KEY POINTS:
National fears its parliamentary computer system has been breached again.
National leader John Key said today he had raised the issue with Parliamentary Services after investigative author Nicky Hager reported at the weekend that Mr Key had hired Australian political strategy company Crosby/Textor.
The company had courted controversy for tactics including push polling.
Hagar's report included dates and details of Mr Key's meetings.
"I don't believe National internally has a security problem, but I think it's quite possible Parliamentary Service has issues," Mr Key said.
"What you unfortunately have to accept is that National is quite a large organisation which intersects with a government department and in effect our accounting, our IT, our marketing, certain aspects of things are outside of our control."
Mr Key said Parliamentary Services could not rule out there were problems with security around its computer system.
But Prime Minister Helen Clark poured scorn on Mr Key's theory.
"The National Party's problems lie much closer to home," she said.
"Every time the police tried to get close to where the last leaks were they ran into a brick wall and that tells you the National Party has an enemy within."
Mr Key said he had no concerns about his staff.
Two years ago Hager published his book The Hollow Men, based on hundreds of internal National party emails including some concerning Crosby/Textor.
Miss Clark said National should be upfront about who it hired.
"It is clear that Crosby/Textor is being used to control and manage the gaffe prone Mr Key," Miss Clark said.
Mr Key said he was running National's political strategy.
"I'm going to set the tone of National's campaign. That tone will be optimistic, positive and ambitious, because that reflects my personality and the way I think the country should be run.
Mr Key would not confirm National was using Crosby/Textor, but said the party used a range of consultants and if it named them they could become subject to government retribution.
"If anyone is going to run a dirty tricks campaign in 2008 you can rest assured that will be the Labour Party and not the National Party," he said
"The vast bulk of public advice I take actually comes for free. It comes from the public and it is the issues that really matter to them.
"Do we run focus groups and polling work like every other political party? The answer is yes."
Miss Clark said she was happy to name the consultants Labour used - UMR for polling, Brian Edwards for media training and whoever ended up helping with the election advertising campaign.
To the best of her knowledge Labour did not hire political strategists and this was all done within the party.
"I am the chief political strategist."
- NZPA
