Urgent Debates — Immigration Service—Ombudsman’s Report

I have received a letter from the Hon Murray McCully seeking to debate, under Standing Order 373, a recent report from the Ombudsman into allegations involving the Immigration Service. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and I consider it does require the immediate attention of the House. I ask him to move accordingly.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. This is a sad and serious day for the New Zealand Parliament. At 12.30 p.m. today, one of our Ombudsmen, Mr Mel Smith—a former Secretary for Justice and a very distinguished public servant—released a report that found that two officials lied to him as he carried out his responsibilities under the Official Information Act. He found that officials in the Immigration Service of the Department of Labour were guilty of actions that were unlawful and wrong.

The Ombudsman is a very important part of the fabric of our constitutional democracy. He is an important officer of this Parliament. In order to discharge our obligations as members of Parliament we depend upon the Office of the Ombudsmen, and we depend upon public servants within departments to deal honestly with the Ombudsmen. That did not happen on this occasion. All 48 pages of today’s report, and a number of pages of appendices as well, tell a very sorry saga of deceit.

At question time I was staggered to hear the acting Minister of Immigration tell us it was OK. He said that the report of the Ombudsman did find some people had lied, but it was OK because it had not been in unison. That is the new test we have from this Government. It is OK for State officials to lie; it is just not good enough if they lie in unison. They have to lie independently, apparently. I ask the Minister to reflect on what message he sent to the House in that response.

On 17 December 2002 a memorandum was circulated amongst about 300 officials—officials mostly in the Immigration Service but not exclusively. It said: “I was let down badly. Everyone had agreed to lie in unison, but all the others caved in. I was the only one left singing the original song.” Word got about concerning that transmission. Members of the Leader of the Opposition’s staff and I sought to track it down. A number of Official Information Act requests were lodged. One might ask how it could be that, in New Zealand in 2004, a memorandum could circulate amongst 300 public servants saying that everyone had agreed to lie in unison—yet nothing happened. No one blew the whistle. No one said to the Minister: “You’ve got a problem here.” I find it astonishing that that could happen in our public service, but it did.

So members of the Opposition sought to find out what they could. Many months down the track, and after many interactions under the Official Information Act, the Ombudsman was asked to carry out a review of the extent to which officials of the Immigration Service might have been deficient in their compliance with their obligations under the Official Information Act. For those who are uninitiated, that means the Ombudsman asked to see the files. He ultimately asked to see all the files so he could put a ruler over them to decide whether information can lawfully be withheld. With regard to the Immigration Service, there are genuine issues of confidentiality, and, in this case, of security, that would require some delicate judgments to be assessed. The Ombudsman in this case found that the documents the Opposition sought to source did not exist—or so it was asserted by the Immigration Service. He was told: “No, we have given you everything. Nothing more is in the cupboard.”

💬 Rodney Hide: They lied.

That certainly seems to be the case. They certainly lied. Maybe they did not lie in unison, although I have my doubts about that, but they certainly lied. Ultimately members of the Opposition and their staff managed to narrow down, with considerable specificity, the type of document sought—a media log. Because there has been a previous case involving media logs, it is well established that media logs are official information. There should have been no doubt at all as to whether they were handed over to the Opposition in the first place, and, in the second instance, to the Ombudsman when he came calling.

But that is not what happened. Finally, on 27 June the Ombudsman had to write to the staff of the Leader of the Opposition to say: “Look, I have spent months on this thing. I have asked them every which way for the media logs around this particular date, and they don’t have any. They don’t exist. So there is nothing more I can do as an officer of Parliament but say that I conclude my investigation.”

Remarkably, a few days later a memorandum turned up on the front page of the New Zealand Herald—the very memorandum we had been seeking under the Official Information Act. It was the very memorandum the Ombudsman had been told by public servants, including quite senior ones, did not exist. How could that happen? It is a most serious matter.

So the Ombudsman thought: “I have got no choice but to conduct an inquiry that gets to the bottom of this. Otherwise there is no point in having an Official Information Act; otherwise there is no point in having an Ombudsman.” What was at issue in the inquiry Mr Mel Smith has reported on today was whether we do have an operational Official Information Act in this country, and whether we have functioning Ombudsmen.

I am delighted to say that, as a consequence of the findings and the rigour in Mr Smith’s report, we have seen the guardian of those important institutions stand up to the task the Government did not care about, at all. When this memorandum turned up on the front page of the New Zealand Herald the obvious thing to do—and the Minister at least conceded this today—was to call for an independent inquiry.

We asked for an independent inquiry, but we were told to get lost. We asked whether the Secretary of Labour would acknowledge that he was fatally compromised, but he would not. Three times I wrote to the State Services Commissioner and said: “Look, this is just not going to wash. This is not good enough.” And three times the State Services Commissioner wrote back to me saying: “Get lost, I am quite happy for an in-house job to happen on this occasion.” He was quite happy to have an in-house job done by the Secretary of Labour, Dr James Buwalda.

Dr Buwalda did make some findings, on 28 June. This is what he said—he said some other things but it is germane to this debate to report only on his finding about the allegation that officials lied to the Ombudsman—“I found no evidence that officials deliberately misled the Ombudsman regarding the existence of the lie-in-unison memorandum.” That was the finding of the Secretary of Labour, Dr James Buwalda, in relation to the in-house job that was done. That report was a shabby whitewash—nothing more and nothing less than a shabby whitewash—and the Prime Minister let it happen, the then Minister of Immigration let it happen, and the State Services Commissioner let it happen, knowing that we were never going to see the facts. They wanted to sweep this matter under the carpet, and it would have stayed under the carpet had it not been for the fact that the Ombudsman was up to the task and said: “I am going to lift the carpet. I am not going to let the Official Information Act and the Office of the Ombudsmen be thwarted by these people in this Labour Government.” That is what Mr Mel Smith accepted as his responsibility.

