million. Ministers were first alerted in November 2021 that total costs had risen to $30 million, and an additional $22 million was approved from baselines to continue the work. But the project had already hit $30 million by July 2020, more than a year before that formal notification.

Committee hearing concerns

The privilege complaints stem in part from a 4 March hearing at which senior MBIE officials appeared before the Education and Workforce Committee during annual review hearings. Twyford characterised their responses as flannel and dissembling, saying officials provided no substantive facts about the project.

Committee chair Katie Nimon, a National MP, said officials had been forewarned in the structured agenda that questions about new IT systems would be asked, but their answers were not extensive. "We need to be able to trust the advice that we are given," Nimon said. "We also need to trust that when we are scrutinising agencies, answers to questions that are genuine questions that require substantive answers are answered."

Stakes for accountability

The issue has been the first business on two successive Parliamentary sitting days, starting with an urgent debate over claims that officials may have misled multiple government ministers.

Twyford framed the issue as fundamental to parliamentary oversight. "It is fundamental to Parliament's purpose to be holding the Executive accountable for the spending of public money and the implementation of policies," he said. "This isn't about an IT project and it's not about some officials who have said this or that; it's about whether our institutions remain worthy of the trust that people place in them… The villain here isn't the individuals involved; it's the erosion of accountability and the erosion of public trust in government."

Labour's Shadow Attorney General, Vanushi Walters, said: "I think democracy is a very fragile institution and that there's an obligation on all limbs of our democratic architecture to perform their functions with integrity."

What Parliament can do

Select committee witnesses are required to be truthful, and Parliament has previously found witnesses in contempt for deliberately misleading committees, wilfully suppressing evidence, or knowingly providing false information. However, misleading a committee does not automatically constitute a criminal offence, as witnesses rarely take an oath.

The Privileges Committee has power to investigate and recommend punishments to the House, including fines. A late amendment to the recently passed Parliament Bill made clear that Parliament cannot imprison those found guilty of a breach of privilege.