McCully Murray: Urgent Debates — Report by Secretary of Labour—Immigration Service 
McCully Murray: Urgent Debates — Report by Secretary of Labour—Immigration Service 
[Volume:611;Page:8330] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 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.