So we have a report today, 48 pages in all, that makes the most serious findings any of us have seen against public officials in this country. It makes a finding against the immigration spokesperson, Mr Ian Smith, that he knew what was being sought by the Ombudsman and his staff over many, many weeks, but he decided not to hand over that information. It says in this report that he “deliberately dissembled”. For the benefit of those who do not have a dictionary handy, that means he lied. Mr Ian Smith lied to the Ombudsman.

In respect of the other senior adviser who was conducting the relationship with the Ombudsman, in his report the Ombudsman says that that person also knew what was being asked for by the Office of the Ombudsmen over many weeks, that he knew precisely what the point of the questions was, and that that person, too, lied. Further, this report said that under oath those two individuals gave answers that the Ombudsman, after mature reflection, expressly rejects. He says those officials lied to him under oath in the explanations they provided. The most careful, considered findings in this report are to that effect.

The Ombudsman, Mr Mel Smith, also turns his attention to Mr Lockhart—now the general manager, then the operations manager—of the Immigration Service. Mr Mel Smith is a charitable man and a very nice man. He hated doing this report. He hated having to find out what had happened in the public service he has served for his whole life. But he found, charitably in my view, that Mr Lockhart may have had something different in his mind when the Ombudsman called on him. The Ombudsman thought: “This matter is so important I am going to take the unusual step of asking the general manager to answer the questions already answered by the junior officials.” Mr Lockhart said: “No, no, we don’t have that stuff here.”, and his explanation was that he had not actually checked with the person who had the information. That was, at best, a dereliction of duty on the part of the man who is now the general manager of the Immigration Service. It was incompetent. It could be worse. I take the view that it is worse, and we will have more to say about it. The Ombudsman says: “I consider his omission to do so was unfortunate.” “Unfortunate” is about the kindest word I can think of.

The questions that flow from this report are these: how can it be that Mr Buwalda was allowed to do an in-house job to provide a shabby whitewash? Where was the Minister? Where was the Prime Minister? Where was the rest of Cabinet? They allowed that whitewash to occur; there is no question about it.

I say to the House today that the person who wrote that shabby whitewash, Dr James Buwalda, must resign or be sacked. That chief executive of the Department of Labour does not have the confidence of this Parliament. He made a big call in deciding not to have an independent inquiry. He made a bigger call in deciding to clear himself and all his officials. The Ombudsman’s report today says he was wrong. It says his officials did lie to the Ombudsman’s office—a direct contradiction of what Mr Buwalda himself reported in his report some months earlier. Dr Buwalda must go.

Mr Lockhart must go. In this most sensitive area of New Zealand administration, he cannot enjoy the confidence of this House. Mr Wintringham has a question mark on himself. Three times he turned down the request for the independent inquiry that even the Minister today admits should have occurred, and Mr Wintringham must ask himself why.

Every possible institution broke down on this occasion. The Prime Minister failed in her responsibilities. The Minister failed in her responsibility. The chief executive of the Department of Labour failed in his responsibilities. The State Services Commissioner failed in his responsibilities.

Thank God for the Ombudsman! This whole matter would have been lying under the carpet—where this Government was prepared to allow it to be swept—were it not for the efforts of Mr Mel Smith. I say that all members of this House owe Mr Smith a true vote of thanks today. He performed what for him was a most unpleasant and painful task. I thank him for it. I suggest that all members thank him for it, and they should remind this Minister of his responsibilities to sort that place out.

Let me begin by saying that the Secretary of Labour has my confidence. He will not be resigning, and he certainly will not be sacked.

I think most members would have picked up the irony of the righteous indignation of that member, who was the Minister of Tourism, and it is important to remember that when he was the Minister of Tourism he threw his weight around. He interfered in statutory boards. He tried to get rid of them. That resulted in messy and huge costs to the taxpayer of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of those payments were considered to be illegal, and after all that, having said he had done nothing wrong, 6 days later he resigned from the portfolio of Minister of Tourism. So no one believes in that righteous indignation. That member has no credibility whatsoever in this House when talking about the ethics of the public sector and the public service.

There are two important things to say right at the outset. First, it is critical that the public have confidence in our Government agencies and, second, it is important that the Official Information Act is respected. That Act is an important plank of our democracy. The Ombudsman’s report is thorough. It addresses both of those issues, and certainly my job is to ensure that the recommendations are acted upon.

I want to begin by saying that I accept, in full, the report of the Ombudsman into the actions of the department into the Official Information Act complaint. I also say that I am pleased the Ombudsman found there was no evidence to suggest that anyone was involved in any agreement to lie in unison in respect of media inquiries about Ahmed Zaoui. Those were the accusations and allegations of the former Minister of Tourism, Murray McCully, but the Ombudsman states in the report: “I have not seen or heard any evidence that suggests or indicates that any person or persons, as officials in the NZIS, was involved in any agreement to lie in unison.” That was also the finding of the Secretary of Labour. Both reports agree on that.

