Urgent Debates — Report by Secretary of Labour—Immigration Service

I have received a letter from the Hon Murray McCully seeking to debate under Standing Order 376 the release of a report by the Secretary of Labour into allegations with regard to the Immigration Service. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and I am persuaded that it does require the immediate attention of the House and the Government. I therefore accept the application.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. Today the Secretary of Labour has made available to the public a report into matters in the Immigration Service that have recently troubled some members of this House. Two matters in particular cause difficulty.

The first is a memorandum that appeared to indicate a conspiracy to lie. On 17 December 2002, a memorandum was circulated to, we know now, approximately 300 officials, and it said these words: “I was let down badly. … Everyone had agreed to lie in unison, but all the others caved in and I was the only one left singing the original song.” Mr Speaker, in the 16 years I have been in this House, and no doubt in the somewhat larger number of years you have been in this House, I doubt that any of us have seen words like that committed to paper by officials in the New Zealand public service. Three hundred officials, we are told today, received that memorandum on 17 December, and there were no repercussions. The first question I ask today is how it can be that such a memorandum could circulate amongst 300 officials, some of whom are very senior officials in this country, and absolutely nothing happen. That is a matter that causes me very serious trouble indeed.

That might be regarded by some as insufficient by itself to cause concern, but the difficulty that then arises is that several events occurred that tended to give some credibility to that particular statement. A week before that statement was circulated amongst those officials, the New Zealand Herald approached the Immigration Service spokesperson to ask about the alleged detention of a particular individual. The spokesperson from the department said this to the New Zealand Herald: “Normally if there is anything untoward they would let me know and I haven’t heard anything.” We found out subsequently that that statement by the Immigration Service official spokesperson was wrong. A barefaced lie was told by the spokesperson of a department of State to a major newspaper. When we put that alongside the statement made in the memorandum circulated amongst those officials, it tends to put it in a somewhat different light.

We then look upon the fact that the Ombudsman was asked to investigate, under the Official Information Act, the existence of certain information that related to the Zaoui case—in particular, the media logs that were associated with those exchanges. Over some months the Ombudsman acted upon the New Zealand National Party Opposition’s request to find that information, and he, in the end, was asked—and I have the quote here—to find “the daily media logs and associated commentary or remarks from employees regarding the Ahmed Zaoui case”; in other words, to find the clearest possible indication as to what it was that the Opposition had heard rumours about, the clearest possible indication to the Ombudsman that maybe there was something there that he should find.

The Opposition was cognisant of the fact that this was a matter in which some national security issues arose, and for that purpose we were happy to rely upon the good judgment of the Ombudsman, who is always asked to find a counterbalancing interest between the public interest and issues of security in such matters. We were happy for him to exercise that judgment. But the difficulty we have was that the Immigration Service officials—and this statement was made personally by the general manager, now, of the Immigration Service to the Ombudsman—said that no such material existed.

This is not a normal matter. Normally, as members would know, an Official Information Act request being pursued by the Ombudsman’s office is pursued by an investigating officer, and, normally, the approach is made to a middle-level official inside the department. But here, those actions having occurred initially, the Ombudsman felt it was such an important matter that he personally spoke to the general manager of the Immigration Service, and said: “Look, I know what your guys are saying to my guy, but I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the material that has been asked for does not exist.” Put on notice in that way, the general manager of the Immigration Service, Mr Lockhart, gave an answer to the Ombudsman that was wrong, an answer that could only have been calculated to mislead, an answer that can only be described in this House today as a lie. I want to know how Mr Lockhart, amongst 300-odd others, could receive an exclusive memorandum that is truly mind-blowing in its character, then, when asked by the Ombudsman some weeks later whether it did exist, have an attack of amnesia. All the officials in the Immigration Service who were asked by the Ombudsman’s office seemed to have “amnesia in unison” when asked to respond on this matter.

Not only do we have a memorandum that states, on the face of it, that officials had an agreement to lie, but we have a lie being told by the official spokesperson of the New Zealand Immigration Service to the New Zealand Herald, and we have a lie being told, not only by the underlings in the Immigration Service to the staff of the Ombudsman, but also by the person who is now the general manager of the Immigration Service to the Ombudsman personally. I have never heard or seen anything like it and, frankly, I did not believe I ever would hear of or see such matters in the New Zealand public service.

Today we have been treated to the report of the Secretary of Labour, who is the last person on earth who should be investigating this matter, because the Minister of Immigration herself had told us that there could have been an agreement to lie only if she were in on it. There could have been an agreement to lie only if the Minister of Immigration were a party to it. Who does the Secretary of Labour, who prepared this report, report to? The Minister of Immigration. So the Minister of Immigration was cleared—actually, she was not even investigated—by a person who has her decide whether he gets a bonus and her decide whether he is reappointed. What a surprise!

We do not even know, from this report, whether the Minister or her officials got a copy of the original “lie in unison” memorandum. It states that 300 people got a copy, but it is silent on whether the Minister or her staff got it or knew anything about it. Those are the sorts of questions that should have been asked. Those are the sorts of questions that any reasonable, sensible, diligent, professional, independent inquiry would have asked. They are questions that were, clearly, not asked by the flunky who reports to that Minister—the Secretary of Labour.

This report shows contempt for the New Zealand Parliament and for the New Zealand public, because it leaves unanswered more questions than it does answer. I want to know how, in a significant public service organisation, a memorandum that stated: “[we] had agreed to lie in unison,” could reach the eyes of 300 staff—many of them very senior officials indeed, and some of them officials in other Government departments—then nothing happen. Surely, someone would have said that was unacceptable conduct and not the sort of thing that the New Zealand public service can tolerate. Surely, someone would have taken it up with a senior person in the Immigration Service, in the Department of Labour, or with the State Services Commissioner. But nothing happened. The memo states in black and white: “[we] had agreed to lie in unison,”. Three hundred people got a copy, and absolutely nothing happened. How can this be, in the New Zealand public service?

