Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop join Erica Stanford in admitting they used personal emails

RNZ News

06-05-2025

Documents show Erica Stanford forwarded some emails which included government policy and Budget details to her personal email address.
Photo:
RNZ / REECE BAKER
Education Minister Erica Stanford is not alone in forwarding Parliament and ministerial emails to her personal account.
Both Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop confirmed on Tuesday they are guilty of having done the same thing in order to print or access a document while away from the office.
Documents show Stanford forwarded emails to her
personal email address
, some of which included details of government policies and Budget documents.
She said it was for the purposes of printing documents that could not be printed from her Parliamentary email. The printer problem had now been fixed.
The Cabinet Manual says ministers should avoid using personal mobile and email accounts wherever possible.
On Tuesday morning Stanford told reporters she had sorted the issue, and the prime minister has backed her saying he's "super relaxed" and "comfortable" about the changes she has made.
Stanford admitted, however, it was not a good look.
"The Cabinet Manual says where you have to you must take these steps, which I believe I have followed. But you're absolutely right, it's untidy, it's not best practice and I've taken steps to fix that."
Stanford denied ever forwarding sensitive Budget documents onto a third party from her personal account.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said he had "occasionally" forwarded Parliament emails to a personal email to get it printed faster - but had never forwarded Budget sensitive information.
"As a habit I don't forward ministerial documents or work to my gmail... Budget sensitive information is held sensitively."
Bishop said MPs had multiple email addresses across Parliament, ministerial, electorate, and party accounts.
"All sorts of stuff arrives in all sorts of inboxes and we've got a pretty complicated process of forwarding things on so it's in the appropriate inbox, so for my ministerial business I let my staff manage that."
He said ministers should not be sending Budget information to private email addresses but did not believe it was "the biggest sin in the world".
"MPs are on the road a lot, there are printing problems often. I can't print at my Parliament office, for example."
Asked if his printing difficulties were a system error or a user error, Bishop responded, "that is a legitimate question - I don't know".
"We shouldn't be doing it, but is it the worst thing in the world? No."
Finance Minister Nicola Willis also recalled sending draft speech notes from her ministerial account to her personal email so she could print it in a hotel room.
Labour's education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime is casting doubt over how much the Prime Minister has been told about Stanford's email use, given his comments that he is "super relaxed about it".
RNZ understands Labour made the original request for the
emails from Stanford's office
under the Official Information Act, which have been collated and subsequently sent to media, including RNZ.
"It's clear that somebody has misrepresented to the prime minister and his office the extent of the minister's use of her private gmail account for ministerial business," Prime said.
She said Luxon said it was "just a few emails for printing" but Prime referenced "folders" of "many many emails that have been used on her gmail account" uncovered by the OIA.
The minister organising meetings through her personal email was inconsistent with the Cabinet Manual, because it was "ministerial business", she said.
Asked again about the issue today, Luxon repeated Stanford had used her private email to deal with "unsolicited emails" and printing issues. He said Stanford had made changes to her processes and he was comfortable with that.
When asked whether it was appropriate to organise meetings using the personal account, Luxon said it was important that all meetings were captured in a ministerial diary, "whether those meetings took place or it didn't take place".
He acknowledged it was not "ideal" but he maintained what was important was "all those materials are captured and are available through official information requests, which is what's happened here."
He also reiterated the Cabinet Manual allowed for instances where ministers needed to use their private accounts for "printing emails or sending materials to themselves so they can print it for a number of different reasons".
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