Inquiry into Chief of Air Force ‘rumour’ comes after Public Service Commission screening for top military role
A formal investigation into alleged improper conduct by Chief of Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb was not commissioned until around a year after his appointment was finalised – despite the Public Service Commission having been aware during its probity process of a rumour relating to his conduct.
The allegation had first been raised with then Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short in 2023, who conducted a preliminary assessment but did not tell the commission when it was scrutinising Webb for the senior role.
Judith Collins – who holds both the defence and public service portfolios – will not say whether she was aware of the issue before Chief of Defence Air Marshal Tony Davies launched a “command inquiry” through a King’s Counsel (KC) in July this year.
“I am aware of an allegation made against a senior NZDF [New Zealand Defence Force] officer and the existence of the investigation by a King’s Counsel, which was instigated by the Chief of Defence Force in July 2025,” Collins told the Herald.
“I was apprised of the KC’s inquiries relating to the allegation and have been advised by the Chief of the Defence Force that no evidence was found of any wrongdoing by the senior NZDF officer.”
That inquiry finished this month with the finding there was no evidence to support the claim Webb had made an inappropriate comment to a junior officer at a function overseas.
The Herald has found that the KC’s inquiry is actually the third investigation carried out into the allegation – and all investigations have found no evidence to support the claim.
Inquiries by the Herald have found that the allegation was known to former Chief of Defence, Air Marshal Kevin Short, in 2023 and to the Public Service Commission in 2024, when it screened Webb for the Chief of Air Force role.
The commission – under pressure over clearing shamed cop Jevon McSkimming for the deputy commissioner role – told the Herald it learned of a “rumour” involving Webb and carried out its own inquiries.
The commission process to appoint McSkimming was scrutinised in a report by Miriam Dean CNZM, KC, which commissioner Sir Brian Roche said: “This has been a wake-up call”.
Dean’s review found the scrutiny process had to have trust in the sponsoring agency and “rightly observed” the chair of McSkimming’s appointment process saying: “We can’t hear rumours and run our own investigation into them”.
In relation to the Webb assessment, a spokesman for the commission said: “The commission was aware of a rumour and made appropriate inquiries during probity checks. The inquiries did not substantiate the rumour.”
The NZDF has not responded to questions about whether Short or any of its personnel formally notified the Public Service Commission when Webb was put forward for the top air force job.
The Herald has been investigating NZDF’s response to the allegation since July this year, initially being told in response to an Official Information Act request it was barred by law from disclosing information provided as a “protected disclosure” and a wider search had not found anything that existed outside any whistleblower approach. It said: “The NZDF has made reasonable inquiries and has not found any information matching the request”.
This month, the NZDF told the Herald in a statement the allegation was known to Short in 2023.
In 2023, Webb served as Deputy Chief of Air Force until October that year when he became acting Chief of Air Force. The NZDF has not said when in 2023 the concern was raised with Short.
Short told the Herald the allegation had been raised with him as a “protected disclosure” limiting what could be said.
He said he carried out a “preliminary investigation” at the time through the NZDF’s legal and personnel sections and nothing was found to support the information provided.
Asked if he had told the commission, he said: “There was nothing to disclose.”
He said he had no recollection of the commission approaching him to ask “if there something in this rumour”.
With reference to the KC’s inquiry, Short said he hoped the formal approach would bring an end to the “rumours and other speculation” which had “kept it fuelled”.
In May 2024, the position of Chief of Air Force – along with that for CDF and other heads of service – was formally opened for application by the commission, starting its probity and reference checking process.
The Herald asked the commission whether Short disclosed the matter during the assessment process.
It did not respond directly with a spokesman saying it “made appropriate inquiries during probity checks” after hearing a “rumour”.
“The inquiries did not substantiate the rumour,” he said. The checks “did not identify any adverse information about the senior NZDF officer”.
The commission spokesman said the allegation was not passed on to the panel that interviewed Webb for the role.
