Smith Lockwood: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Smith Lockwood: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:17707] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 In Vote Immigration this year taxpayers’ money is set aside for an inquiry into activities going on in the Pacific division of Immigration New Zealand. This is an extraordinary situation. Under this Labour Government the very credibility and integrity of the New Zealand Immigration Service have been hugely damaged. 
First we had the Ingram inquiry in 2005 when the Hon David Cunliffe the predecessor of the current Minister of Immigration was Minister. We had the Hon David Cunliffe claiming that the Ingram report into the activities of Taito Phillip Field was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel. He refused to ask the hard questions. He refused to ask the question why for example the group manager of service international who had recently been appointed to his department—a fellow called Kerupi Tavita—had failed to blow the whistle on the activities of Taito Phillip Field when Kerupi Tavita had been advised on several occasions by the branch manager in Samoa of what was going on. David Cunliffe refused to ask the hard questions. 
And what do we have now? Because the Opposition asked the hard questions we now have Taito Phillip Field facing 12 charges of bribery and corruption and 25 charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The Minister in the chair Clayton Cosgrove claimed that the Ingram report which supposedly investigated all of this and found that nothing actually wrong—nothing criminal—was going on was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel. 
He was just an Associate Minister at the time; the Minister was the Hon David Cunliffe. I come to the next scandal under David Cunliffe’s watch. Colleagues should not forget that it was David Cunliffe who told this Parliament that he was running the show now. Do members remember that when he took over the health portfolio he stood in this Chamber and said: “I am running this show”? Was he running the show when he was Minister of Immigration just before that? Just after the Ingram report came out in July 2005 the Chemis inquiry report was completed. The Chemis inquiry was also about this fellow called Kerupi Tavita who heads the international service division. That is the part of the Immigration Service that as the Minister will confirm covers refugee decisions and the Pacific division. He was taken over to Immigration New Zealand by Mary Anne Thompson whom we have all heard about because she used to work with him in the Prime Minister’s department. Helen Clark seems to have had some very interesting people working in her department. 
When KerupiTavita went over there he established the Pacific division and he contracted a person called Mai Malaulau to head it up. When Kerupi Tavita got there he approved the payment of $400 for a gift to himself which was against Immigration New Zealand policy. He also approved the payment of thousands of dollars to Mai Malaulau whom he had contracted to run the Pacific division for 1000 bucks a day. Her contract specifically excluded the payment of expenses yet Kerupi Tavita authorised the payment of expenses to her on top of the $1000 a day. 
What did David Cunliffe do about that? He was the Minister of Immigration. He took over in September 2005 just after the Chemis report was made available. What did David Cunliffe do about it—the guy who was running the show? What did he do about the fact that the group manager of service international was approving payments that were totally unlawful in his department? 
That was not the end of it. Just after the Chemis report came out and Kerupi Tavita said: “Oh I’m sorry I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have approved those payments. They weren’t correct. They were actually not legal. I shouldn’t have done it.”—at the very time that he acknowledged that he had approved payments that should not have been made—he was flat out approving payments to his new executive assistant Ms Visesio-Skelton.