The Ombudsman did go on to say, however, that he thought there were problems with the internal processes for the handling of Official Information Act requests. That is absolutely right, and I take seriously, as I said, the obligations of the Public Service in respect of the Official Information Act. I have been assured by Dr Buwalda that these issues are being addressed, and I will return to those in just a minute. I have instructed the Secretary of Labour to report to me on the implementation of the recommendations by the end of March.

It is true that the Ombudsman is critical of two staff of the Immigration Service. However, neither the Ombudsman nor myself are responsible for employment matters within the New Zealand Immigration Service, because, unlike Mr McCully, we do not wander around and throw our weight around in areas where we are not entitled to do so. The responsibility for these matters lies with the Secretary of Labour, and I understand he is addressing disciplinary and performance issues relating to this matter.

It is important to say that the secretary has already started addressing some of the matters raised in the report. He advises me he is concluding a review of guidelines for the handling of official information. Once the review is completed, ongoing training will be given to staff to ensure the guidelines are effectively applied. The secretary has made it explicit to the department’s managers that they must actively oversee the work of people involved in responding to Official Information Act requests. Where classified information is involved, managers must ensure that people with appropriate security clearance handle those requests. The secretary has also made it clear to all staff that no inappropriate material should be included in any communications originating from within the department, and that managers are responsible for monitoring that rule.

As far as the two officials mentioned in the report are concerned, the secretary advises me that he had already initiated disciplinary proceedings and performance management action following his own investigation last year. He will now take the Ombudsman’s findings—the report today—into consideration in determining any further action to take.

This is an important report. It goes into details. It does state there was no lying in unison, but it certainly criticises two officials. The Secretary of Labour indicates that he has also accepted that, in full, and that he will be acting on those recommendations. I have asked him to report to me, particularly in relation to the Official Information Act report, in March.

Apart from the indignation of the former Minister of Tourism, Murray McCully, I have accepted this report—given that the events in the Ombudsman’s report pre-date both my appointment to the portfolios and the appointment of Dr Buwalda as Secretary of Labour. This report presents an opportunity for us to deal with the recommendations, and provides both of us with an opportunity for a fresh start.

That Minister was totally incapable of defending his ministry in his first effort in this particular type of snap debate. He had 15 minutes, I think, to speak, and he did not even get the bell, as far as I can recall. He is totally incapable of defending a department that is an absolute shambles. This Minister already indicates he is totally incapable of defending it. This Minister has thrown in the towel already.

Here we have a very lengthy report. One would think that the Minister would have taken the time to read it. It was very clear to all of us in this House that we would be having a snap debate on this issue. He has obviously been thrown in at the deep end and, despite having been in Cabinet for all this length of time, he is totally incapable of defending the indefensible—the Immigration Service; the “Department of Dissembling” would be a polite term to have used in this report. It has a bunch of dissemblers, it seems, and this Minister cannot unravel the dissemblance. One would wonder whether we need a full inquiry now into the way in which the Immigration Service is run. This Minister, will all the experience he has had during the last few years in Cabinet, clearly is incapable of defending this department. Despite the fact that the Ombudsman was looking at this matter, the Immigration Service is still playing, well, silly games—I suppose I would say that in this House, to be polite—with the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman said in his report: “In my opinion, as disclosed by the facts and the evidence given to me, there was an omission by the Department of Labour to provide me with information required by me for the purpose of my Official Information Act report.” As far as New Zealand First is concerned, the Rt Hon Winston Peters has constantly asked questions of this department. Time and time again, day after day, we have been making sure that the massive immigration to New Zealand—of 50,000 or 60,000, and more, which was promised by this Labour Party—would be reduced. We have been successful in making sure that that figure has now been reduced, on the last 3-monthly basis, to about 17,000, and we are aiming to get it down further. The Rt Hon Winston Peters and we in New Zealand First have been very successful in that respect.

However, we have been asking constant questions, and one wonders about the quality of the answers that have been coming to New Zealand First in this House from the Immigration Service to the many questions that have been put. We have alleged corruption in various aspects of the running of the department, and we wonder whether some of the answers that we have been getting are similar to the answers that were given to the Ombudsman, and are part of this inquiry and of yet another inquiry taking place into the department. How can we rely on the Immigration Service to give accurate answers? How can we be certain that all the questions asked by the Rt Hon Winston Peters have had proper replies? How can we be certain that information has not been withheld? How can we be certain that the correct information was given? How can we be certain that the House was not misled in one form or another by answers from the Immigration Service? Even now, in this Ombudsman’s report, we see the service clearly being castigated for leaving out information and not giving the Ombudsman the proper information to enable him to carry out his inquiry.

All those efforts by the Rt Hon Winston Peters have gained success. The New Zealand First Party has ensured a reduction of immigration to New Zealand; thereby the Labour Party has admitted its mistake at the last election in allowing too many people to come into New Zealand. Labour has admitted that mistake. At least we can give Labour some faint praise. It admits it was wrong at the last election, and it has finally realised the situation. May I say in passing, having dealt with Lianne Dalziel at the select committee and on the immigration legislation, that she did put a lot of effort into what she was doing. It is sad that matters ended in the way in which they did, but that is the way things go in Parliament. I still have to wonder what other information—information that should have been forthcoming to us in New Zealand First—did not come to us as a result of the way in which the Immigration Service is still behaving, and still requires some form of inquiry.

