Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20442] 
6.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Did she confirm to the House her confidence in the previous Minister of Immigration because she was a hardworking and conscientious Minister; if so was she aware when she expressed this confidence of a Najim al-Ali who allegedly came to New Zealand was accepted as a refugee and subsequently brought others to New Zealand to live here permanently? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes I did confirm that confidence. No I had not heard of the gentleman referred to until Mr Peters named him in the question today. I can inform the House that allegations made against that person to the immigration authorities—and not by Mr Peters—are currently under investigation. I do urge the member not to name people who should be or are being investigated as unfortunately that only increases their chances of being successful in an application to stay in New Zealand when they might otherwise not be successful at all and I am sure the member would not want them to succeed if they should not. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I point out to the Prime Minister that her last statement is constitutional and legal bunkum as every lawyer knows; and would she tell me which part of this story is not true: that Najim al-Ali and his wife Hessa entered New Zealand on Bedouin status or stateless with no citizenship when they in fact hold Iraqi citizenship and used Iraqi passports to get into Jordan which is where they left from to come to New Zealand; that the same al-Ali and his wife brought in 13 additional family members claiming some who were his grandchildren to be his children with one set of claimed twins actually being one daughter and one granddaughter to then have those children who were previously married in Iraq bring in their spouses as fiancés and to remarry them here in New Zealand and then to have this bogus family structure re-formed into the family structures they once lived in when they were in Iraq now that they have cheated the New Zealand immigration system—all 15? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: A number of allegations have been made by the member and a number of allegations have been received by the Immigration Service. What I can say is that the immigration people are investigating the substance of all the allegations. They are trying to make an assessment of whether lies have been told. They are reviewing the original refugee status claim and they are fully investigating allegations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can the Prime Minister explain how this same man and several of his children were able to receive a benefit immediately on arrival and be provided two State houses while he works for cash under the table at a meat shop and receives additional income from buying and selling cars; or does she not give a damn that the New Zealand taxpayers are being ripped off again? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: People who are judged to be refugees do get assistance. There is no country in the world that does not deal with cheats and liars when it comes to immigration. At the moment these are allegations and they remain unproven at this time. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the current number of spontaneous asylum seekers is about 120 to 130 a year down from the more than 1500 a year when Winston Peters was Deputy Prime Minister? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. If the member is going to make that sort of a statement which is demonstrably false let him provide the evidence. He is an experienced Minister; he knows what stunt he is pulling here. He has tried it in the past. Let him now prove what he has said or apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Speaking to the point of order I would like to give the official figures when I respond to the question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I can say that spontaneous asylum-seekers arriving in New Zealand in the last full year for which there is figures which is 2003-04 numbered 714. That number is precisely 27 percent of the numbers in 1997-98 which were 2627 when Mr Peters was Deputy Prime Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What percentage of those numbers that she claims is a higher record when I was Treasurer of this country were successful as opposed to nearly everyone being successful under her administration; I also ask what standard of incompetence is she prepared to tolerate from her immigration Ministers when the Immigration Service seems incapable of telling the difference between children and grandchildren of Iraqis and Bedouins and who is married and who is not; and when will she start to show some leadership on the issue make some meaningful changes to this type of fraud and stop it dead in its tracks? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I can say that roughly the same absolute number of people were judged to be genuine refugees in 2003-04 as were judged to be genuine in 1997-98. So to throw Mr Peters a small bone that means that the chances of success of the 2627 were proportionately rather less but the absolute number is about the same. I repeat that no country has found a way of stopping any cheat getting across its borders but we work hard to eliminate it to the best extent we can. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does she have any examples of the administration of which I was part taking hundreds of Afghans or refugees declined by the UN Commission on Refugees—does she have one example of that in my time; and further what will she say to Australian officials who have relied on New Zealand’s vetting process and who will now discover that having duped New Zealand officials and this Government some of those family members are now residing in Australia? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Not surprisingly I have not come to the House armed with numerous examples of compassionate acts by the administration of which the member was part; but this administration did behave in a compassionate way in accepting a number of people including under-18-year-olds who were stranded on a boat in the Indian Ocean and I stand by that decision. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Would it be too difficult for her her Minister of Immigration her Associate Minister of Immigration or the hundreds of people she employs to make a simple chart of this family showing who is telling the truth and who is not and the fact that the man at the start of the story charged three people $30000 each to come into this country? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: One of the things that the immigration authorities are investigating is whether lies were told about the make-up of that family. If the member has information that he could make available it would be appreciated. I invite him again as I understand he has already been invited by the Associate Minister’s office to come up and go through the cases he has so we can discuss them. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Knowing the very obvious tactic of this Prime Minister I seek to table a letter I wrote to Damien O’Connor today setting out the dates of the correspondence from his and other Ministers’ offices so that they cannot pull the stunt of saying that they do not know and they want to cooperate. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.