The second question that arises is how it could be that those 300 people received this memorandum, yet when the Ombudsman, in the course of making concerted, diligent inquiries over many weeks, had his staff ask the appropriate question of the staff of the Immigration Service, his staff were told that, due to a series of misunderstandings, due to a series of miscommunications, they had no intention of doing any wrong. We are told that the remark suggesting an agreement to lie was “intended as a sarcastic and humorous response to media criticism of Departmental staff failing to answer media questions about Mr Zaoui.” That just does not wash. The memo stated: “[we] had agreed to lie in unison,” but that was a sarcastic and humorous response to media criticism! Give me a break! Nobody in the House or the media believes that. Nobody in the New Zealand public believes that, yet that is the result of the allegedly independent and professional investigation by the Secretary of Labour, who just happens to report to the Minister of Immigration. Well, blow me down!

Then we have to explain how it could be that all those officials in the Immigration Service and the Department of Labour could have had “amnesia in unison” when the Ombudsman came knocking on the door, telling them to hand over the papers because he needed to have a look at them. When he asked the most specific questions—when he asked for the daily media logs and associated commentary—the official story, in this document, is that they did not know what he was talking about. Dr Buwalda, the Secretary of Labour, says that they were “talking at cross-purposes”. The fact is the Secretary of Labour was eyeballed by the Ombudsman personally, something the Ombudsman did because he knew that there was something very serious indeed that lay behind this Official Information Act request, and the person who was the general manager, the person who is now the most senior public servant in our Immigration Service—the service that decides who gets to be a New Zealand citizen and who does not—the person who sits in charge of that service, told the Ombudsman a barefaced lie.

I never thought I would see that sort of behaviour, and I do not intend to let the matter rest. This report is a shabby little whitewash designed to clear the Minister, who, by her own admission, has said that the only basis for that memorandum to be true could be if she were a party to any agreement to mislead. I say to that Minister that her setting up a new Secretary of Labour to do her dirty work, and to give her bogus clearance on this appalling matter, just will not wash with members of the Opposition, with members of the public, or, I wager, with the Ombudsman, who knows that he is being done and is being lied to. If I know Mr Mel Smith, the former Secretary for Justice, he will want to hold someone to account.

Well, that may be fine, but I say to the Minister that to leave those matters to the Ombudsman is no answer here. This goes right to the very heart of public confidence in our public servants, it goes to the very heart of public confidence in the Minister, and it goes to the very heart of public confidence in the Government, and this shabby little report—this little cover-up and whitewash—will get the Minister nowhere.

I say to her that, on the face of it, that memorandum looked bad enough; viewed in the light of the subsequent lie to the New Zealand Herald, it looks terrible, and viewed in the further light of the barefaced lie told to the Ombudsman by officials in the Immigration Service, and by the person who is now the general manager, there is no adequate explanation of it in this document. Members of the Opposition will not rest until they get to the bottom of it.

Mr McCully’s speech is a classic example of a member yet again trying to denigrate the integrity of a senior public servant who investigated a very serious allegation and produced a report, and just because it does not support the conclusions Mr McCully wanted, he is playing politics instead of looking at the facts in the report. Mr McCully is always trying to shoot the messenger by distorting the facts in an attempt to undermine the public’s confidence in its public servants. Once again, the chief strategist for the National Party’s re-election team fails to understand the facts and fails to analyse what is in the report.

The reason the public can have confidence in Dr Buwalda’s report is that he has produced a report that relies upon facts and not fictions. Mr McCully implied, when this investigation was being announced, and in his speech today, that it was not worthwhile because Dr Buwalda was neither independent nor impartial. I can say that the chief executive of the Department of Labour is entirely the appropriate person to investigate matters of staff performance and departmental systems and processes. Mr McCully has yet again launched a personal attack on a public servant without justification. The report’s conclusions are clearly supported by the investigation process and, as the State Services Commissioner himself says, Dr Buwalda has “not only established the facts of the matter in question, but also identified areas of improvement”.

The question for the public is whether the conclusions in the report—namely that there was no conspiracy, no deliberate cover-up, and that there were serious deficiencies in the way in which the official information request was handled—are supported by the evidence in the report. This whole Zaoui issue came to the fore through the following serious allegations made in the media on 29 and 30 July this year. Those allegations were that a media adviser in the New Zealand Immigration Service claimed in an internal memo that officials agreed to “lie in unison” about the presence in the country of a suspected terrorist; and, secondly, that officials lied to the Ombudsman about the existence of this internal memo. The department’s new chief executive at that time—he had taken up the job only 5 days earlier—undertook to ensure that these allegations were to be thoroughly and openly investigated and to deal with any issues that arose from them.

It is important for this House to understand exactly what process was followed. What the chief executive did was first identify, importantly, what questions were to be answered by his inquiry. The two most important ones for our purposes here are: was there a conspiracy to deceive among officials in relation to the Zaoui case? The second question was: was information managed by the department in relation to the Zaoui case in accordance with the Official Information Act; if not, why not? Subsequent questions were also asked relating to those matters. Dr Buwalda then followed the established process in these matters—that is, he asked the department’s internal auditor to establish the facts of the matter, who was involved, what happened, and why. It was that internal auditor, whose task it is to undertake reviews and inquiries of this nature, who then went about the task of doing precisely that. Once those findings of the internal auditor were made, they were presented to the chief executive, who then, on that basis, formed conclusions about whether there were possible breaches of the Official Information Act or breaches of the Public Service Code of Conduct, or whether there was any evidence of the allegations about lying in unison. The chief executive, Dr Buwalda, having considered all the evidence, made his conclusions, which are in the report, and also undertook to take what reviews and disciplinary investigations were required.