On page 24 of the report the Ombudsman said: “In my opinion the manner in which Mr Smith was treated by the media was likely to have remained in his mind. He was also asked about his comment of 17 December 2002, which read: ‘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.’ ” That is what this is all about. There seems to be some sort of consistency between one person saying that he was going to be left singing the original song, and lying in unison. When I first heard of the situation that arose with the former Minister of Immigration, one of my first thoughts was—well, to be quite frank, I got the wrong phrase in my mind; I was thinking of the litany of lies, which was the Air New Zealand one. What should have gone through my mind was “lie in unison”. I thought: “If they have done it once, have they done it previously?”. All I can say is that the Immigration Service really needs to pull up its socks. In the report the Ombudsman said: “I express no opinion on Mr Smith’s reasoning behind his comment.” Once again, as other members have said, this Ombudsman has been extremely fair on the department—much too fair, I think. A judge might have been slightly tougher on reaching a conclusion. I think ombudsmen are too fair generally, because that is the nature of their work. If a judge had been looking at this type of information he or she may have reached a conclusion of a different kind that might not have been as sympathetic to the department as the Ombudsman has been.

The Ombudsman went on to say: “However, it seems to me that the comment was patently unwise or inappropriate, in that if it reached the public domain it was liable to result in the type of difficulty for the Department of Labour and Mr Smith, as in fact has resulted. For this reason, in my view, it was reasonable to expect Mr Smith to have remembered it in the context of persistent inquiries by Ms Boyle in May 2003.” It is strange, is it not, how a statement like that could have been forgotten by Mr Smith? How could he have forgotten a statement where he said that everyone had agreed to lie in unison? Who did he mean by “everyone” when he wrote that down? Of course, one immediately thinks of the former Minister of Immigration, who is not here to answer, but why would he have written that down? Clearly, the Opposition was totally justified in ensuring that there was an inquiry into the way in which this immigration division is behaving. It is disappointing, of course, that when we get a report like this on a department, someone does not put his or her hand up and go. If we look at what happened in the United Kingdom with the BBC, we see that when it got a report that was totally unsatisfactory, people put their hands up, and off they went. The next person down did the same, as well—but not in New Zealand. People can even get castigated, even by the Ombudsman—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: What’s that word?

That is what might happen to the member if he does not watch out. I know the word the member was thinking of. People can be castigated by the Ombudsman, who is a very gentle person, yet they can still hang on to their jobs in New Zealand. That is another case of where this minority Labour Government will not follow the usual rules of a Westminster system and make sure that the departmental people concerned walk. It is no use the Minister saying: “Oh, the people lower down are not my responsibility, and I have no responsibility for what they do.” The Minister has the responsibility for saying: “You go.” In fact, if the previous Minister had been here, that Minister should have been the person walking, along with some of her co-workers, as well.

On page 41 the Ombudsman used the words: “Omissions are unfortunate and indicate a failure to treat my personal inquiry with the importance that it merited.” Those are strong words from our Ombudsman. They are very, very polite, but they are very strong. Unfortunately, the inquiry was not treated with the importance it merited; information that was required was not given, and there was dissembling. How many other dissemblers are there? It makes one wonder just what the plan was, and how many people have got off scot-free. New Zealand First has been concerned for a long time with the way the Immigration Service has been run. This report gives full justification for New Zealand First’s concern and attitude about this very unhappy debacle, and a full inquiry is required to make sure it is run properly in the future, and, preferably, with a change of Government, as well.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to try to dig a bit deeper into the problem that this report exposes. The report does expose very serious weaknesses and problems, not only in the Immigration Service but in other departments that the Immigration Service was mentioned as working with, such as the Department of Corrections, Customs Service, police, and the SIS, which were all involved in the Zaoui case, right from the time Mr Zaoui arrived on 4 December as a former member of Parliament trying to claim asylum in our compassionate country. That report shows, partly, the terrible way in which he was treated.

It is clear from the report that the request from National Party researcher Sarah Boyle was not handled at all well by the Immigration Service, and there was a clear attempt not to provide all the information and to treat a lot of it as very secret and secure, and say: “Let’s consult those other departments and the police etc., etc.” It wanted to hide what was going on with Ahmed Zaoui, because it is one of the most shameful chapters in our history. The real story is coming out bit by bit, after Ahmed Zaoui has been rotting in jail for 14 months, completely unjustly. The real story is coming out and will continue to come out as time goes on. It was within that context of the Immigration Service trying to keep things under wraps that the atmosphere from Andrew Lockhart at the top, the manager, infected people like Ian Smith, who came out with that “lie in unison” quote.

What happened with Mr Zaoui was that it was secret for a while, but then the New Zealand Herald got on to it and repeated the information from overseas, from Algeria and France, and slanders against Mr Zaoui that were circulating internationally at the time. It came out in the documents provided to the Immigration Service that the police were retailing all those lies from the Algerian regime, too. For instance, in the immigration papers discussed in the select committee there was an explanation from Jon White, New Zealand’s assistant police commissioner for counter-terrorism, as to why they were advising that Mr Zaoui be held as a high security prisoner. It stated that he was wanted on an international warrant related to terrorism and he had been sentenced to death in Algeria—that is the regime in Algeria that has killed tens of thousands of people and has sentenced 1,500 dissident democrats to death in absentia so that they do not go back into the country. That was being retailed by a head police officer for counter-terrorism. There was only one international warrant, as I found out in written questions to the Minister of Police, and that was from the Algerian regime. It is disgraceful what was happening at that time, and that was in a letter circulated, including to the Immigration Service, on 6 December, a couple of days after Mr Zaoui arrived. It is absolutely disgraceful.

