Jessica Mutch McKay: Budget leak saga an extraordinary story and embarrassing for Government

The Budget leak saga has been "a really extraordinary story and it is still developing", says 1 NEWS political editor Jessica Mutch McKay. 

It's a situation that is "embarrassing" and a distraction for the Government, ahead of the highly anticipated Budget 2019, she said. 

Jessica Mutch McKay's analysis of the situation so far:

Yesterday, National released Budget-sensitive information . We've found out Treasury have gone to police , saying it was "deliberately and systematically" hacked. 

It says it was 2000 times over 48 hours. Following that news, Finance Minister Grant Robertson put out a statement, appealing to the National Party not to release any more information. 

Treasury said there was no evidence it was National, but it appears to be the same information. 

What has been National's response?

Simon Bridges came out this morning, doubling down on this , saying they did not hack, no third party hacked, they said they did not pay for this information and they absolutely did not do anything unlawful. 

National will not say how they obtained the information, but Simon Bridges is adamant that he has not done anything wrong. 

There are also questions about what actually "hacking" means, in terms of its definition, whether you can obtain information easily on a website, if that counts as hacking. But Simon Bridges says by any definition, the National Party did not hack, or receive any hacked information. 

With the Budget looming tomorrow, what is the impact?

The Government say the "big stuff" still hasn't been announced yet, but there is no doubt this has been embarrassing. This has been a distraction.

It's not how the Finance Minister or the Government wanted this week to play out. 

To keep up to date with tomorrow's Budget announcements at 2pm, go to 1newsnow.co.nz, or watch the 1 NEWS Budget Special on TVNZ1.