I think it is important to concentrate on what was in the report, not on what was speculated to be in the report, as we heard from the previous member. The chief executive’s report fails to find evidence to suggest that departmental officials colluded or conspired to lie in unison, or that officials deliberately misled the Ombudsman regarding the existence of the “lie in unison” memo. To have a conspiracy, there must be more than one person involved. There was no evidence in the documents examined or gained during interviews that points to a conspiracy to deceive or any intention to deceive in relation to the annotations made in the media log on 17 December by Ian Smith. I agree that the media log was a very unlikely vehicle for recording or communicating details of a conspiracy, as it was distributed to a relatively large number of people—over 300 we have heard; a very weird way to conduct a conspiracy. Rather, I agree with the chief executive’s analysis and conclusions—namely: “On the face of it, the annotation made by Mr Smith seems to display poor judgment, a lack of professionalism, and a lack of respect for the media. Mr Smith himself acknowledges the annotation was inappropriate.” That was the conclusion contained in the report, and that is the conclusion, I would argue, that is borne out by the facts.

Just as important, if not more important, for the integrity of the public service and confidence in it, was the second question relating to the way in which the official information request was handled by the department. In this respect the report identifies several areas where the standards and behaviours demonstrated by the Department of Labour staff seem to fall short of the levels that could be reasonably expected of public servants. Of principal concern in this regard is that the department must consistently demonstrate high standards and behaviours in order to deserve and hold the public confidence needed for it to carry out its work effectively.

That is acknowledged by the chief executive; that is supported by the Minister, myself, who is responsible for the department. The department must therefore address standards and behaviour issues identified in this report as a matter of urgency. The chief executive is currently engaged in disciplinary action relating to possible breaches of acceptable conduct and behaviour. I will make no further comment on that, because it is a matter between an employer and an employee, and fair process must be followed in that regard. However, I note that the chief executive has undertaken to reinforce the standards of conduct and behaviour expected from all staff in the Department of Labour.

The chief executive has also identified deficiencies in the department’s record management practices, and, as a matter of urgency, the department has initiated an internal review of its guidelines for responding to official information requests. The chief executive has made it clear that departmental managers are personally accountable for ensuring that guidelines are followed and for ensuring that staff understand their responsibilities under the Official Information Act. This particular case shows the far-reaching effects of the Official Information Act, and is a useful reminder to all those who are bound by it. In this instance, the Official Information Act covered off-the-cuff remarks in an in-house email media log. Treating such logs as official information is a very high standard for our public servants to maintain, but this Government believes that high standards are necessary for a strong public service, and commends the chief executive for the way he has gone about the conduct of this investigation, and for the transparent and honest way in which he has identified, on the facts, those matters that do need attention, while at the same time establishing quite clearly that there was no conspiracy to cover up or lie.

Let me finish by reiterating for the benefit of Opposition members, who seem to be fixated on conspiracy theories, that there is no evidence that officials lied or conspired to deceive anyone. Nor did they deliberately shield themselves from scrutiny under the Official Information Act. Nevertheless, the investigation found that the high standards expected of our public servants were not met in this instance, and therefore action has to be taken. It is useful to be reminded that in real life, as opposed to the fantasy world in which the Mr McCullys of the world live, conspiracies are rare, and explanations are more likely to lie in poor judgment and systemic failure, which is exactly what happened in this case.

This is a matter that reflects abysmally on the Immigration Service, the Minister of Immigration, the Minister of Labour, and the Prime Minister, and it has a sense of déjà vu and a ring of familiarity about it. We are talking about a dysfunctional department and a dysfunctional Minister. I remind members of the background to this issue. It happened, members will remember, in the Minister of Immigration’s office. Everybody remembers but her. This is a person who, day after day in the House, disowned all the facts and now seeks to make a virtue out of a crime against the public, where disclosure is important.

The background to this issue involves a so-called asylum seeker who should never have been allowed into this country, and who has already cost us over $100,000 in legal aid and penal costs to have him here. Meanwhile, we cannot service our own people in our schools, in our social welfare system, and in our hospitals. It was all about hushing this issue up so that the people of New Zealand would not know what was going on. We have a suspected terrorist in our midst, and this Government does not believe that New Zealanders should be told about it. Just the other day, an Afghan refugee shot a woman while she was hanging clothes on her clothesline. Where did he get the firearm? Who brought him here? What is he doing here? He was on release when he committed that crime. It is not the task of the Immigration Service to tell the people, primarily; it is the task of the Minister who stands condemned today for the incompetent Minister that she is. I want to know where she fits in in respect of the background of this subject. It all happened in her office, but, strange as it might seem, she claims not to know—just like the Prime Minister claims not to know, despite all the documentation.

Every day in the House when the Prime Minister is asked: “Why have you got confidence in the Minister of Immigration?”, she says: “Because she is a conscientious and hardworking Minister.” What a joke! We have 20,000 overstayers in this country. We have no idea who is here, what is here, what diseases they are carrying, and what their social welfare costs are, while New Zealanders cannot access hip operations, cataract operations, and all the normal expectations that we have of the social welfare system.

💬 Jill Pettis: I bet they don’t suffer from dipsomania.

There goes the fishwife again—it must be market day. Why is a civil servant taking the rap? This is a case of an in-house snow job on Parliament and on the public of this country. Why is no Minister in Helen Clark’s Government ever responsible when things go wrong—whether it be corncobs or an alleged terrorist? On 20 February, shortly after the 1999 election, the Prime Minister promised a hard line on accountability. She said she would go all the way to the top—including sacking bungling, incompetent Ministers.

💬 Ron Mark: Yeah right!