A few days later, on 11 December, the National Bureau of Criminal Intelligence produced a memorandum that stated that Mr Zaoui was considered a senior member of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a terrorist group, which the Refugee Status Appeals Authority has proved definitively he has had nothing to do with and is an opponent of. That 11 December document, as it has been publicised, also used the Larouche website—an extremist American group—took information from that, and retailed it in the 11 December document. Then it said two outrageous things. It said there was a risk of Mr Zaoui trying to instigate relationships in New Zealand to assist him in gaining legal residential status in New Zealand. Why cannot an asylum seeker work with others, including myself, lawyers, and communities, to achieve that sort of thing? That police document also stated that there is also the political risk that he will try to gain some support by utilising the media. There is a basic right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that anyone in New Zealand can speak to the media.

The document also stated there has been a total media blanket in relation to that individual, and that is the context in which Ian Smith and the Immigration Service took up the “lie in unison” and tried to prevent information from getting out. It was all under wraps—why he was put in solitary confinement in Paremoremo prison. That is an absolute disgrace. Just before the “lie in unison” thing was written, I went to see Mr Zaoui in Paremoremo prison. It was absolutely disgraceful. He was not given the right to have a lawyer of his choice. He was assigned a lawyer that the Refugee Status Appeals Authority later found was inadequate. He was in solitary confinement, shut out, and they were trying to keep it all in total secrecy so that he could not even get proper legal representation.

When I first went to see him he had a bare cell, and he was not allowed to have a copy of the Koran, or any writing materials. His radio did not work, etc., etc., and I had to push very strongly at that time—as MPs do when they visit prisons to look at the condition of prisoners—for him to have appropriate support there. For doing that—and it is in the media logs; it is very interesting the way it is portrayed in those media logs of Mr Ian Smith—I was attacked, and the Immigration Service seems to glorify that. Mr Smith stated that Green MP Keith Locke was told off in Parliament by the Immigration Minister, Lianne Dalziel, for getting into high security Paremoremo prison in Auckland and raising the hopes of suspected terrorist Ahmed Zaoui. Ms Dalziel accused Mr Locke of breaching an MP’s powers under the Penal Institutions Act. I was doing my job as an MP. That is the problem, and I think that is one of the reasons why that Minister is no longer Minister—she did not accept the rights of MPs to go into prisons, and she did not accept the rights of MPs to raise the disastrous situation of people like Mr Zaoui at that time, in the media. It is disgraceful that as a result of this cover-up—the information is only starting to come out, bit by bit—that Mr Zaoui was forced to spend 8 months suffering in solitary confinement, which caused him extreme mental distress, as has been shown by the psychologists who have visited him. The original police document shows they did not want people to go in—it is in the original police document that all visitors should be monitored, etc.

Failures have been exposed across the Department of Corrections, the Immigration Service, the New Zealand Police, and the Security Intelligence Service, in this case. It is good that the Ombudsman has now agreed—on Matt Robson’s initiative—to inquire into the handling of this case by the Customs Service, the Department of Corrections, and the Immigration Service. I understand there is also a Police Complaints Authority complaint being lodged. The Security Intelligence Service is under big scrutiny now.

I have put in a request for the Ombudsman to look at any role that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade played in this exercise, too. That is the Government agency that should be more skilled in knowing what is going on in Algeria and the repressive nature of that regime, and countering the misinformation that has been used against Mr Zaoui and was quite rightly discredited by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, which said he should have refugee status. One thing that comes out of this whole sorry episode is that the one person who has integrity, who is shown to be honest in this whole thing, is Mr Zaoui himself, in that the Refugee Status Appeals Authority clearly described Mr Zaoui as truthful, uncontrived, and candid, even when the evidence might prove to be disadvantageous.

What needs to happen out of this, if we look at, particularly, the exchanges with Andrew Lockhart and Mel Smith, the investigator in this report, is that Mr Lockhart should go, too. He should no longer be in that job. It is a very sorry tale. When we look at the media log, we see that it is just so biased and distorted the way things are presented. Mr Zaoui is only now, as a result of the release, finally, of the Security Investigation Service accusation against him being informed of what they claim to have against him.

On behalf of the ACT party I would like to join with other Opposition parties in Parliament this afternoon, and express our outrage when we find the contents of this report of the Ombudsman to Parliament—a report upon the actions of the Department of Labour—with regard to an Official Information Act complaint by Sarah Boyle of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. I would like to commend Murray McCully, who took up the cudgels in this case, and pursued it, and ensured that this Government was not able to just sweep it under the carpet, as is its wont. I believe that Murray McCully has done a very good job. Really, what we see in this Ombudsman’s report vindicates the position that he was calling for, from the outset. In fact, all Opposition parties were saying that we needed an independent inquiry.

Did we get it? No, we did not. This Government has developed a culture of cover-up. Is it any wonder that the Government departments take their lead from the Government? That is the culture it is instilling in our public service. That is the real threat, and the real regret, that we should all have. It was not long ago that New Zealand rated right up the top of international ratings for being corruption-free. We were right up at the top. It was recognised that the integrity and honesty of our Parliament, our politicians, our public servants, and the public sector at large, was the best there was in the world. We have slid down that ranking, and we should be asking ourselves why. It is because of reports like this. It is because of Ministers telling lies to the public of New Zealand. Sure, they lost their job, but what it really does is erode the integrity, the honesty, and the standing of the public sector at large.

