The document relates to Fonterra and Z Energy lobbying for a law change in relation to pending litigation, Smith v Fonterra. The litigation was launched against a range of firms over their contribution to climate pollution.<\/p>\n
The documents were not released when requested after a request under the Official Information Act (OIA), despite the fact Fonterra and Z Energy both admitted to sending them to the Prime Minister\u2019s Office \u2013 a fact revealed during a High Court disclosure. <\/p>\n
In a statement, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said \u201cit has been brought to our attention that the hard copy document relating to the Smith v Fonterra case was also sent from a Fonterra staff member to the former Beehive staff member\u2019s private email account”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis does not meet the standards expected of staff in the Beehive and we are treating it with the seriousness it deserves, with a number of reviews underway,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Internal Affairs is conducting a review of the former staff member\u2019s IT account to ensure there are no further documents or meetings relating to the Smith v Fonterra case that should be released, and will work with the individual to identify whether there are any other work-related documents on their private email that should be on the public record. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe former staff member has given an assurance that there are no other emails relating to the Smith v Fonterra case on their private email.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeparately, the Ombudsman has initiated its own review into how this OIA release was handled. <\/p>\n
\u201cUsing private email to share official information undermines transparency and public trust. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt remains appropriate for interested parties to talk to ministers and their staff on policy matters, but it is imperative that information is appropriately recorded and transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n
That did not happen here, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe individual concerned has not worked in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office since October last year and has not worked at Parliament since January,\u201d the spokesman said in the statement.<\/p>\n
Speaking later at a press conference, Luxon said he didn\u2019t know why the former staffer had used their private Gmail account.<\/p>\n
He said if the \u201cprocess failings\u201d were put aside, the Government had decided to change the legislation to ensure the climate change framework remained the responsibility of the state, rather than the courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s actually a no-brainer when you look at the substance. We\u2019re not interested in a parallel system where the courts interpret climate-change frameworks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon said he didn\u2019t talk with Burgess at all on the matter. He also didn\u2019t believe there was a widespread issue within his office of people using private emails.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no evidence of that,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve got very professional staff who are well aware of their obligations, but that\u2019s why we are putting full court press on it and drawing attention to the issue, because it\u2019s a good teachable moment, to remind staff of their obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour leader Chris Hipkins on Tuesday said: \u201cThe more new information comes to light, the more this looks like a deliberate ploy by the Prime Minister\u2019s Office to hide the extent of industry lobbying and influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis stinks to high heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon responded to that by saying Hipkins may wish to \u201cpolitic\u201d on it but he was focused on making sure \u201cwe\u2019ve got robustness and rigorousness in our processes\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The document relates to Fonterra and Z Energy lobbying for a law change in relation to pending litigation,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29184,5811,59346,12974,16426,4442,49717,1651,17246,1459,7226,2740,71,20513,213613,27983,6722,111,43,139,69,6270,415,1136,7565,19764,55629,1361,61,13797],"class_list":["post-456455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-account","tag-admitted","tag-beehive","tag-change","tag-christopher","tag-climate","tag-copy","tag-digital","tag-document","tag-email","tag-fonterra","tag-former","tag-from","tag-legislation","tag-lobbied","tag-luxons","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-office","tag-prime","tag-private","tag-receive","tag-received","tag-staffer","tag-that","tag-to","tag-used"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456455","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=456455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}