Yeah right! When are we going to see that happen? By gee, there is a tonne of evidence for it. Did Helen Clark tell the caucus at the time that Cabinet was elected that everyone was there on performance, and there were plenty of others waiting to take their job? Quote: “ ‘They will tell you it’s true’, she says.”

💬 Dail Jones: Yeah right!

Yeah right! What are the offences? Well, here they are. Immigration officials had poor standards. On numerous occasions they breached the Official Information Act. They withheld information. They would not even give it to the Ombudsman. In fact, when it first went off, they deleted these comments from the PR man, communications adviser, Ian Smith, who said this: “I was let down badly. Everyone had agreed to lie in unison, but all the others caved in and I was the only one left singing the original song.” Deceit and lies. Do members know what he told Dr Buwalda—who had been the head of the labour department for a matter of days and who conducted an in-house snow job? He said that it was “intended as a sarcastic and humorous response to media criticism of departmental staff failing to answer media questions about Mr Zaoui.” What has happened to him? He is still working for the department, but he is not handling media inquiries any more. If a person is involved in a cover-up for his boss and his Minister, and if he does not tell the public that the Minister knew, and that therefore the Prime Minister had to know, then that person gets his job preserved in this rotten, corrupt, venal Labour Party administration.

💬 Dail Jones: Like “corngate”.

Yes, it is just like “corngate”. No one ever gets fired. As bad and as damaging as this in-house report is, we are told that it was all a matter of levity and humour.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: The member should stick to water at lunchtime.

I tell the member what I will stick to—I will stick to not taking Valium, as she does. I am not a person with a problem handling stress, as she has. I am not a person who had to take leave for months, as she did. We can handle the truth in this party, unlike her—and if the Minister wants to go there, she can go there and see how painful it is. [Interruption] The fishwife from Wanganui can go there and find out how painful the experience will be for her and her colleagues. That is her last warning, because we do not muck around with people who want to be clever and personal in this House.

💬 Jill Pettis: Get up earlier.

It is obvious who has been getting up early in her family. It shows, does it not? The reality of it all is that this is a rotten, venal, corrupt report from a rotten, venal, corrupt administration who, when they are caught telling lies, blame someone else. All of this happened in the Minister’s office, but she gets up in this House and says: “I know nothing of it. I was not part of the conspiracy.” Do members know what a conspiracy is? A conspiracy is an agreement between two or more to break the law, and on this matter they did. They hid the circumstances of a terrorist because the heat was on this Minister. But she is doing it over and over again. In the North Shore Hospital right now, there is a man there with a disease that no doctor knows about in this country—it is usually associated with horses. So inexperienced are our doctors with this matter—[Interruption] No, not mad horses; not mad mares either—it has to do with horses. So inexperienced are the doctors that they are feeding him an equine cure in the hope that it might work, and the staff have been told to tell no one. These incompetent people put at risk the health and security of New Zealanders. They think they will get away with it, but they will not. I make a commitment to this House that we will carry on exposing their incompetence day in and day out, until they are gone from service to this country.

This is a very important debate about whether senior civil servants tell lies. It is a debate that goes to the heart of the integrity of our public service, of our Government, and of our Parliament. It is a question about whether senior civil servants will tell lies to cover up wrongdoing and corruption. Today I have received information that proves that senior civil servants have told lies to cover up corruption, have seen their Minister tell lies to this Parliament, and this Government knows about it.

💬 Ron Mark: Not another one.

Yes, another one. With the Helen Clark administration we have a pattern of deceit, of evasion, of half-truth and—when push comes to shove—total lies. Let me walk members through what lies have been told. There can be no greater crime for a civil servant than to take payment in return for favours. There is no greater crime than to take payment for financial favours, and that is what has happened under this Government. Not only that but when questions have been asked, the Government has lied to cover up.

This is the issue. On 13 February this year, I asked the Minister of Māori Affairs whether any officials of Te Māngai Pāho had received cash from Māori Sportscasting International. It was question for written answer No. 257. Here is the answer that the Minister of Māori Affairs gave—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please be seated. The member knows that this is a debate, as agreed by the House and announced by Mr Speaker. I will read it again if the member wants me to. The debate is about the report by the Secretary of Labour into allegations in respect of the Immigration Service, and I warn the member to keep to that subject.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. In fact this debate is on a report into the question of the integrity of the Government. I listened to the speech made by Mr Peters and you did not once pull him up, although he put it into a wider context. Now Mr Hide is doing the same thing. With your having set the rules, we cannot have one set of rules for the New Zealand First Party—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes we can.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Well, Mr Peters says we can and I know he would like to have a different set of rules. In my view what Mr Hide is putting to the House is relevant. He is saying that this report fits into a systematic way of behaving by this Government. I assure you that that is most certainly relevant.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Please be seated. I am ruling on the point of order. The previous speaker did not get into the specifics. This is about the specifics of another Minister. So I ask Mr Hide to continue.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER:I have ruled on this point of order.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I know what you have done, Madam Speaker. You have ruled on my point of order, but I am entitled to put it, without you prejudging the issue before I open my mouth. I have in my hand the State Services Commissioner’s press release from this day on this very matter. He puts it into a wider context, and that is why Mr Hide is entitled to do so likewise. I invite you to read his press statement before you rush to judgment like you just have.

As I said when I ruled on the matter, members can put it into a wider context, but they cannot debate the questions put to another Minister—namely, the Minister of Māori Affairs.

💬 RODNEY HIDE: I am responding to the claims made by the Minister who spoke earlier, saying that under this Government everything is hunky-dory. I notice it is all right for her to talk in a general sense about how things are all OK, but when one gets down to the specifics, this Government is in trouble.