When we have elected representatives who tell lies, we have a problem. We have Government departments that take their lead from politicians, and start misleading, or spinning to the point where the facts are muddled. The Ombudsman used a wonderful word in his report: dissemblers—dissemblers of the truth, is what he said. That is damning language from any Ombudsman, to call public officials dissemblers of the truth. But that is exactly what the Minister of this same department under investigation did. She dissembled the truth. She deliberately misled. She lied to us in this Chamber, and lied to the people of New Zealand. Sure, she lost her job. She should have lost her job.

We know that the Prime Minister had this report when she fired Lianne Dalziel. In other words, she knew that she could not cover it. Her first instincts were to try to protect Lianne Dalziel. The Prime Minister herself engaged in a cover-up. Her first instincts were to join in this culture of cover-up, and sweep it under the carpet. It was only later in that week when she learnt this report from the Ombudsman totally blew the veracity of the Minister and the officials that we saw this double backflip. We had a double backflip from the Prime Minister on this issue. And we have seen a number of double backflips from the Prime Minister. I think she should join our gymnastics team in Athens, with the way she has been behaving in recent times.

💬 Pita Paraone: We want to win gold.

Yes, perhaps we will keep her out of the gymnastics team. But certainly, in terms of double backflips, this Prime Minister and this Government are lowering the standards to something that is totally unacceptable.

I would also like to commend the thoroughness of the Ombudsman’s report. Mel Smith is unquestionably being tested in doing this work, and he has passed the test. He did not buckle or sweep it under the table. He has put it in very clear language, and he must be commended for that. But there are serious concerns when it is known that officials Mr Lockhart and Mr Ian Smith—not to be confused with Mr Mel Smith, the Ombudsman—are both in serious trouble; as is, I believe, the head of that department, James Buwalda. He had the opportunity to call for an independent inquiry, and it was suggested that he should. Opposition members made it quite clear that that was the standard we expected. But, oh no, he said: “Leave it all to me. I will do an internal inquiry and all will be fine.”, and he reported back that essentially all was fine.

Well, it is now known that it was not fine, and I believe that Mr Buwalda has done himself serious damage. Who tests the heads of departments? It is the head of the State Services Commission, Mr Wintringham. But unfortunately, in this instance, Mr Wintringham does not come out in a very good light, because he also strongly resisted the proposals that we should have an independent inquiry. He did not want an independent inquiry into his public service, so he resisted that.

I think there are lessons in this report from the Ombudsman for many people from the Prime Minister down, because it becomes a culture. I am seeing it with this Government, and the country is seeing it with this Government. Its spin and distortion of the truth, and its propensity to mislead is starting to erode and corrode the trust that the people of New Zealand have in it, but also, moreover, the integrity of our public sector at large. I observe that the Prime Minister with the “paintergate” affair was a classic example—signing a painting that she did not paint, initially trying to pretend that she had, and then saying: “Oh, it does not really matter.” Actually, those things are not little things.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Talk about immigration—

Those things do matter, I say to Mr Barker. They do matter. Honesty, truth, and trust cannot be compartmentalised. They are absolutes, and this Government is failing the test at every turn.

Now, I was somewhat disappointed in this debate with the new Minister, Paul Swain. He is fresh to job—an action man on the spot who will sort it all out, read the recommendations, follow them, and sort it all out. But what did he do in this debate? All he did was attack the messenger, Murray McCully. He spent most of his speech attacking the messenger. Is that a Minister or a Government that is listening and responding to the recommendations of the Ombudsman? I do not think so. His natural instincts, which he gets from the culture of his Cabinet and his Prime Minister, is to spin it and try to mislead, obfuscate, and pretend that some other truth prevails. That is what he did in this very debate, and I certainly found that very disappointing. I am sure other Opposition members would have found that very disappointing.

I say to the Minister that it is not an acceptable standard. The Minister cannot try to blame the messenger. When one is caught out like this, one has to admit it, front up, and do something about it. That is the harsh reality. I think this Government is in trouble. The public of New Zealand think this Government is in trouble, and all its spin doctoring is not working for it any more.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in this urgent debate regarding the Ombudsman’s report into the “lie in unison” memo. This whole episode arose in December 2002, after a New Zealand Herald editorial criticised the lack of information released by the New Zealand Immigration Service about Ahmed Zaoui. In response, a media adviser with the department, Ian Smith, wrote a memo stating: “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.”

Claims by the Opposition parties in this House of a cover-up were greeted with the release of the Department of Labour’s own internal report into the matter last September. That report cleared staff of a conspiracy. It noted that Mr Smith had shown poor judgment in making the “lie in unison” statement, and that he was being sarcastic and humorous. It also cleared staff of deliberately trying to mislead the Ombudsman, when they assured him that the memo did not exist. Clearly it did exist, and so today we have the Ombudsman’s report into whether New Zealand Immigration Service officials deliberately kept the memo from him.

The last time the House looked at this issue, it was a snap debate in response to the release of the initial report by the Secretary of Labour. At the time we made the point that the chief concern for United Future was that people must be able to have a degree of faith in the operations of the public service and, particularly, that they should maintain due respect for the law. In this case, we are dealing with the Official Information Act, the very legal mechanism that allows for transparency, which made New Zealand a world leader in facilitating open government.

