Hodgson Pete: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Immigration Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:658;Page:7035] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Well there are no speakers from the Government so I am happy to stand and speak in favour of this legislation and to remind the Committee that Part 10 deals with offences penalties and proceedings. Clause 305 which is at the very beginning of Part 10 deals with the provision of false or misleading information. I have a couple of stories to tell. 
One of the features of clause 305 is that it is carried forward from the current legislation. In other words the existing law states that one may not provide false or misleading information. That is why presumably when New Zealand Immigration Service officials were investigating the case of Mr Bakshi and they sought from him financial information concerning his businesses in order to ascertain whether they were small medium large or indeed very small or miniscule he gave them the wrong business information not in a misleading way but simply by way of signalling that he would not give them the correct information. In other words being aware of the danger of providing false information he decided to provide none at all. 
Regrettably not all of Mr Bakshi’s friends were as savvy as he was. One of them Bhavdeep Dhillon has claimed not to the police or to immigration officials but to the media so legally it does not count that he never took part in any heavying of folk in India of the original complainant against Mr Bakshi or for that matter of the Indian police officials who became involved in the case at higher and higher levels. Regrettably one such person in India has his phone number recorded and that can only be because he received a telephone call. That person has said in an affidavit which the police do have that the purpose of that call was to raise merry hell and cause the original complainant to fall silent. That is why in December of last year when the original complainant was contacted by immigration officials who asked whether they could have a chat with him he said he had nothing to say and was completely happy. He said there was nothing to answer there were no problems and his complaint of only 2 months previously was not one that he wished to pursue. The complainant had been leaned on hard and he had been leaned on by the Indian police as well as by phone calls from New Zealand. That is an interesting example of what may be false or misleading information but for it to be so Bhavdeep Dhillon would need to repeat the remarks that he made to the press to immigration officials and presumably also to the police. 
Then there is the situation where information does not come forward at all. Of course the original complainant is the classic case of that but so too is the Indian gentleman from Tauranga who put the original complaint in front of Television New Zealand just before the election. He did not have anything to say to immigration officials either. He was terrified and the only reason those people are saying anything now is that they have come to believe that things cannot go bad for them because New Zealand’s processes are somewhat more trustworthy than the processes they are used to back home. They have developed the confidence to make their various remarks and to give their various interviews—video interviews included—to New Zealand Immigration Service officials and those have been passed on to the police. 
With those remarks about offences penalties proceedings and the importance of not providing false or misleading information I say that I think Part 10 should proceed but I am aware that my colleague Darien Fenton will when the time arises wish to make her remarks.