A LABOR MP who visited his local brigade on international firefighters’ day to thank them with donuts has received a stern rebuke from the emergency services minister’s office, which says his drop in didn’t show “respect” and needed permission requested in writing.

Freshman Labor MP Blair Boyer won the northern suburbs seat of Wright at the state election and said he was shocked to receive a “bizarre” email from Emergency Services Minister Corey Wingard’s office after posting an image of himself with firefighters on Facebook.

The email, sighted by The Advertiser, admonishes Mr Boyer for not following “appropriate process” and not giving “the minister or the MFS the respect their position affords”.

The making of Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts The making of Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts

“In future any requests to meet with, visit or be briefed by a departmental facility, staff member or Government service must be requested in writing to the relevant minister,” the email sent on Friday evening states. “Please be aware that in the future, visits requested at such short notice and outside the proper processes will not be accommodated.”

Mr Boyer said he called ahead to the brigade to ensure his visit wouldn’t interrupt their work, and “they were very happy to see me” after returning from extinguishing a bin fire. “We sat down and had a chat, ate some donuts, had a quick snap and that was it,” he said.

“I wasn’t ‘seeking briefings’. I took them a box of assorted Krispy Kremes.”

media_camera “I wasn’t ‘seeking briefings’. I took them a box of assorted Krispy Kremes.”

“I was shocked. I though I was just doing the right thing as a member of Parliament to get around and speak to the local firefighters and thank them for all their hard work.”

Mr Boyer was chief for staff to former emergency services minister Jennifer Rankine.

He said the Labor government had guidelines for contacting government agencies that “would depend on what the meeting was”.

“If it was a local MP taking around a box of Krispy Kremes to their local firefighters, no, we wouldn’t have been stopping that,” Mr Boyer said.

Mr Wingard, a former TV journalist, has been under early pressure since the election, including criticism for not attending a community forum on crime in the southern suburbs.

media_camera Emergency Services Minister Corey Wingard. Picture: AAP / Dean Martin

A Government spokesman said: “As a former senior staffer in the premier’s office, Mr Boyer knows that the protocol established under the former government requires members of Parliament to go through the minister’s office when seeking to contact a government agency”.

“These protocols are in place to ensure that government agencies can deliver important public services and that their resources are not unnecessarily diverted,” he said. “It is expected that Mr Boyer, and other members of Parliament, should follow this protocol in the future.”

Mr Boyer has previous complained about having been shunted out to an electorate office in Virginia, 15kms out of his seat, under a decision by Treasurer Rob Lucas.

“It’s starting to look to me like a bit of a pattern, which is this Government doing everything it can to keep me out of the seat and stop me engaging with my community,” he said.