It seems the whistle was being blown so hard at the Transport Ministry that it deafened those who should have had their ear to the ground.
This is a bizarre case of public service fraud, bizarre because it seems the woman at the centre of it, currently in prison for
more than three years Joanne Harrison, was so good at pulling the wool that the man who has been appointed as the Government's watchdog, new Auditor General Martin Matthews swallowed the bone.
No fewer than eight times, three whistle blowers were alerting those who were meant to be pulling the purse strings at the Transport Ministry that Matthews headed, that something wasn't right about what Harrison was up to.
In fact she was essentially awarding contracts to herself and the excuse used by her boss at the time, who didn't seem interested in an internal inquiry, was lame.
Matthews was quoted as saying that anybody who's dealt with people who commit these sorts of crimes will understand they are typically quite sophisticated.
Surely it follows then the Auditor General when dealing with a complaint against the Government, which is now his job, would run the real risk of being duped by the sophistication of the Beehive's massive spin machine which would make Harrison look like a rank amateur.
The Speaker met with the panel of politicians from all the political parties who appointed Matthews in the first place and emerged saying he'd offered to step aside while there's an inquiry into whether he's the right man for his new job.
While he's at it, let's hope the inquirer has a look at the political chumps who appointed him to the job while at the same time the Serious Fraud Office was looking into what turned out to be a $725,000 fraud.
And also while he's at it, hopefully he'll have something to say about why the three whistle blowers were drummed out of the Ministry when in fact, given what they were complaining about, they surely deserve a public service medal rather than a redundancy cheque.
Ironically the political whistle blower who uncovered the scandal at a Parliamentary select committee, Labour MP Sue Moroney, has herself been drummed out of Parliament, resigning rather than accepting an unwinnable place on the party's list.
That's political justice for you.
