There has been no talk of demotion or censure since news broke last week chief ombudsman Judge Peter Boshier had found her decisions unreasonable and contrary to law.
Instead, Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters, briefly commenting on RNZ, almost seemed to regard her as the heroine of the hour because she had apologised and vowed to do better.
It left us wondering if he had read Judge Boshier’s damning case note. Yes, she did apologise, months after she refused the original wide-ranging requests in their entirety, and then presumably only at the Ombudsman’s urging.
Mr Peters said her staff were new and grappling with how to handle the Official Information Act. Ms Costello said while it did not excuse her decision, her office was in a transitional state at the time the information was sought. It was now better equipped to manage OIA requests.
Why should we have any patience with this tough-on-crime government flouting a law which has been around since 1982?
Are we to believe when the smoke-free legislation repeal became a political hot potato once the ink dried on the coalition agreement, the issue was left wholly to this fledgling MP and associate minister whose staff were running about saying "What is this OIA of which you speak?"
Around the same time Ms Costello refused the OIA requests, and shortly before Parliament repealed the smoke-free law under urgency, she apologised to Parliament for "causing confusion" when answering questions about whether she specifically sought advice on freezing the tobacco excise tax.
Judge Boshier’s case note outlines the way Ms Costello dealt with requests, one from RNZ’s Guyon Espiner and the other from University of Otago public health academic Prof Janet Hoek, seeking information about the repeal of the smoke-free law, and tobacco and vaping policies.
He says Ms Costello did not fulfil her legal obligation to confirm and scope the information requested, locate and assemble the information she held within that scope, consider whether each piece of information should be withheld, or identify and assess the strength of any public interest factors which might favour release.
As well, during his inquiry she did not supply relevant attachments to emails and failed to supply him with unredacted information, which was required for the purposes of his investigation.
How he is supposed to do his job in such circumstances is not clear to us.
As Victoria University of Wellington official information and open government researcher Andrew Ecclestone told RNZ, there is no penalty for breaching the OIA, but the Ombudsman Act 1975 provides for a maximum fine of $200 for failing to comply with any lawful requirement of an ombudsman.
Nobody appears to have made the call for that to be invoked, possibly because the level of fine is laughable.
However, the matter may drag on because Prof Hoek has indicated she is considering asking Judge Boshier about whether the grounds for heavy redactions in some documents now released are justified.
As she points out, if the coalition government says it is making evidence-based decisions, but will not let us see that evidence, it is impossible to hold it to account.
In April last year, in the wake of a scandal about the handling of emails involving Labour minister Stuart Nash, Act New Zealand leader David Seymour said there needed to be criminal penalties for knowing and deliberate non-compliance with the OIA.
"Ministers and government departments need to know there will be consequences for deliberately flouting the rules."
Since he is acting prime minister this week, Mr Seymour should take the opportunity to return to this issue again, and also tell us whether there should be any action taken over Ms Costello’s behaviour.
