Dunne's tweets

Photo / Mark Mitchell

For those with a Twitter habit, there was little surprising about Peter Dunne's email contact with journalist Andrea Vance.

The pair exchanged 86 emails between March 27 and April 9.

But those familiar with the social networking site would have seen the older statesman regularly reach out to make contact with the Fairfax journalist.

Mr Dunne is a regular tweeter with members of the press gallery. But in Ms Vance's case, he would often seek out contact. From September last year until April, there were about 300 tweets exchanged.

The flavour is friendly. After the GCSB spying revelations he was interviewed and told her: "Dotcom comments played well tonight." She replied: "So I believe. Well done you." Dunne responded: "But shouldn't really have been a surprise. Nice people like me quite like civil liberties."

There were congratulations for her - Ms Vance's interest in reporting on intelligence agencies won his applause. He told her: "You're becoming NZ's version of Spycatcher!"

After a visit to the press gallery, he told her: "Good talk earlier. BTW, did you see the vasectomy song I tweeted you earlier?" Told no, he wrote: "I'll resend in the morning. Its relatively harmless and painless. Off now to dinner with family."

• Dunne: I was unwise, even stupid