Parliamentary Services is spying on MPs

At the start of Question Time today, Labour whip Chris Hipkins raised a very serious matter: Parliamentary Services is spying on MP's emails, and blocking them on the basis of whether the content is classified by the government.

If true, this is a significant breach of privilege, and a betrayal of trust by an organisation which is supposed to serve and assist MPs. The freedom of speech and freedom to receive information of MPs is fundamental to their role and protected by Parliamentary Privilege. In this case, Parliamentary services was caught preventing an MP from passing on to a journalist information they had lawfully received under the Official Information Act. But it would also intercept leaks made to MPs, undermining a fundamental safeguard in our democracy. More importantly, any spying on MPs and their communications is simply unacceptable and a threat to our democracy.

Parliamentary services owes us all an explanation as to who came up with this idea and how much they've spied on, intercepted and blocked. But more importantly, they need to stop fucking doing it. The communications of MPs are sacrosanct. And having a bunch of bureaucrats censoring them for the convenience of the unelected Deep State is simply unacceptable.