Key believes Brash emails were hacked

WELLINGTON: Prime Minister John Key says he has a theory about who hacked into former National Party leader Don Brash's emails, but he is not sharing it with the media.

A police inquiry did not establish who did it or even whether the system was hacked, and a review report released yesterday shed no new light on it.

Mr Key said he was sure no National Party members were involved, when a popular theory at the time was that they were responsible.

"I think that's a great nonsense; fiction put out by the Left," he said.

"Bollocks is another way of putting it."

Mr Key said he believed Dr Brash's emails were hacked.

"That's my view.

"That's where I believe the leak was.

"But I can't back that up."

Mr Key was asked at his post-Cabinet press conference: "Do you have a theory on who did the hacking?" and he replied: "Yes, I do actually.

"I just don't know."

Dr Brash resigned as leader of the party in November 2006, the same month a book by journalist Nicky Hager was published.

The Hollow Men, based on 475 emails to and from Dr Brash and other political figures, documented behind-the-scenes goings-on before the 2005 election and traced the influence of a number of right-wing organisations and individuals.

Police yesterday released two reports into their investigation.

One evaluated how the initial investigation was done after Dr Brash complained in April 2009 that Wellington police had shown political bias, did not keep him in the loop and held a "cavalier" attitude.

The second report detailed a re-investigation of the original complaint and confirmed the original finding - that the emails were taken over an extended period of time, that security was lax on the floor in Parliament where Dr Brash worked, and that he printed out email correspondence and left it in a tray to be shredded.

However, the review report said police would treat politically sensitive allegations differently in future, there had been an "unacceptable" 13-month delay in providing Dr Brash with the final investigation report, and his complaint was not treated with urgency after it was decided there were no national security issues involved.

The re-investigation report found electronic hacking of the parliamentary server was highly unlikely, and Dr Brash may have used an auto forward function on his email accounts which duplicated them to a non-secure network over the internet.

Dr Brash said he accepted the findings of the review report, and that the culprit would probably never be found.