The Mary-Anne Thompson trial
The Dominion Post reports Mary-Anne has agreed there is a case to answer at depositions:
A who’s who of Wellington bureaucrats is lined up to give evidence at the trial of former Immigration chief Mary Anne Thompson for fraudulently claiming she had a doctorate.
Among them will be Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard and chairman Arthur Grimes, former State Services commissioners Michael Wintringham and Mark Prebble, Victoria University emeritus professor Sir Frank Holmes and New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, David Kersey.
The media are going to love this trial.
Dr Bollard said Thompson worked for him as a research economist at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
He said he met her in 1987 and was aware she was in the process of completing her PhD thesis for the LSE.
He said he would have believed she had her PhD because she would have told him she had. He said he would feel let down and deceived by her.
Dr Prebble said he would not have appointed Thompson as the manager of the policy advisory group in his department if he had known she did not have the qualification she claimed.
Interestingly Mary-Anne (in my experience) was exceptionally good at that role. If she had never claimed the PhD, she might still have got the job.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Banal beltway trivia – of little interest to the people who do the real work that pay for these people.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Doubtful she would have GOT the job in the first place, despite being potentially good at it.
I’m a bit cynical about ‘managers of policy advisory groups’ sounds like a lot of dollars and a lot of bollocks.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:37 am
All this case does is highlight the stupidity that has been foisted upon us by “human resources” managers and companies, far too impressed by the bits of paper, never mind the actual ability of the candidates.
Human resources, public relations and homeopaths – first up against the wall come the revolution.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I’m surprised that is all she has been charged with? Where are the corruption charges over the immigration fraud? You know the one where she personally escorted family members in from Kiribati?
If I remember rightly she “resigned” (with Helen’s bootprint embedded in her arse) with 3 months pay attached.
New Zealand’s top immigration official has been found to have broken department rules while helping foreign family members come into the country and get residency.
ONE News has discovered Mary Anne Thompson, the head of New Zealand’s Immigration Service, personally escorted relatives from the tiny Pacific island of Kiribati into New Zealand.
And then another official approved residency applications, again against department policy.
Kauri Katekeimoa, originally from Kiribati, is now a New Zealand resident.
ONE News has revealed he should never have been granted residency. And the investigation into this blunder has gone right to the top of the Immigration Service, to Thompson, its deputy secretary who just happens to be Katekeimoa’s aunt.
Katekeimoa says Thompson organised his visa to come to New Zealand, but says he does not know how she did that.
Documents obtained by ONE News under the Official Information Act reveal the head of the Immigration Service organised visa waivers for her nephew Katekeimoa and another relative from Kiribati to come to NZ on holiday in 2004.”
There is a lot of dodgy shit that goes down in Wellington that wouldn’t be allowed anywhere else.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I do not think she was all that flash in immigration. Indeed had there not been some problems exposed in that Department this matter may never had arisen. Whatever happens in this trial she is now toxic. People have been “sent down” in the public service for much less that what she is facing.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:55 am
“Interestingly Mary-Anne (in my experience) was exceptionally good at that role. If she had never claimed the PhD, she might still have got the job.”
Really? And what of the small matter of her ‘assisting’ her overseas relatives in their immigration matters? I wouldn’t call that being good at her job. I also wouldn’t call the murky corrupt mess that was the Pacific division of the immigration service to be ‘good at her job’.
Perhaps outside the beltway people have a different idea about what being good at your job entails, eh?
[DPF: Perhaps you could not confuse jobs. I am referring to her job in DPMC. Her Immigration job came later and I have blogged at length on the failings there]
September 18th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Heads should roll, who checked her professional qualifications? as for the story about the thesis disappearing down a “black hole” come on next it be one of the three little pigs took it.
Clark obviously had the facts and was smart enough to smell the aroma of pure bullshit coming from this one, shame Field was in the same category.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:05 am
kaya (367) Vote: 0 0 Says: September 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Oh how I love those evidence-free assertions of bigotry. A quick search through the Stuff web site for recent fraud cases gives us:
An Invercargill woman is facing serious fraud charges relating to more than $1.2 million in gaming machine proceeds
A Hamilton housewife convicted of a $47,500 benefit fraud had offended out of "necessity rather than greed", a court was told.
Frauds by a Christchurch travel agent have prompted the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand (TAANZ) to begin removing people with dishonesty convictions from the industry
A 54-year-old Alexandra bank manager defrauded Westpac of more than $400,000 by siphoning funds over a 20-year period.
A Hamilton man has been convicted for his part in a $25,000 fruit crate fraud.
