Education Minister Erica Stanford has been using her personal email account for work purposes. Photo: Samuel Rillstone / RNZ
Education Minister Erica Stanford has been using her personal email account for work purposes, including sending herself pre-Budget announcements to print out.
The Cabinet manual says Ministers should avoid using their personal email account or phone, and where that cannot be avoided ensure classified information is handled appropriately. Records must also be kept for official information requests.
1News reported the details of an Official Information Act response on Monday, showing Stanford last May forwarded the pre-Budget announcement - of the government's $53 million plans to recruit 1500 teachers over four years - to her personal account, including a draft media release, fact sheet and speaking notes.
She also directed officials via her personal account as recently as 2 March.
In April last year, Stanford - who is also the Immigration Minister - did the same with documents about the Accredited Employer Work Visa, which included details about changes that were not revealed until late June.
She also corresponded with Dr Michael Johnston, a senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative conservative think tank, about an advisory group working on changes to the English, Maths and Science curriculums using her personal address, as well as with schools and principals.
Speaking to reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Stanford had been having printing problems and received messages from the public, but had since made changes after his office spoke to her about it.
"My office has spoken with her, I understand it's been very few occasions. What I'd say is that she has had tech issues with printing, that's a good example. I'm aware ministers in the previous government ... used personal emails in the same way," Luxon said.
"I'm very relaxed about it. The reality is she's received unsolicited emails, she's had printing issues, she's had tech issues. She's made changes subsequently, she's got the IT support that she needs in place, and I'm very comfortable with it."
He said Labour leader Chris Hipkins had for example used his personal accounts for printing as well.
"I'm just saying there's a history ... under the cabinet manual, it's quite okay and quite acceptable that there will be moments in time where people might need to use their personal phones and emails in order for things like printing materials or IT tech support.
"Look, I'm super relaxed about it ... Erica's office has spoken to my office about it, she's made the changes that she needed to make."
In a statement, Stanford said she had used her personal account - which was publicly available at the time - when she was in opposition, and sometimes received emails from the public or stakeholders through that account since becoming a minister.
"Where necessary, I have forwarded these emails to my ministerial email or ministerial staff to be actioned or be included in official information. Many emails to my personal email have previously been considered in scope of official information act requests and released to requestors."
She also at times sent copies of briefings for printing at home or her electorate office, typically for announcements, international travel or media events away from Wellington, she said - but had since made changes to her processes.
"I've set up an automatic reply for my personal email address to direct unsolicited emails to relevant Parliament email addresses. Following the confirmation of the location of my electorate office and completion of the required renovations, Parliamentary Service installed my office printer to the Parliamentary network. This process was completed last month as Parliamentary Service was unwilling to install the printer until the electorate office location and renovation was finalised."
No justification, says Hipkins
Hipkins said he had changed the official advice when he was prime minister, to make it clear ministers should not be using their personal email accounts.
"The technology in Parliament has improved dramatically in the last few years, there's no longer a need to use personal email accounts for example to print documents, the technology allows for that. The technology is now all fully mobile, it previously wasn't ... so there's absolutely no justification for that," Hipkins said.
He said there would be "some limited circumstances where it's unavoidable" for ministers to use their personal accounts for work, but his own past use of personal email was because of technological limitations that had since largely been overcome.
"If someone emails you, unsolicited, for example to your personal email account, what I used to do was then forward that to my Parliamentary email account and then reply to it from my Parliamentary account so that it would be on record.
"The only other times when I ever received information in an official capacity [to his personal account] were things like speech notes when I was out and about and not able to be in the building, so I could print them or use them of a digital device that couldn't access the Parliamentary system.
"That's no longer a justification because all of Parliament's digital technology's been updated."
As well as concerns about ensuring all the information was retained for official records, security was also a factor, he said.
"The GCSB and the SIS have recently released quite detailed information about the lengths that some are going to, to access information that is not publicly available. Exchanging sensitive government documents using a Gmail account is like hanging out a big welcome sign to those actors - many of who are overseas - 'come and look here'."
Whether it was a sacking offence would depend on the nature of the information, he said.
"Certainly Budget information, any security information, none of that should be transacted using a personal email account."
Where party policy - as opposed to government policy - was concerned, the situation was slightly different, he said.
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