Will the Minister undertake a review of current and former staff members’ private email accounts to identify any official information that should be on the public record; if not, why not?

Answer

The deliberate use of a personal email account to conduct work activities as an alternate to using the work email provided to staff is not permitted. However, from time to time there are justifiable reasons for a private email to be used – for example an inability to print from their parliamentary email address while travelling or sending a copy of a press release to their private email to copy and paste to media via messaging because they are unable to copy and paste from Outlook. All ministerial staff have been reminded that they If they have used a personal email account to complete work related activities, the material created or received may constitute a public record. The material must be reviewed and securely saved.