$33 million immigration tech project written off after officials withheld truth from two governments

Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche has launched a formal integrity investigation into a $33 million biometric immigration technology project that ran for seven years and delivered nothing. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says officials deliberately withheld information from successive Labour and National-led governments about the project's failure. The allegation moves beyond programme failure into questions about whether public servants breached their duty to provide honest advice to ministers.