Brumby denies spying on Vic Oppn emails

Victorian Premier John Brumby has denied that the Labor Government recruited public servants to spy on the emails of the State Opposition.

According to a report in The Age today, Ombudsman Victoria is considering a formal complaint it has received from the Victorian Opposition claiming that parliament IT staff were tampering with emails between the State Opposition and the media.

In a statuatory declaration read out by ABC presenter John Faine on his radio show, Simon Troeth, senior media advisor to Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, said that without his knowledge his personal emails were "scrutinised and interfered with" and alleged that emails in his account were deleted without his knowledge.

Senior Parliamentary staffer Peter Lochert told The Age that staff were accessing parliament email accounts because of concerns of email leaks from within the Department of Parliamentary Services to the media.

Lochert said that because emails from parliament went through a common gateway, emails from the Opposition would naturally be included in this search as part of the investigation of leaks from his own department.

Brumby said that he didn't know the staff member alleged to have accessed opposition emails and that the government did not order the department to search opposition members' emails.

"This is conspiracy theories gone mad, where the leader of the Opposition points to an IT officer who works for the parliament, not the government, not for John Brumby, and says I've been meddling in his affairs," Brumby told ABC's Jon Faine this morning.

"The staff member concerned who works for the Department of Parliamentary Services made it absolutely and abundantly clear that it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the government of the day, it's an error," he added.