Smith Lockwood: General Debate 
Smith Lockwood: General Debate 
[Volume:632;Page:4425] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I have to say that the stench of corruption hangs heavily over this Labour Government this week. It does not involve just the honourable Taito Phillip Field. One has to ask what persuaded an Associate Minister of Immigration to make a decision to grant a special direction on work visas to Mr Siriwan and his partner Ms Phanngarm. These are not marginal people. Mr Siriwan had been an overstayer in New Zealand for 8 years. He had been refused a permit twice. He had a wife and two children back in Thailand. His partner Ms Phanngarm had been refused refugee status four times was an overstayer for 5 years and was deported from New Zealand. 
The Minister claims he did not know that Mr Siriwan was working on Taito Phillip Field’s house in Samoa at the time he made his decision on 17 June. That is not credible. On 8 June in Samoa Mrs Field Taito Phillip Field’s wife fronted up to immigration officials in Samoa. She was waving a letter that Taito Phillip Field had written claiming that the Minister Damien O’Connor had agreed to issue special 2-year work permits to Mr Siriwan and Ms Phanngarm and also to direct that the 5-year ban on Ms Phanngarm’s coming back to New Zealand should be revoked. When the manager in Apia Mr James Dalmer saw a copy of the letter Mrs Field had been waving around written by the honourable Taito Phillip Field he immediately the same day emailed Wellington. The Immigration Service’s intelligence unit was staggered by what was contained in Taito Phillip Field’s letter asking whether Mr Field had actually made that decision and whether he was aware of all the information they were aware of about Mr Siriwan working for Taito Phillip Field. That same day 9 June here in New Zealand Mr Tavita from the Department of Labour rang the Minister’s office at 2.41 p.m. to tell the office about the fact that Mrs Field had been waving that letter around in Apia and about what had been claimed. But the Minister claims he did not know anything about it. 
What is more just a few days before that on 27 May a compliance officer who had actually been involved in deporting Ms Phanngarm from New Zealand emailed the Minister’s office to warn the Minister’s office about those issues. The officer phoned the Minister’s office on 31 May after receiving even more information about what Mr Siriwan was up to at Taito Phillip Field’s house in Samoa. That all happened well before the Minister made his decision on 7 June. It is not credible for the Minister to claim he knew nothing of this at all. 
But what makes this even more questionable and what makes the cloud of corruption even thicker is that a bloke called Keith Williams who once employed Mr Siriwan illegally here in New Zealand and who went to Samoa to work with Mr Siriwan on Phillip Field’s house told an immigration consultant that Taito Phillip Field had talked to Ministers Swain and Goff the day they visited Taito Phillip Field’s house in Samoa. The Ministers do admit they met the tiler Mr Siriwan. That guy Keith Williams refused to talk to the Ingram inquiry so Noel Ingram quite properly had to ignore that evidence. But why would Mr Williams say that Taito Phillip Field had told him he had had a talk to the Minister? It was either Mr Swain or Mr O’Connor; we cannot blame people for getting Ministers muddled up because no one knows exactly who the relevant Minister is. But he claims he talked to Mr Swain and that he had got an undertaking that after Siriwan had been out of New Zealand for about 3 months he would then be granted a work visa back in New Zealand. That was what happened!