For securing scalps and record penalties at a time when few financial regulators are having much luck, AUSTRAC CEO Nicole Rose usually gets a good run in the press. But not, for once, in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, which spectacularly accused the anti-money laundering watchdog of having "potentially bungled" the Westpac case by not promptly alerting police to child exploitation offences, and risking any subsequent policy investigations by releasing identifying details about alleged offences before police had time to act.

The piece – on Sunday dismissed by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton as an "outrageous" "hatchet job" coming at a time "[Rose is] going after some pretty big fish" – was the result of an "eight-month investigation" into Rose's "meteoric" rise and qualifications for the $498,910-a-year role.