3 Dec 2013

Withdraw and apologise

4:11 pm on 3 December 2013

The chair of Parliament's Privileges Committee says the unauthorised release of information by Parliamentary Service to an inquiry was unacceptable and it should apologise.

The committee has released its first report to handing over of information to David Henry's inquiry into the leak of a report on the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)

Chris Finlayson says it was unacceptable that the inquiry was given parliamentary information. It said failures on many levels led to the unauthorised release of information, which included email, phone and swipe card records, particularly relating to former minister Peter Dunne and journalist Andrea Vance.

Mr Finlayson said the lack of thought about the rights of journalists and the role they play in democracy is simply worrying and the rules relating to the release of parliamentary information need to be changed.