McCully Murray: Urgent Debates — Immigration Service—Ombudsman’s Report 
McCully Murray: Urgent Debates — Immigration Service—Ombudsman’s Report 
[Volume:615;Page:11387] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 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. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: 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.