Although we were not convinced that the circulation of an email to 300 people qualified as a conspiracy, we were concerned that officials did not respond appropriately to the Ombudsman’s request for information under the Official Information Act. Today’s report by the Ombudsman has found that two Immigration Service staff members, including Mr Smith, failed to display the professionalism expected of public servants; that their actions were contrary to the law and wrong within the context of the Official Information Act; and that there was a deliberate attempt to avoid reference to the real information being sought. However, he could not find sufficient evidence to conclude that there had been a conspiracy to deceive the Ombudsman.

Nevertheless, those findings are troubling, and lead me to make a couple of points. The first concerns the actions of the departmental secretary, both in stating that he found no evidence that officials deliberately misled the Ombudsman, and then in refusing an independent inquiry—particularly given that we now know that such an inquiry would have put that first assertion under some strain. My belief is that in that situation—which periodically arises within the public service, where departments are perceived to have made mistakes, or even indulged in conspiracies or illegal actions—it is best for all concerned to situate any subsequent inquiry with an independent person or body.

Some might argue that Dr Buwalda displayed the classic public service ethos in defending his department, but with that comes the responsibility for the damage to its credibility if that defence turns out to be unjustified. We have seen a number of recent cases, such as the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services’ treatment of Ron Burrows’ call regarding Coral-Ellen, and the rape and conspiracy claims against the police, which are being investigated independently. I do not think that the use of independent inquiries in any way suggests mistrust in the entities involved, but is instead a healthy sign that concerns about departmental actions are treated seriously, that our system is responsive, and that the outcomes of any inquiry have legitimacy and credibility. I would have thought that that is what Government departments would want, as well.

I want to turn briefly to the matter of the Official Information Act request. There is a clear need for the Immigration Service to treat those requests with the respect they deserve, and I note that the secretary has made a commitment that those processes will improve. Parliament needs to make sure that that issue is followed through, and I suggest that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee look at it specifically when it examines the department in its financial review and scrutiny of the vote. I ask the department’s officials what concrete measures they have implemented, in order to comply with the law in that regard.

I am sure that all MPs, and quite a few interested citizens, have had variable responses to their Official Information Act requests of Government departments, but in my brief experience, the agencies that take it seriously often seek clarification of the information required of the person making the request. If the Immigration Service had done that in the first place, we would not be talking about this issue today.

I close by talking more generally about the attitude that got the department into the mess in the first place—the need to spin, or conceal, information in which the public has a legitimate interest. Over the past two decades, we have the seen the rise of public relations and media management in politics at the expense of directness. Although propaganda is by no means new, it disturbs me that it has become almost a compulsory feature not just of political offices, but of Government departments as well. In the instance of the Zaoui case, and the case involving the Sri Lankan teenager, we have come to the point where there is good reason to believe that Government agencies feel the need to win the war of public opinion on any and every issue. To my mind, that is not the job of public servants, but the preserve of their political masters.

Political public relations is not used to promote the national interest, or to keep the electorate informed. It is used to make politicians look good. How much time and resources would have been saved if the department involved had stuck to its traditional role?

I want to compliment Marc Alexander on a thoughtful presentation, and to say he has raised a number of sensible issues that deserve thorough consideration—unlike the speaker before him from the ACT party. I noted that there was some irony in the fact that the ACT member went on about corruption. He did not talk about Fiji, or ACT members having outstanding GST, or a whole range of other issues, and I found it somewhat ironic that he made accusations about others of the very things that they themselves are guilty of.

I contrast that with Marc Alexander, who has looked at the issues very seriously. I do take his point about the need for openness—this Government accepts that. There is no question about that. I accept the point he raised about having independent inquiries, but he would also have to acknowledge that, from time to time, Opposition parties will call for royal commissions of inquiry etc., believing that the bigger an inquiry is and the more status it has, the more justification it gives to the accusations being levelled. In dealing with inquiries, I make the point to Mr Alexander that there has to be some sense of proportion. The inquiry being conducted has to be in proportion to the issue at stake.

The issue at stake here, in terms of the New Zealand Immigration Service, is the claim by the National Party’s chief strategist, Murray McCully, that there had been an orchestrated campaign to “lie in unison”, and that it was not only amongst staff of the Immigration Service, but had links to staff in Parliament Buildings and parliamentarians—it had links everywhere—and there was this huge orchestrated cover-up campaign. The point is that Mr McCully has to accept his own words and his own decision. He said on Morning Report that he would accept the report of the Ombudsman, and the Ombudsman has been very clear. He said: “I have not seen or heard any evidence that suggests or indicates that any person or persons, as officials in NZIS, were involved in any agreement to ‘lie in unison’.”

So the basic claim by Mr McCully has been proven to be incorrect. Mr McCully stated that there was a conspiracy—an orchestrated campaign—to lie in unison. I repeat: the Ombudsman found there was no agreement to lie in unison. Mr McCully said on Morning Report that he would accept the Ombudsman’s finding, and that is what the Ombudsman has found.

To be fair, the Ombudsman has also directed his attention to two individuals, in particular. I want to say that it would be wrong of this House to make comments about the employment status of individuals. That lies with the chief executive, who is responsible for those individuals, and we want to make sure that they are treated fairly under the law, and that their position is not prejudiced. If Parliament starts making decisions about who should or should not be employed in the civil service, then we will have some problems in this country.

I think the report is timely, and is very good, and I am sure that the Immigration Service and the incoming Minister of Immigration, Mr Paul Swain, will take the issues very seriously. I restate the point that the Ombudsman found there was no agreement to lie in unison. Mr McCully’s basic thesis was that there was an orchestrated conspiracy to cover up, and no such cover-up has been found, at all. It is a welcome report.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Mr McCully is wrong.

