The Australian Federal Police dumped a $145 million plan to fight crime using software developed in the Middle Eastern flashpoints of Gaza and the West Bank after an intervention by Finance Department boss Jane Halton.

The increasingly powerful Finance secretary wrote to AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin in January after her department's Major Project's Review team completed an appraisal of the police force's plans to buy the Israeli-made policing software.

Department Secretary Jane Halton may join her workforce and shell out cash for parking. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Finance and the federal police are keeping the contents of the letter and the review a secret, but Ms Halton's intervention marked the beginning of the end of the AFP's deal with Elbit Systems.