New Zealand MP complains emails are being blocked

Chris Hipkins is the Shadow Leader of the House in New Zealand's 121-seat parliament

The Speaker of New Zealand's parliament is investigating a complaint that MPs' emails are being screened and, in some cases, blocked.

The discovery was made by Chris Hipkins of the opposition Labour Party when he tried to send a message to a journalist, the New Zealand Herald reports. According to Mr Hipkins, the email was blocked by the parliamentary mail service because it contained "sensitive words". Further investigation among Labour staff found other instances where emails were filtered in recent weeks.

The email in question contained a document obtained under the Official Information Act, which previously had a government security classification, Radio New Zealand reports. Parliamentary Services, which manages MPs' emails, said the message was stopped because it was being sent to an address outside the government's secure system and contained trigger words.

"That's outrageous, they have no right to be screening emails sent by members of parliament," says Mr Hipkins.

One of the "sensitive words" which caused this particular mail to be filtered was the word "sensitive", according to Stuff.co.nz. But Mr Hipkins seems unamused by this ironic turn of events, and says the filtering is "a clear breach of parliamentary privilege".

"What they have done is tipped us off to the fact that they're monitoring what we're sending in our emails, which is completely unacceptable," he says, raising the memory of a previous scandal in 2013 when emails between MP Peter Dunne and a journalist were wrongly given to a ministerial inquiry. That affair resulted in the head of Parliamentary Services resigning from his post.

Speaker David Carter will deliver a report to parliament regarding the complaint on 14 September.

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