Parliament's bomb-threat checklist

Employees have been issued with an exhaustive checklist of details to fill out if they receive a bomb threat. Photo / Getty Images

Workers at Parliament have been issued with an exhaustive checklist of details to fill out if they receive a bomb threat.

The list includes questions such as "when is the bomb going to explode" and "why did you place the bomb" - presumably to ask anyone phoning in with a threat to blow up Parliament.

It also asks anyone receiving a bomb threat to:

• Record what accent and type of voice was used to deliver the threat.

• State whether the caller was well-spoken, incoherent, irrational or abusive.

• Describe any background noises on the other end of the phone line.

Parliamentary Service executive assistant Corinne Messenger said the checklist was issued last week to help to develop "a security awareness culture". It had been issued as part of implementing government-mandated protective security requirements.

"This is a prompt card which assists the recipient of a bomb threat call to make note of as much information as possible which may later be used by security and the police when managing the incident," Ms Messenger said in an email response to the Herald. "The content and format of this card is widely used within the security industry."

A research paper in May by Otago University and the Capital and Coast District Health Board based on anonymous responses from 102 sitting MPs found that 87 per cent had been targets of harassment like abusive email or violence.