Mr McCully is wrong. The issues raised by the Ombudsman are serious, and the Government will take them into consideration and deal with them.

This matter is like Watergate—it is the cover-up that gets people, not the original offence. That is precisely what has happened here. Officials told orchestrated lies to the Ombudsman. Precisely that sort of thing happened in the Watergate affair. Do members know what people say about Watergate? They say that it was a third-rate burglary, but that it brought down a President because people lied to the investigators. In this instance, that is exactly what happened.

The lies that we are concerned about—the ones that are the subject of this report—were those told to the Ombudsman himself. That is why the people who told them will have to go. It is worth thinking about the fact that this was an inquiry by Parliament’s man, the Ombudsman. He is a fundamental protector of our democracy. As he stated in this report, his role is a constitutional one. It surely behoves anyone who gives evidence to the Ombudsman to be truthful. That did not happen, and certain public servants lied to the Ombudsman over an extensive period of time. For months they lied—from March through to April. The situation was so serious that the Ombudsman rang the general manager of the Immigration Service, and even that extraordinary step did not change the pattern. The truth still did not come out, even though the Ombudsman had put the general manager of the Immigration Service on notice. The Ombudsman said he wanted to be told the truth about what had happened, and asked the general manager to make inquiries. Even then, the truth did not come out. It was only in July, when the relevant email document about “lying in unison” was made public on the front page of the New Zealand Herald, that the Ombudsman clearly knew that, on the face of it, there had been a lie. What was the Government’s response in July? Did it hold an independent inquiry?

💬 John Carter: No.

No, it did not. Was it asked to do so once? Yes. Was it asked twice? Yes. Was it asked three times? Yes. On each of those occasions, the Government refused to hold an independent public inquiry. The Minister knows that that was a serious default, and he acknowledges it.

I am particularly concerned, as are members of all the Opposition parties, about the culture that has, unfortunately, developed. I refer to some of the Ombudsman’s findings about very senior members of the department—in particular, about the general manager of the Immigration Service, Mr Lockhart. Let us remember that Mr Lockhart was the person whom the Ombudsman had specifically rung. On page 41 of the report, the Ombudsman states: “I consider his omission to do so”—make the inquiry—“was unfortunate, and indicates a failure to treat my personal inquiry with the importance it merited. An Ombudsman does not usually or lightly seek a personal confirmation of a Department’s position.” The general manager was put on notice, and he is now the man who is in charge of the Immigration Service.

I can detect a pattern that has occurred, from Government members’ speeches. The Government is trying to sheet home accountability to the lower officers: the two people who were shown to have specifically lied to the Ombudsman. But I am concerned about the culture of the department. More senior staff members did not go out of their way to assist the Ombudsman, even after a personal telephone call, and even after the manager signed letters to the Ombudsman stating that everything had been properly disclosed, when clearly it had not—although perhaps the manager, at that point, had been deceived himself. Later on, in April, when put on notice, the general manager did not make the essential inquiries that we would expect of senior civil servants. I say to the Government that it will not be sufficient to sheet home responsibility to the two lower-level public servants—one of whom has left the department, in any event. More senior staff members are accountable, and must be held to account. We will be looking to the Government to do that.

This whole issue raises the question of how a culture develops in a department and affects not just lower-level officials but the most senior members of the department, whereby they believe they are not accountable to the person appointed by this Parliament to be accountable to it for the actions of the public service—one of the fundamental protections of our democracy. We have to ask whether that was because of the example of Ministers. Was there a sense of arrogance that enabled Ministers to ignore basic principles of accountability, so that when they were asked for an independent inquiry on the most cardinal of issues—whether people had told lies—those requests would be just brushed off lightly, and considered to be deserving only of an internal inquiry? Even back then it must have been clear that lies are a career killer, and we now know that Lianne Dalziel has suffered that particular fate. The issue is that the precise thing that should have concerned Lianne Dalziel last year was the very fault that she committed last week: lying publicly. She was not concerned about it because she simply did not understand how serious it was. She did not understand that last year, in relation to her department, and then she made the same error herself.

I do not believe that the Prime Minister gets off lightly on this issue. It became clear on Tuesday during question time that the Prime Minister knew last Wednesday that Ms Dalziel had—to use the euphemism—misled the public, and that she was attempting to mount what is known as a technical defence. That is exactly what the Prime Minister did last Thursday. She knew of the facts in the telephone call of last Wednesday, and tried to defend her Minister on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s public excuse is that it was only when Mr Brownlee exposed the untruthfulness to the New Zealand Press Association that she was required to act. That tells us that the Prime Minister acted only when it was made public to the entire nation that the Minister had lied and had to go. But, in truth, the Prime Minister knew on Wednesday that the Minister had given the document to TV3. So we have an extraordinary culture that has developed.

I will conclude on the point that this matter should be a salutary lesson to all members of the Government, to the public service, and, dare I say it, to Ministers in future Governments, as well. There is only one standard: “Thou shalt not lie.” That does not mean: “Thou shalt not get caught out.”; it means: “Thou shalt not lie.” We expect that standard from those people. The people who are implicated in this process—not just the lower officials, but senior officials—must be held to account. The Opposition parties will expect that. When we are in office we will conduct ourselves according to a higher standard of truthfulness than this Government has conducted itself. That is the test that has been laid down. Mr Smith has done a service to this nation by exposing the problems in the department.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.