{"id":447872,"date":"2026-05-27T14:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447872\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T14:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:31:12","slug":"christopher-luxons-staffer-at-centre-of-climate-lobbying-allegations-revealed-as-former-chief-policy-advisor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447872\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Luxon\u2019s staffer at centre of climate lobbying allegations revealed as former chief policy advisor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burgess was named in a report from The Post, citing political sources, as the staffer who received hand-delivered corporate briefing notes from Z Energy and Fonterra in mid-2024. <\/p>\n

The notes were not disclosed when requested by environmental groups<\/a> under the Official Information Act in March 2025. <\/p>\n

Luxon\u2019s office initially said it hadn\u2019t been aware of any meeting between staff and the two companies or any record of receiving a briefing note. <\/p>\n

However, it later confirmed the document had been handed to a staffer, but there was \u201cno record or recollection of that interaction\u201d.<\/p>\n

Luxon told the House yesterday<\/a> the staffer involved had \u201cleft a while ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Herald contacted Burgess, who said \u201cI have nothing to add\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"MattMatt Burgess is a former economist at The New Zealand Initiative. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The document, which came to light this month through a discovery process in the High Court, was prepared as part of climate activist Mike Smith\u2019s case<\/a> in which he was suing emitters over their emissions. <\/p>\n

The document contained a potential amendment to climate law to \u201cresolve the uncertainty and risks posed by private law claims like Mr Smith\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced an amendment<\/a> \u201cto prevent findings of liability for tort for climate change damage or harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions in both current and future proceedings before the courts\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister said it was a Cabinet decision to amend the climate law and \u201cthere are many ministers who felt very strongly about this situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Luxon refused to confirm Burgess\u2019 identity, when asked by reporters as he walked to the House this afternoon. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am not going to go into names, as I said yesterday, I don\u2019t think it is appropriate. But the staff member hasn\u2019t worked here for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Christopher Luxon arriving for the post-Cabinet press conference with Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Green Party: Govt \u2018pimping for corporates\u2019<\/p>\n

Swarbrick claimed Luxon and his office were involved in an \u201calleged cover-up\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m implying, suggesting or making it crystal clear and black and white that it feels very uncredible for a Prime Minister not to know that his chief policy adviser was meeting with the largest company in this country. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an alleged cover up. As long as there is not clear information in the public arena about what is going on, the allegations stand. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd actually, it is incumbent on the Prime Minister to be clear on what he knew and when.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the Government was \u201cpimping for corporate then trying to deny what\u2019s going on\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s have a big look at who this Government cares about, you are looking at documents that they are covering up because they are pimping for corporates,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Luxon said he had asked Ministerial Services \u2013 which employs staff \u2013 to \u201cremind all staff of their obligations about record keeping\u201d. <\/p>\n

The Office of the Ombudsman has since launched an investigation into the handling of information by the Prime Minister\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burgess was named in a report from The Post, citing political sources, as the staffer who received hand-delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6935,23846,26676,806,1975,1558,1550,3937,16426,4442,25355,1667,7226,2740,82,8563,27983,3556,111,43,139,69,1118,4762,7254,12860,55629],"class_list":["post-447872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-adviser","tag-advisor","tag-allegations","tag-as","tag-at","tag-been","tag-centre","tag-chief","tag-christopher","tag-climate","tag-debacle","tag-energy","tag-fonterra","tag-former","tag-identified","tag-lobbying","tag-luxons","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-party","tag-policy","tag-revealed","tag-staffer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}