The principal officer of Nelson company Near Zero Ltd has been arrested and charged by the Serious Fraud Office after hundreds of people who invested in revolutionary data technology he promoted were left badly out of pocket.
Oamaru police are investigating an alleged multi-million dollar fraud with many victims across the South Island.
Former [Hamilton] insurance company managing director Blair John Fitzsimons today pleaded guilty to eight charges involving the embezzlement of $3 million which almost sent a Napier company broke last year.
A Hamilton company which has spent a lot of money developing on-demand hydrogen generators today denounced the technology as a fraud.
A former [Alexandra] Westpac bank manager’s fraud involved "thousands" of bank transactions during 20 years as she took more than $400,000.
Richard Nunnick, the 46 year-old [Christchurch] hunting guide who allegedly duped thousands of dollars out of people he tricked with a cancer sob-story, has been arrested and charged with fraud.
But you might be right Kaya. It’s probably just us narrow eyed Wellingtonians ….
September 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
The person most responsible for Thompson’s continuing fraud is Michael Wintringham (of Christine Rankin fame). He was advised there was a question mark over her claimed PhD but did no investigate it after she withdrew her application to become head of PM&C.
He claims her withdrawal meant there was no longer a mandate to investigate the matter, but that is plainly wrong. She was still a public servant, he was the still the State Services Commissioner, and had a responsiblitity as Commissioner to examine the honesty and integrity of a serving member of the public service, who’s CV had been queried.
[DPF: Even worse he failed to make a file note on the issue]
September 18th, 2009 at 9:16 am
What a waste of time and money prosecuting someone for doctoring their CV. She lied and she was fired job done, no doubt she will be legally aided to defend the indefensible and will get community service at the end of it. I am sure there are better uses of police and court time than this. Sure nail her for immigration shenanigans (along with half the labour party).
Not sure how she gets legal aid either since she has been on a huge salary for years and years, maybe if it wasnt available she would have pled guilty and the judge could have sent her away with a flea in her ear.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Well, I will be most interested to see evidence that she actually ever claimed to ‘have a PhD.’ Can anyone produce memos signed by Dr Mary-Anne Thompson? It appears so far that she claimed to be in the process of completing one and that what really happened is that all the dils in Wellington, including Ballard, simply ASSUMEDshe did.
Adolf suggests that instead of charging her with fraud, they should be charging all the poobahs with third degree fuckwittery and incompetence.
Of course the immigration irregularities are another story entirely but I think fraud in this instance will prove troublesom for the establishment.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Adolf Fiinkensein @ 9:17am – if you Google “Dr Mary-Anne Thompson” you will find numerous Government publications referring to her as such.
And of course he said she had a PhD three times on her CV, but dropped for the Immigration job after being challenged by Wintringham.
I imagine she will get a small prison sentence – John Davy did, and he did not even really get his feet under the desk at Maori TV before being found out.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am
bharmer –
my apologies for slurring all of Wellington, I associate Wellington with politicians and bureaucrats and that is what I was having a shot at. I hate generalisation and that was one.
My point though was the “establishment’s” ability to cover up a pile of steaming shit 99% of the time while the person responsible gets financially rewarded. Apart from the very rare wet bus ticket people involved in the running of the place seem to get away with shitloads.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Watch the senior public servants go into “Yes Minister” mode, these people have known a hell of a lot more, for a hell of a lot longer, than they have put their hands up to.
Again the same names pop out as being involved, Wintringham, Prebble, to name two, other names worthy of a mention are Doone, Rankin, and Satchel.
How much was swept under the carpet during the Clarke dictatorship that we may never know about, you can guarantee amnesia will be the most common complaint in Wellington at the moment
September 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I cannot believe her line that she didn’t realise she had to go to London for an oral exam. Anyone enrolled in a Phd in this system know that you have to defend it orally.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
I am currently slaving away trying to complete my PhD. The process for obtaining a PhD is very clear, submit your thesis and have it subject to examination. An oral examination is not always required but that does not mean that there was room for confusion here. All universities require that the examination be accepted by the particular school after review by at least three examiners (one from the university, one from the country and at least one international expert). The reviewers state whether this thesis should be accepted for a PhD, accepted with changes, not accepted but allow a second complete review after substantial changes, award of a Masters or complete rejection. The outcome would then be clearly communicated to the candidate. If the outcome is complete acceptance for a PhD, the degree is not conferred usually until two copies have been submitted to a library. There was no room for confusion here, she sent in a document with some words on it and then told people she was a Doctor. By all accounts she was quite a capable person, why she would resort to this rubbish is beyond me.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Mike S (179) Vote: 0 0 Says:
September 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I cannot believe her line that she didn’t realise she had to go to London for an oral exam. Anyone enrolled in a Phd in this system know that you have to defend it orally.
