New Zealand's opposition claims to have released details of the country's top-secret national budget, causing a distracting headache for the government just days ahead of a much-touted reveal.
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The administration denies its thunder has been stolen.
Thursday is set to see the release of what the Ardern government has labelled a "Wellbeing Budget" - its second go at the annual books and one that will for the first time explicitly put measures such as child poverty next to the usual economic bottom lines.
International and domestic observers alike have been keenly waiting to see what this new kind of government accounting will yield.
The centre-right opposition, however, on Tuesday grabbed the headlines by releasing what it said was 20 pages of details from the budget it had gained access to ahead of time, covering a range of departments.
A few hours later another release followed.
The budget is one of the government's most closely-guarded secrets and a leak would be a major worry.
New Zealand's then-finance minister, Roger Douglas, offered to resign in 1986 after the accounts were sent out early.
"This is unprecedented. I can't think historically of anything like this. It shows how loose and incompetent the government is," National Party and opposition leader Simon Bridges told reporters.
But he wouldn't say where the numbers came from or even if they were deliberately leaked, making them difficult to verify.
He has, however, used the figures released to argue the government will still be spending up large on areas such as defence and international development assistance, despite what was meant to be a focus on welfare.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson is adamant what's been shown to the public isn't the upcoming budget, but admits at least some of it is right - although, not wanting to pre-empt Thursday's announcements - won't say how much or what.
He also says the biggest parts of the plan are missing from the document and that the claims about defence spending are misleading.
"This is not the real budget," he told reporters in a quickly called press conference.
"The major new spending initiatives that the government is putting forward as part of our Wellbeing Budget are not listed."
As for where the information had come from and whether heads would roll, Roberston said they were matters for after Thursday's unveiling.
New Zealand's Treasury department in a statement said it had launched its own review into the released information.
Australian Associated Press
