Mapp Wayne: Urgent Debates — Immigration Service—Ombudsman’s Report 
Mapp Wayne: Urgent Debates — Immigration Service—Ombudsman’s Report 
[Volume:615;Page:11400] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This matter is like Watergate—it is the cover-up that gets people not the original offence. That is precisely what has happened here. Officials told orchestrated lies to the Ombudsman. Precisely that sort of thing happened in the Watergate affair. Do members know what people say about Watergate? They say that it was a third-rate burglary but that it brought down a President because people lied to the investigators. In this instance that is exactly what happened. 
The lies that we are concerned about—the ones that are the subject of this report—were those told to the Ombudsman himself. That is why the people who told them will have to go. It is worth thinking about the fact that this was an inquiry by Parliament’s man the Ombudsman. He is a fundamental protector of our democracy. As he stated in this report his role is a constitutional one. It surely behoves anyone who gives evidence to the Ombudsman to be truthful. That did not happen and certain public servants lied to the Ombudsman over an extensive period of time. For months they lied—from March through to April. The situation was so serious that the Ombudsman rang the general manager of the Immigration Service and even that extraordinary step did not change the pattern. The truth still did not come out even though the Ombudsman had put the general manager of the Immigration Service on notice. The Ombudsman said he wanted to be told the truth about what had happened and asked the general manager to make inquiries. Even then the truth did not come out. It was only in July when the relevant email document about “lying in unison” was made public on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that the Ombudsman clearly knew that on the face of it there had been a lie. What was the Government’s response in July? Did it hold an independent inquiry? 
John Carter 
: No. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: No it did not. Was it asked to do so once? Yes. Was it asked twice? Yes. Was it asked three times? Yes. On each of those occasions the Government refused to hold an independent public inquiry. The Minister knows that that was a serious default and he acknowledges it. 
I am particularly concerned as are members of all the Opposition parties about the culture that has unfortunately developed. I refer to some of the Ombudsman’s findings about very senior members of the department—in particular about the general manager of the Immigration Service Mr Lockhart. Let us remember that Mr Lockhart was the person whom the Ombudsman had specifically rung. On page 41 of the report the Ombudsman states: “I consider his omission to do so”—make the inquiry—“was unfortunate and indicates a failure to treat my personal inquiry with the importance it merited. An Ombudsman does not usually or lightly seek a personal confirmation of a Department’s position.” The general manager was put on notice and he is now the man who is in charge of the Immigration Service. 
I can detect a pattern that has occurred from Government members’ speeches. The Government is trying to sheet home accountability to the lower officers: the two people who were shown to have specifically lied to the Ombudsman. But I am concerned about the culture of the department. More senior staff members did not go out of their way to assist the Ombudsman even after a personal telephone call and even after the manager signed letters to the Ombudsman stating that everything had been properly disclosed when clearly it had not—although perhaps the manager at that point had been deceived himself. Later on in April when put on notice the general manager did not make the essential inquiries that we would expect of senior civil servants. I say to the Government that it will not be sufficient to sheet home responsibility to the two lower-level public servants—one of whom has left the department in any event. More senior staff members are accountable and must be held to account. We will be looking to the Government to do that. 
This whole issue raises the question of how a culture develops in a department and affects not just lower-level officials but the most senior members of the department whereby they believe they are not accountable to the person appointed by this Parliament to be accountable to it for the actions of the public service—one of the fundamental protections of our democracy. We have to ask whether that was because of the example of Ministers. Was there a sense of arrogance that enabled Ministers to ignore basic principles of accountability so that when they were asked for an independent inquiry on the most cardinal of issues—whether people had told lies—those requests would be just brushed off lightly and considered to be deserving only of an internal inquiry? Even back then it must have been clear that lies are a career killer and we now know that Lianne Dalziel has suffered that particular fate. The issue is that the precise thing that should have concerned Lianne Dalziel last year was the very fault that she committed last week: lying publicly. She was not concerned about it because she simply did not understand how serious it was. She did not understand that last year in relation to her department and then she made the same error herself. 
I do not believe that the Prime Minister gets off lightly on this issue. It became clear on Tuesday during question time that the Prime Minister knew last Wednesday that Ms Dalziel had—to use the euphemism—misled the public and that she was attempting to mount what is known as a technical defence. That is exactly what the Prime Minister did last Thursday. She knew of the facts in the telephone call of last Wednesday and tried to defend her Minister on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s public excuse is that it was only when Mr Brownlee exposed the untruthfulness to the New Zealand Press Association that she was required to act. That tells us that the Prime Minister acted only when it was made public to the entire nation that the Minister had lied and had to go. But in truth the Prime Minister knew on Wednesday that the Minister had given the document to TV3. So we have an extraordinary culture that has developed. 
I will conclude on the point that this matter should be a salutary lesson to all members of the Government to the public service and dare I say it to Ministers in future Governments as well. There is only one standard: “Thou shalt not lie.” That does not mean: “Thou shalt not get caught out.”; it means: “Thou shalt not lie.” We expect that standard from those people. The people who are implicated in this process—not just the lower officials but senior officials—must be held to account. The Opposition parties will expect that. When we are in office we will conduct ourselves according to a higher standard of truthfulness than this Government has conducted itself. That is the test that has been laid down. Mr Smith has done a service to this nation by exposing the problems in the department. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.