Let me not refer any longer to the Minister of Māori Affairs’ answer to this House, but let me talk about the responses of civil servants. I received this document today and it talks about how civil servants lie. This civil servant did not lie in unison; he just lied. Here is the reply from the Minister of Māori Affairs—and I have to do this to put it into context—“I am advised by my officials that there have been no payments of cash by Māori Sportscasting International to any employees of Te Māngai Pāho.” That is fairly straightforward, is it not? No cash was paid. Well, Te Māngai Pāho said: “Te Rangi was specifically asked by Trevor Moeke”. Trevor Moeke is the Chief Executive of Te Māngai Pāho—or was. He asked in an email, to Mr Tame Te Rangi, on 20 February, to which Mr Tame Te Rangi replied on 21 February: “Yes, I was paid cash.” But this goes on to his report on 6 June, which states: “Te Rangi admitted only to very few—hence reply.” So what we have within this Government—and its members know it—is a chief executive asking his senior manager: “Did you receive cash, because the question has been asked in Parliament?”. The senior official went back to the chief executive and said: “I have received cash.” The Chief Executive of Te Māngai Pāho, Mr Trevor Moeke, answered—[Interruption]

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The comments made by the senior Government whip are a disgrace and disorderly. He should be asked to withdraw and apologise. Both allegations are uncalled for. Perhaps he should have a modicum of courage, which I do not expect him to have, and say it outside the House.

The member is quite correct. I ask the member to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 David Benson-Pope: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 RODNEY HIDE: I want to remind the House of these facts. Did a senior manager of Te Māngai Pāho receive cash payments in return for financial benefits from the taxpayer? Yes. Did the chief executive ask the senior manager whether such cash payments had been received? Yes. Did Mr Tame Te Rangi reply that cash payments had been received? He said: “Yes”. Yet this is the answer that was given to this House: “I am advised by my officials that there have been no payments of cash by Māori Sportscasting International”. Why was that? It was because Trevor Moeke, the office of the Minister of Māori Affairs, and this Government concluded: “Te Rangi admitted only to very few—hence reply.” I say, they either got cash or they did not.

We are discovering—and members of the Opposition parties know this—that there is a 0.5 percent tolerance for lying to this House, because, yes, he received cash, but only a few payments. So it is OK to say that he received none. By the Minister’s own documentation we have established that, yes, officials do lie, yes—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: A sleazy Government!

💬 RODNEY HIDE: It is a sleazy Government, because officials do lie. The Minister knows it and his officials know it. They lied to this Parliament. What they were lying about was not just a few corncobs, but corruption in the heart of the Government. That is what it is if a senior official is being paid to hand out benefits and contracts. That is what was happening.

Do people remember when Helen Clark promised a better Government and a new standard of accountability? Here is the standard—lies, a pattern of deceit, and corruption that is covered up. We have talked about this sort of corruption. Ministers come into this House and they lie. The Minister received this report on 6 June. On 6 June this Government was advised that Mr Trevor Moeke had lied, because he had received payments—but only a few! What happened to Mr Moeke? He got a 9-month paid holiday. He got a golden handshake, because it is claimed he was a model civil servant—one who lied to cover up for a Minister. That is what this Government expects of its senior civil servants. Dr Mark Prebble is another model servant, so is Mr James Buwalda, so is Mr Michael Wintringham. Why is that? It is because they go along with the pattern of deceit that is practised—from Helen Clark through to each of her Ministers and down through the senior civil servants. They do it in order to cover their backsides.

The Department of Labour investigation found that there was no evidence of conspiracy to lie or to deceive, but from the Greens’ point of view the bigger issue in this case has been the entire management of Ahmed Zaoui’s case and his refugee status. It demonstrates that the whole process has been a deceptive and prejudicial process.

This report is simply another piece of the puzzle that shows that the Zaoui case is being processed in a discriminatory way. It is a further indictment on the Immigration Service, and the Minister’s failure to manage the situation effectively. The report’s identification of official information cover-up is the tip of the iceberg in this case. It is a deliberate attempt to deny Ahmed Zaoui the respectful humane treatment that any migrant or refugee is entitled to in this country. A further demonstration that immigration is a mess and that the whole process is failing is shown in the recent immigration legislation, the failure of the Immigration Service to manage its caseload, which has meant a lapsing of 20,000 applications, legislation that deprives individuals and new migrants of their human rights and the rights to appeal in the immigration process, and legislation recently discussed in this House for the indefinite detention of immigrants who are subject to removal order. In our view this is bringing the Labour Party perilously close to a New Zealand First position on immigration.

In our view the management of Zaoui’s case has been a continual and total failure. First, the initial step was the staff member who, when interviewing Mr Zaoui, completely misunderstood his accent, through a failure of training, and held that he was a member of an organisation, when his answer when asked was “No”; despite the fact that he denied that he was a member of that organisation, he was listed as being so. So from the beginning Mr Zaoui has been treated in a prejudicial way.

He is still in prison awaiting the final process on his refugee status with the security risk assessment. He has been in jail for nearly a year, waiting for this process to be completed—a year of waiting for the Immigration Service to do its job, and to do its job properly. This report is simply another indication that that service is failing, not even necessarily because the processes are not in place, but because there has been a prejudicial and discriminatory attitude to Mr Zaoui’s case in particular.

The Refugee Status Appeal Authority, which considered Mr Zaoui’s application for refugee status, has found in fact that Mr Zaoui is safe, his case his safe, he is a legitimate refugee, and he is entitled to be treated so in this country. The Refugee Status Appeal Authority was so appalled with the way Mr Zaoui had been treated by the Immigration Service that it went so far as to seriously criticise the information provided by the Security Intelligence Service, the essential organisation that is supposed to provide information to this country to enable it to protect its borders.