“There was nothing to disclose. The person allegedly involved did not make a complaint, and probity checks – both verbal and written – did not raise any concerns that would have affected the appointment.”
The interview panel was made up of former Governor-General Lieutenant General Sir Jeremiah Mateparae, stewardship and governance specialist Liz Coutts, former Police Commissioner Mike Bush and former National Party MP Harete Hipango.
Asked if it would have expected the matter to be disclosed by Short, the spokesman said it was aware he “took steps in relation to third-party concerns about a senior NZDF officer” but did not explain what those were. It was aware that an investigation had been launched by Davies this year finding “no evidence of inappropriate conduct”.
The NZDF provided a statement and has said it will not answer further questions.
In the statement, the NZDF said: “The current CDF [Chief of Defence Force] instigated a Command Investigation, to be carried out by a King’s Counsel, in July 2025.”
The statement said the KC’s investigation report was received in early November and it “found no evidence of wrongdoing by a senior NZDF officer over an alleged inappropriate comment to an international officer during an offshore visit”.
The statement said the KC had interviewed a number of people to identify where the alleged inappropriate comment was said to have occurred, as well as the circumstances relating to the alleged comment.
In doing so, the KC interviewed Webb who denied making any such comment.
The KC then went on to interview the “international officer who was allegedly subject to the inappropriate comment”, another “international officer” who told an NZDF officer of the situation and the NZDF officer who received that information.
The Herald has been told that the junior officer was British and that the function was in the United Kingdom. The other “international officer” who told the NZDF officer was said to be Australian.
The NZDF’s statement said the KC reported to Davies – the current Chief of Defence Force – that the officer alleged to be subject to the comment “did not recall the alleged comment being made toward them by the senior NZDF officer”.
The statement said the officer had no concerns over behaviour at the event and recalled it as a gathering of “a very personable and professional group of senior and junior officers”.
The statement also said that the officer couldn’t recall any concerns raised by others about conversations at the event.
The NZDF said the KC had found the officers who passed on the information “were not at the event and therefore did not witness anything themselves”. The officers could not provide information as to the source of the allegation, the statement said.
“Given the conclusions of the KC’s investigation, there is no basis for further action to be taken and the NZDF considers the allegation to be unsubstantiated and the matter closed,” the NZDF said in the statement.
The NZDF statement also said Short’s handling of the issue was part of the KC’s inquiry and the steps he took were “within the range of reasonable responses available to him”.
The NZDF and the commission did not name Webb in statements sent to the Herald. Instead, they referred to a “senior officer”.
The Herald has sought comment from Webb through the NZDF but none has been provided.
The statement was provided after months of inquiries by the Herald into claims circulating in military circles.
Webb’s appointment went through the same commission processes later scrutinised in the case of McSkimming.
McSkimming was appointed deputy commissioner in 2023 after a Public Service Commission-managed process. Serious allegations about his past relationship with a junior staffer had not been formalised as a complaint or raised through any official misconduct channel which meant the commission did not treat it as adverse information at the time.
It also triggered an independent review of the commission’s reference and probity checks by Deane, who found gaps in how integrity risks were tested before appointment.
Her report said there was a need for earlier and more probing questioning around conduct, better documentation of answers, and greater attention to issues that might “later gain traction” even if no formal complaint existed at the time.
With police and now defence, the same probity settings treated unsubstantiated but sensitive concerns as non-disclosable when senior leaders were being appointed.
Webb has more than three decades of operational flying – including tours in Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq – along with strategic leadership experience across defence capability and national crisis operations.
In 2020, Webb was seconded to the Government’s all-of-government Covid-19 response and, in June of that year, appointed Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine centres.
In that role, he oversaw about 30 isolation and quarantine facilities across the country and brought in systems intended to stop the spread of Covid-19. It was for this work he was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2022 New Year Honours.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He first joined the Herald in 2004.
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