The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has been found in contempt of Parliament for deliberately misleading a select committee regarding the status of the Immigration NZ Biometric Capability Upgrade (BCU) project, which cost $31.2 million. The Privileges Committee released its findings on Wednesday, stating that the ministry’s senior officials knowingly provided incomplete answers during an Education and Workforce Select Committee hearing in March.
The Immigration project was terminated on December 9, 2025. This fact was not disclosed to the committee during the March hearing, where officials discussed the project’s progress. The committee did not learn about the cancellation or the need to write off the funds until June 16, 2026, when Immigration Minister Erica Stanford tabled a review of the failed initiative. The committee found that MBIE knew it was withholding information and that officials were certain the committee had been misled about the project’s status. This constitutes a contempt under Standing Order 418(b).
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However, the committee accepted the evidence of MBIE chief executive Nic Blakeley, who testified that there was “no active or deliberate decision not to share information about the status of the project.” Blakeley called the lack of discussion on the project during preparatory sessions an oversight, describing the ministry as “clearly not adequately prepared.” The committee noted that this explanation was surprising, given that MBIE had already received multiple Official Information Act (OIA) requests about the project, commissioned a review, and faced media inquiries.
Former Immigration NZ head Alison McDonald, who answered questions alongside Blakeley, told the committee that “commercial sensitivity” around the project prevented her from discussing it with anyone beyond the Minister of Immigration and a small group of ministry staff. While the committee accepted that constraints exist when matters are subject to Cabinet decisions, it found that the obligation to raise these limits lies with the officials. MBIE failed to flag the project’s cancellation either orally on March 4 or in a written update in April, when it claimed the ministry had “changed its approach” to the upgrade. That “change in approach” was, in fact, the cancellation of the project.
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Labour immigration spokesperson Phil Twyford raised the matter with the Speaker after making three OIA requests between 2024 and 2026. He described the answers provided by McDonald as “obfuscation and omission,” arguing the situation was “not terribly complicated.” The committee noted that neither Blakeley nor McDonald was aware that evidence could be given to a select committee in private, a gap in their knowledge the committee described as “alarming” and indicative of “negligent” behavior by senior public servants.
The Privileges Committee recommended no sanction beyond the finding itself, stating its findings would serve as sufficient consequence. The ministry has accepted the finding and apologized to both committees. Blakeley said, “As chief executive, I accept responsibility for this failure. Accountability rests with me. Parliament, ministers and the public are entitled to expect better from MBIE. My focus I now is on making sure failure of this nature does not happen again. Parliament must be able to trust that public service agencies will provide accurate, complete and frank information. In this case, MBIE failed to meet that standard.”