That authority found that the Security Intelligence Service information was not sound and that it was discredited, and that the Security Intelligence Service had sourced its information from the dictatorial Algerian regime from whence Mr Zaoui was seeking his refugee status—the same regime that wants to imprison and torture Mr Zaoui if he returns to that country. Of course they will provide prejudicial information about him, because they do not like him, but the Security Intelligence Service, which is responsible for finding secure and good-quality information, completely failed to do so. The Refugee Status Appeal Authority has entirely discredited the Security Intelligence Service and its information.

This report is just another indication of that complete and utter failure to deal with Mr Zaoui in any kind of respectful or humane way. The Green Party calls on the Minister of Immigration to reconsider, in the light of this information and the trail of information that shows that this case has been managed badly from the start, the security risk assessment process and to give credence to, and respect the decision of, the Refugee Status Appeal Authority that Mr Zaoui is a legitimate refugee, and to ensure that there is a clear and transparent process for managing his case, and cases like this, to make sure that people who come to this country seeking refugee status are not treated prejudicially, but given the respect and humane treatment that is their due.

I seek leave to table the report of 6 June 2003, relating to parliamentary questions to the Minister of Maori Affairs, which I received today.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

It is interesting that wherever there are people, we will always face challenges. In Government, as in the private sector, we are basically dealing with people, and that requires great wisdom at times, and also when one is dealing with people, one has a leader. We are dealing with a chief executive who has given us a report. May I add that he is a new chief executive dealing with this particular party. I would like to comment briefly on James Buwalda’s report on the investigation into the Department of Labour’s management of the information in relation to Mr Ahmed Zaoui.

In respect of allegations in a report like this, United Future would be very concerned to ensure that the public service is run properly, and with due respect for the law. That is what the public of New Zealand would also expect. But unfortunately when one begins to deal with issues like this, especially in a political arena, one can get people raising political points, building a lot of emotion, building a lot of flak, and not dealing with the issues at hand; because again, where there are people, one will have challenges. That is what we are dealing with.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Like you guys!

Not like us guys—we are here to help. In this case we are dealing particularly with the Official Information Act. Now for a democracy to function properly, the public service must be fully accountable to the law, to the Government of the day, and to the public. The accusations that brought about this report, particularly the comment that officials had “lied in unison”, give me great cause for concern, on the face of it. However, in the overall conclusions of the chief executive’s report he states: “I believe my investigation has found no evidence that Department of Labour officials involved in handling official information relating to the Zaoui case lied. My overall conclusion in relation to the original allegations is as follows: Officials agreeing to ‘lie in unison’ ”, he says: “I found no evidence to suggest”, and continued on, under the heading “Officials lied to the Ombudsman about the existence of the ‘lie in unison’ memorandum”: “I found no evidence that officials deliberately misled the Ombudsman.”

I think the most telling evidence that there was no conspiracy is the reference to the conspiracy that was recorded on the department’s media log, which is distributed by email to up to 300 people. Well, I do not think one needs to be a rocket scientist to work out that if one wants to break a conspiracy at top level, one would not send the information out by email to 300 people and bring them into the loop. Because I have found that if 12 people are in a loop, and one person tells the next person, by the time it gets around the loop to No. 12, the story is not the same. So if 300 people are put into the loop I do not believe that that is deliberately trying to set up a conspiracy.

That is not to say that nobody has a case to answer. There were several apparent cases of unprofessionalism and general misconduct by staff members, and those are being dealt with through normal disciplinary procedures as they should be. Whenever there are staff there will be those who do not follow the procedure, and they do need to be dealt with. But I have found that dealing with issues is becoming increasingly complex today, not necessarily because of the difficulty of the situation one is faced with, but because of the incredible complexity we have put into laws in this nation about following the correct procedure, and it sometimes can be very difficult to get the correct result; ask any small-business man in this country, and I am sure he will agree with me.

There is also an apparent lack of staff knowledge as to the correct guidelines for responding to Official Information Act requests. The department has said that this situation will be remedied, and United Future will be monitoring the process to ensure that that happens. I personally believe that the chief executive has done a good job, and looking into a new department I believe he has taken leadership and responsibility. He has checked things out correctly, and I wish him well. United Future will be watching this situation closely, but to be honest, I think that the chief executive has it well in hand, and may his leadership continue.

That was an interesting contribution from the “United Apologist Party”—that is “Apologist”, not “Apostles”. But one could be forgiven for being confused with that fawning idolatry in that speech towards the chief executive of a Government department. I have this message for that member: what we are seeing here today is a template for the way the public service in New Zealand is now behaving. I just ask that member to compare the “agree to lie in unison” scandal with what we are seeing with “corngate” right now. We have public servants saying “Release the information, it’s what the Prime Minister said.” It is clear that there is divergence between what is being released and what the Prime Minister said. What do we find? Another cover-up involving the chief executive of the Prime Minister’s department!

What is more, the Leader of the Opposition, Bill English, today released an email from the chief of the public service—the celibate man who leads our public service—who, in his email, talks about the public servants commenting during the “corngate” scandal, and the memo states that what they are now saying is different from what the official papers said at the time.

💬 David Benson-Pope: Table it!

It has been tabled. What is clear is that this report asks more questions than it answers. Why were the Minister’s staff not quizzed? Because the Minister said that the only way for this to be a conspiracy was if she was involved. But what about her staff? Did anyone go and talk to her press secretary who would handle these sorts of inquiries? Did anyone go and talk to her senior private secretary, who may have been involved in this? Because the one thing “corngate” shows is that apparently we have senior public servants making decisions as though they were the Ministers themselves. So why was no inquiry made?

💬 David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the speaker, but when I asked for the tabling of the document that the member is referring to, he claimed it had been tabled. I have just checked with the Clerk, and that is not the case. The member is clearly misleading the House—[Interruption]

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I warn Mr Peters that there will be silence during points of order. That is the final warning. That is not a point of order. That is a debating point.

