The Minister in charge of the GCSB in 2021, when a cyber-attack targeted Parliamentary entities - says it needed time before it could be widely revealed

The spy agency announced the intrusion today - saying it's been linked to a Chinese-state-backed actor.

China's ambassador to New Zealand - Wang Xiaolong has called the accusations groundless and irresponsible.

Andrew Little says making a coordinated announcement of this nature on this particular hack has been talked about for some months/

But he says obviously everything lined up in the last 24 hours.