In what system? LSE? Maybe. Oral defense is not universal for PhDs
September 18th, 2009 at 11:04 am
DPF raises an interesting point.
The modern business world is obsessed with qualifications, not “on the job” qualifications but pieces of paper from one university or another.
In most cases one can no longer start on the factory floor and work his way up to the top job, IMHO this is madness.
I know of two men who if they applied for their own jobs today would not even get an interview, both are extremely successful and both started on the lowest rung on the corporate ladder.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I wouldn’t have employed her whether she had a PHD or not. She simply doesn’t fit my criteria for employing woman, she is fat, ugly and looks like a labour voter.
If the civil service adopted my employment policy and replaced all the disgusting bunters with hot chicks with massive racks then you would never hear a peep about reducing the size of the public sector.
[DPF: 20 demerits for personal abuse of Thompson. Her looks and/or weight are irrelevant]
September 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
“She was exceptionally good at that role.”
A con woman. I can understand dim-wit MPs being taken in, no doubt as she stroked their egos.
The immigration service was in a mess for years. Politicians did little, even when there came to light the scandal of part-time Thai clerks in Bangkok deciding on the security status of NZ bound Middle East refugees.
How appalling that Thompson’s credentials weren’t checked for her Parliamentary jobs. I hear now she reckons the problem is the London School of Economics lost her thesis. This looks to this layman like an admission she claimed a Ph. D. that wasn’t awarded.
There are some interesting stories about Thompson in the immigration industry/racket, including suggestions she may have been a little prejudiced against white immigrants.
I read somewhere that Thompson’s family were Rumanian refugees, and her family name was Anglicised when she arrived in NZ. If this weren’t such a soft-cock country, we would throw out the Kiribati in-laws Thompson unilaterally admitted to NZ, rescind Thompson’s citizenship, and send her back to Rumania.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
When you start going back over articles relating to “DR” MAT other names start popping up like -
Simpson
Clarke
Plughead Cosgrove
Prebble
Wintringham
Cullen
This fraud has roamed the halls of power for the last ten years, the State Services Commission needs to take a fucking long hard look at itself, how much other rort and deception has gone on, or still goes on under it’s cozy feather bed umbrella?
September 18th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
David, I think you are being a bit unfair on Le Grande Fromage; He has made a very good point and made it with humour too. add to this the fact that he has (at time of writing) a karma rating of 10-4 and you’ll surely see the strength of his argument.
My only criticism of M Le Fromage is that as fromage is a masculine noun, the correct form of the adjective is ‘grand’, not ‘grande’.
September 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Based on the John Davy (of Maori TV infamy) precedent, if found guilty a stretch in the clink seems inevitable.
September 18th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Mr Farrar, I do have to take up the hatchet here on behalf of the “Big Cheese” (I don’t mind that its ‘un’ rather than ‘une’), and on behalf of Mr Mann.
Mr Cheess made factual observations in respect of Ms Thompson in the context of employment criteria that he alleges to be applying. The terms ‘fat’, ‘ugly’ and ‘labour voter’ are in that specific context no absolutes but only relative terms.
While you are undoubtedly correct that the discussion (if any) should be about the fraudulent character of Ms Thompson’s representations when applying for tax payer funded employment, and not her appearance, it is hardly a crime to also make observations of other characteristics of the person in question.
There can be no doubt after all, that even a statistically neutral observation would probably place Ms Thompson in the outer reaches of the Gauss curve in terms of BMI. Although there are of course no such objective measures of ‘beauty’, which remains of course in the eye of the beholder, it is not stretching matters beyond reality to observe that on any spectrum of ‘looks’ Ms Thompson is unlikely to end up at the end of “stunners”, “beauties”, “models” or any description in that vein.
When compared with the (admittedly subjective) criteria of Mr Cheese (i.e. ‘hot chicks with massive racks’), one can only conclude that his observation was one of fact, albeit with the narrow confines of his own employment policy, but that was after all, explicitly stated as a mitigating factor.
The characteristic ‘labour voter’ can be dealt with more succinctly, as that label would probably apply to almost all senior public servants appointed during the previous regime.
To summarize, Mr Farrar, I would submit that you reconsider the demerits awarded to Mr Fromage.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:24 am
An oral examination is necessary to verify that the work done for the thesis is able to be explained by the candidate. This is a device used to make sure that the candidate actually did the work, and not a ghost writer.