💬 Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

💬 David Benson-Pope: Table it, Mr Ryall, go on then.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have ruled on the point of order. Is this a new point of order?

💬 Rodney Hide: In this point of order the senior Government whip accused Mr Tony Ryall of misleading Parliament. It is totally unacceptable to use a point of order to accuse another member of breaching privilege. Secondly, while I was giving my point of order, the senior Government whip interjected on my point of order, and I notice that when the Speaker is in the Chair that means an automatic ejection, but for the senior Government whip, I guess he has immunity under your Chairmanship.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise for that last remark.

💬 Rodney Hide: I withdraw and apologise.

Madam Speaker—

💬 Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would like my two points of order to be ruled on.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have previously ruled on them. I will just make the point that I had not called the member before the senior Government whip spoke.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think, if you check the Hansard, you will find that to Mr Hide’s point of order you said: “The member will withdraw that last remark.”, and that is all you said about it. Therefore, you have not ruled on this point of order at all.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, Mr Peters, I was not referring to that point of order at all. He was referring to an interjection that Mr Benson-Pope made previously.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will have to concentrate your mind on the proceedings of this House. If you look at the Hansard you will see what was said. Mr Hide raised a point of order, and he, at the end, added a comment that you found to be an aspersion on the Speaker of the House and you asked him instantly to withdraw it. That is the fact. That is what happened, and we still have not had a ruling on Mr Hide’s point, which was that Mr Benson-Pope interrupted his point of order, and he said something else that I cannot repeat because it was unparliamentary. But the first point of order still stands, not ruled upon.

No. Mr Benson-Pope made that remark before I had called Mr Hide on his point of order. That is the end of the matter.

💬 Hon TONY RYALL: The Minister of Immigration said there could be no conspiracy unless she was involved. What has become clear in an analysis of the “corngate” scandal is that we have public servants accepting that they have decision-making power in what can and cannot happen, with respect to official documents and actions. So why was not the press secretary of the Minister involved and quizzed? Why was there no interrogation of her senior private secretary?

💬 Rodney Hide: I know why.

💬 Hon TONY RYALL: Why?

💬 Rodney Hide: Because they would have had to tell the answers.

💬 Hon TONY RYALL: They would have had to tell the truth. But no one from the Minister’s staff was asked or interrogated as part of this inquiry.

💬 Ron Mark: How convenient.

💬 Hon TONY RYALL: How convenient indeed! And no advice of whether anyone in the Minister’s office received one of the 300 memos from the public relations advisor at the New Zealand Immigration Service! It is inconceivable that the Minister’s press secretary is not on that list. We demand to know from that Minister whether her press secretary received that email. We want to know what involvement her press secretary and her senior private secretary had in discussions with any staff member of the Immigration Service on how they would deal with these inquiries. I suggest to the House that not asking the Minister’s staff is tantamount to closing one’s eyes and not wanting to know that information is available that could be sought. I find it inconceivable that 300 emails were sent out as a media log, no copies were sent to the Minister’s office, and no public servant did anything about the comments made by Mr Smith.

I have doubts about the veracity of this inquiry based on this information. I want to draw attention to page 16 of the report. In the report the chief executive says that Mr Smith does not always keep copies of his media logs. Is it not suspicious that the media log that we wanted was for 17 December, but Mr Smith had media logs for 16, 18, and 19 December? The very one that the Ombudsman was seeking, no one could find. Why did not the department go into the database of its email system and pull out the original that was sent? I am sure it is logged in there somewhere. Why was no effort made on that?

This has been a very superficial, once-over-lightly, attempt to get to the bottom of this matter. No one has taken the forensic step of going on to the hard drive of the email system and getting what was sent out. Even though an email may have been deleted, it still exists on the hard drive. Why did no one in the Immigration Service get a forensic computer specialist to go in and pull that document? For Mr Smith to say he does not always keep the media logs, but has the media logs on either side of the date in question, indicates a conspiracy to destroy a document. That indicates a conspiracy to destroy evidence after the fact that he knew that official authorities were seeking that information.

It is outrageous that they would lie like flatfish to the ombudsman. Why I raised that point is that every day, members of Parliament are asking officials and departments to provide information. I have been in a position myself on this. Before the last election the Government introduced crime statistics for the 11 months before the election, saying crime was going down. I knew that the full 12-month figures to 30 June would show that crime was going up. I had two phone calls telling me that. It is inconceivable that I would know and the Commissioner of Police says he did not know, and everyone in the Commissioner of Police’s office and the Minister’s office say they did not know. How come I knew? I am not the Commissioner of Police, or the Minister of Police yet. But how did I know? I had people ring me. If I had people ringing me, and they knew the information, sure as heck someone in the police hierarchy knew the information. But we made the official information requests, asked the written questions, and everyone said: “We never knew. No one ever told us. In the commissioner’s office no one ever sought the information.”

This raises questions about the veracity of answers from every single Government agency. What this report shows is that officials are taking an obfuscatory approach to the requests of Opposition members of Parliament, and this culture permeates from the top. This is a Prime Minister who blames everybody else, who says that she did not do anything, but she did; who says that she never read this, but she did; who says she never signed that, but she did; and who said she was not conscious then, but she was. This permeates from the very top.

When it came to the “paintergate” disaster, she did not sign it, and she had not signed many, but she had signed eight. What about ancestral landscapes? She had never signed that report, but she did, and had to admit it in the House. What about the OECD growth targets? The Prime Minister had never signed anything that said we would have growth by 2011, but she did, and we produced it; she said she was not conscious. This goes on everywhere in this Government department, every day, and it comes from the top—the Prime Minister’s “blame and bluster” approach to honesty and integrity in Government. There must be a lot of pressure when one is a popular and competent Prime Minister, but I would have thought the biggest pressure of all was to tell the truth. I cannot understand that, when it comes to “corngate”, “paintergate”, and the immigration scandal, everyone else is lying except the Government. Frankly, New Zealanders do not believe that.

