NOW READ THIS: A sample of the Aaron Gilmore emails. <a target=_blank href="http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/AaronGilmoreEmails.pdf"><b>Click here for the full exchange.</b></a>

Embattled National list MP Aaron Gilmore was warned by a Government department over inappropriate emails.

The emails were not sexually explicit but had an "inappropriate tenor", the Ministry Of Business Innovation and Employment said.

Gilmore was employed as a contractor for the the-then Department of Building and Housing from May to November last year. He was a senior policy analyst.

KENT BLECHYNDEN/Fairfax NZ BORROWED TIME?: National MP Aaron Gilmore.

Read the emails here.

Prime Minister John Key's chief of staff Wayne Eagleson was told Gilmore's contract would not be renewed because "there had been an issue" - but was not given the detail of the complaint.

Key said his office first saw the emails today - but he hasn't read them.

He also learned today that Eagleson was told Gilmore wouldn't be re-appointed.

"That was purely a staffing matter and he was given a heads up. He wouldn't intervene anyway in those kinds of employment decisions and that was where the matter rested.

"But he wasn't advised of the nature of that... he'd never seen the emails."

He said Gilmore wasn't an MP at the time of the emails, and his office had no reason to be involved.

"Mr Gilmore would need to respond to the particulars to those emails and we will leave him to do so... there's really nothing I can do about them."

Key has only spoken to Gilmore by text - but Eagleson has spoken to him "a number of times."

The "shenanigans" won't take the shine off the Budget, he said.

"I don't really think New Zealanders give a toss about him," he added.

'THIS WILL HAUNT YOU'

Days before Gilmore's contract ended, ministry deputy chief executive Andrew Crisp was alerted to the emails between Gilmore and the Treasury staff member.

"Mr Gilmore was advised verbally that in the public sector context the tone of his emails was inappropriate," Crisp said.

He was told his contract would not be renewed because of this.

MBIE chief executive David Smol was told of the issue, but no government ministers were informed.

In the emails from Gilmore to a Treasury analyst, he wrote: "I've worked at Treasury though I saw the light and left as a senior adviser at 24."

He boasts he was the youngest MP on Parliament's finance committee "and made a few million as a GM in the private sector in-between".

Gilmore went on: "I think I have a reasonable understanding of what ministers need and what works and how Treasury should operate."

He chides the recipient saying: "Playing games and being secrecative [sic] witholding information and then bullying and whiteanting [sic] people when they don't do what you want is how most people see you and is what I have seen too, not as a good Treasury analytic policy maker."

In an earlier email, dated November 15, he says: "You may want to consider your perchant [sic] for firing off messages to all and sundry trying to undermine people ... given my background and that I go back into Parliament on the govt side in the New Year I'm happy to talk about this with you at some stage, as this behaviour is far from productive."

Gilmore also took exception to being corrected on a figure, writing: "Most of what I have said has been shown to be right once it has been debated ...

"I am sure this sort of thing will come back to haunt you if you want your career to reach its full potential."

When he was corrected on November 14, he replied: "Sorry your [sic] wrong. I'll send you something that proves it."

Once alerted to the email trail, Crisp wrote to the Treasury analyst to apologise for Gilmore's behavior, saying that the correspondence was "inappropriate."

"The contractor concerned has been advised on the inappropriate tenor of his comments and his contract expires tomorrow."

Gilmore's contract was due to be extended to Christmas but Crisp said this did not happen "as a result of this behaviour."

When asked by reporters earlier this week if he was aware of any complaints from his time in the public service job, Gilmore said "not that I'm aware of."

He also said: "Who knows what might be out there?"

Gilmore could not be contacted for comment today.