Cam Slater: Good Idea, but You Should Look Further Abroad

Christopher Luxon is concerned at access to Corrections systems by an alleged Chinese spy with connections to National’s former Chinese spy MP. He should be concerned.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he expects intelligence agencies to fully investigate concerns around a probation officer sacked for snooping through the files of Chinese offenders.

The probation officer was sacked, but Corrections didn’t establish the motivations for his snooping. A Stuff investigation, which revealed the breach, found the sacked officer had previously worked for former National MP and alleged spy, Dr Yang Jian, before joining Corrections.

The sacked officer, Xu Shan, says he is not a spy – and was searching through records for research to help him be a better probation officer.

Yang left parliament in 2020, reportedly after intelligence agencies flagged concerns about his relationship with the Chinese Government. Shan had worked for him during his entire parliamentary career.

Stuff understands the 43 offenders’ records accessed without authorisation were all Chinese names.

Luxon told Stuff on Wednesday that this was an issue needing further investigation.

“I need to be able to make sure we’ve got the facts straight and we’ve got a proper investigation under way,” he said.

He said intelligence agencies were aware of China’s attempts to interfere with, and gain covert access to, Government systems.

“On foreign interference, it’s something we are very, very hyper-attuned to. You’ve seen me publicly talk about the issue we had with China, with a cyber attack on our parliamentary systems,” he said.

He promised intelligence agencies would investigate concerns about whether Corrections’ information was being used for foreign interference.

“Our system will look at it very closely,” he told reporters in Washington, DC.

Stuff

Good idea, Christopher. While you are at it please check that the new-fangled but hopelessly compromised gun register isn’t similarly being probed by officers with access who may also have links to the CCP.

The gun register would be very handy information for a foreign power looking at people it considers its own citizens and also potential threats to them in this country from armed civilians.

Firearms owners are already very nervous about who can access their data, so to hear of another government organisation having their systems breached is pretty concerning.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.