UPDATED 1.38PM: The Labour Party is being accused of plagiarism in its flagship project designed to create more jobs and improve the economy.

The party launched the Future of Work Commission in December, but the paper has now been found to contain several paragraphs directly copied from The Economist, and Business Insider.

The paragraphs relate to the changing nature of work and technology, and in some cases are almost identical, with only one or two words changed.

The project is being led by Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson, but ICT spokesperson Clare Curran admitted she messed up.

She said a large number of documents were used to research the paper and were supposed to be attributed in the final version.

She also said the mistake was an oversight and they've updated the document on their website.

The Dunedin MP insisted she had "absolutely not" been thrown under the bus by her party.

"I'm one of the co-authors of that article, those are the bits I take responsibility for."

But National's campaign manager and senior MP Steven Joyce believes there's no excuse for plagiarism.

"The Labour Party guys from Grant Robertson onwards haven't been doing the work, and the great irony is is that it's about the future of work but it's pretty clear they're not doing any," Joyce said.

"I don't think cutting and pasting pages of The Economist magazine, even though it probably is a far better source than many they could pick, shows that Grant's actually done any work. I think he should take responsibility."