This debate actually begins with section 129T of the Immigration Act, which states: “Confidentiality to be maintained—(1) Subject to this section, confidentiality as to the identity of the claimant or other person whose status is being considered under this Part, and as to the particulars of their case, must at all times, both during and subsequent to the determination of the claim or other matter, be maintained by refugee status officers, the Authority, other persons involved in the administration of this Act, and persons to whom particulars are disclosed under subsection (3)(a) or (b). (2) Compliance with subsection (1) may in an appropriate case require confidentiality as to the very fact or existence of a claim or case,”.

I never confirmed the fact that Mr Zaoui had made a claim for refugee status, until the Refugee Status Appeals Authority made its determination public, and the lawyers representing Mr Zaoui commented on it. That then enabled subsection (4) to kick in. Nor does subsection (1) apply to prevent the disclosure of particulars in relation to a particular claimant to the extent that the claimant has, whether expressly or impliedly by his or her words or actions, waived his or her right to confidentiality under that section. It was only at that point that I could confirm that Mr Zaoui had made a claim for refugee status. This section of the Act was introduced with a raft of amendments in 1999 by the then National Government. It brought in the rules that I am required to comply with today.

The reason for confidentiality is twofold. One is to protect the individual and/or any family or associates who may still be in the country of origin. No one in New Zealand would want to be the cause of people dying because the identity of a refugee status claimant had been disclosed publicly in New Zealand. The other reason is to prevent the deliberate use of the media to provide grounds for a refugee claim. Certain members of the media need to contemplate very carefully what the Refugee Status Appeals Authority said in respect of Mr Zaoui’s case. The point I have made so often to the media is that they do not know whether the claimant is the one who is trying to get the publicity to advance his or her claim for refugee status. I have not been able to get the media to understand just how serious this is. I hope this case does allow the media to reflect seriously on what has occurred here.

On Thursday, 12 December a phone call was received by an employee of the Immigration Service. At the time he was in my office with over two dozen other officials from that department and other departments for my annual Christmas function. He discussed the call with me immediately after he had taken it. I have learnt from the Department of Labour report released today that I knew more than him about this particular case, because I had been briefed on the subject and he had not been briefed. Until I received that report I had assumed that he had been briefed. I believe that this is a systems issue, which has been identified in this report. No one had thought through the consequences of the media adviser, who would be the first to be contacted if information did leak out, being left in the dark.

After the function, and after I returned to Christchurch, I had more than a couple of conversations with the Director of Security. As a result of those conversations it was agreed that I would be the only person to speak publicly on the matter. I spoke to a reporter of the New Zealand Herald, and this is what was written in the New Zealand Herald the following day: “Ahmed Zaoui arrived at Paremoremo prison yesterday under a heavy police escort. It is understood a police helicopter was used to monitor his transfer to the prison. Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel said last night that she could not confirm any details except that a man was being detained under the Immigration Act, which gives the Government power to hold him for 28 days. ‘We have security concerns and investigations are proceeding,’ she said. Asked to elaborate on the level of her concerns, the minister said: ‘They are of sufficient concern.’ Airport authorities say they have no record of a man by the name Ahmed Zaoui entering New Zealand in the past few days.”

That serves to confirm the fact that the media adviser had related the question to somebody whom he believed had entered New Zealand in the past few days, when in fact he had entered New Zealand the week before.

The reporter told me the night before that article was published that not only was the New Zealand Herald going to publish that individual’s name but it was going to publish his photograph as well. I warned her of the dangers. It was very difficult to warn a reporter of the dangers without confirming that a claim for refugee status had been lodged. She said she would speak to the editor about the matter. I felt so concerned about the matter that I personally rang the duty editor that night, but it was to no avail. I explained to him that people will do anything to get a claim for refugee status determined in this country, and use of the media as an opportunity to have a whole lot of publicity of their case certainly assists them by adding another ground to a refugee claim. This is such a serious matter, but my efforts were to no avail.

The following week, the newspaper’s editorial on 17 December was very, very critical of this particular spokesman, the media adviser from the Immigration Service. It stated: “A day later, the same spokesman would not comment on the case and said he had not heard of Zaoui.”—that was true—“Yet on the same day, Ms Dalziel, after initially declining to confirm details of Zaoui’s detention, was lauding the efficient handling of the case. The difference between saying nothing and telling untruths is clearly an elusive concept for some.” That was what led the media adviser, who now had a good idea of what had been kept from him, to write the now-famous “lie in unison” comment. He did feel badly let down; he had every reason to feel badly let down. There are disciplinary matters now associated with that individual and the code of conduct, and I am confident, because of the quality of the report we have before us today, that they will be dealt with in a fair manner.

It was not until July that this matter became an issue again, as a result of the National Party spokesperson on immigration providing the New Zealand Herald with a copy of the media log. I was not aware of it until I was called by the New Zealand Herald on the Monday evening. I spoke to the general manager and the media adviser about the matter that night. That was the last time I spoke to the media adviser. The Official Information Act issue did not arise until Tuesday evening. I recall calling the New Zealand Herald just before 6 o’clock to ask whether it had any questions. I was told that there was something the reporter wanted to put to me, but she did not want me making a statement to other media, and told me to call back after 6.30. I was very concerned when I learnt of the allegation. I contacted the general manager and instructed him to investigate. The following day the general manager took over the investigation and expanded the terms of reference.

This report by the chief executive is thorough and comprehensive. It is not tainted. He has adopted a thoroughly objective approach. He was not the Secretary of Labour at the time, and I resent very strongly the comments that have been made about him. This is a chief executive officer who has been prepared to acknowledge systemic problems within his department, and I am confident that he will address those.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.