Last July, police received a complaint and interviewed him, but ultimately decided not to press charges.
Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls told The Front Page it has raised questions about why the Prime Minister had not been informed.
“The deputy chief press secretary is an important role. They have access to a lot of information. They’re sorting out how the Government communicates with the public, so it’s obviously of paramount importance that somebody like that can be trusted. And the fact this wasn’t elevated to the Police Commissioner, Andy Coster, and then he couldn’t then give it to the Beehive, suggests that something has gone really wrong in the system here.
“The Prime Minister’s office needs to know about every part of a staff member that is applying for their office because it’s about the safety of the information. It’s not about the character of a person per se, but it’s about if any bad actors are able to get any leverage on somebody who works in the PM’s office. Then that could be used for purposes that are not advantageous for the country,” he said.
According to a Stuff investigation, Forbes had also allegedly amassed a photo gallery of women working out at the gym, shopping, and being filmed through a window getting ready to go out.
“Let’s be clear, it is an utterly unacceptable position ... it raises genuine questions about ‘how could this happen’,” Luxon told media, “The reality is this individual was vetted, the instances happened after they were vetted.”
Meanwhile, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have been suspended from Parliament for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven days, effective immediately.
It’s after an hours-long, chaotic debate on Thursday that left at least one MP describing it as a “pretty horrible day in the House”.
The night included New Zealand First leader Winston Peters calling Rawiri Waititi’s traditional facial tattoos “scribbles” and Waititi holding up a noose. Peters has since apologised.
“This comes from a man that is talking about upholding parliamentary standards and how those standards have been slipping. I think that he needs to take a good look in the mirror and ask himself, who is it that’s letting these standards slip? Because something like that, despite the context of what’s going on, is not acceptable,” Walls said.
When it comes to the punishment, the parties in Government voted in favour of the Privileges Committee’s recommendations, and the left bloc voted against.
" Is it really a vote of Parliament if only the government parties are supporting it and everybody else is in opposition? And that’s the lingering question here," he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about chaos in the House and what the latest polls have told us about election 2026.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
