Kiwiblog

The NZ Herald reports that National List MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi is under Police investigation in relations to a job offer or offers he made to prospective immigrants before he was an MP.

It is excellent to see the Immigration Service referred the allegations onto the Police, and I await their findings with interest. There should be no sweeping under the carpet.

I have no first hand knowledge of the situation, so await the outcome of the investigation, or more information. I will point out that when these allegations first occurred, I said on 14 November 2008:

There are also the allegations against new National List MP, Kanwaljit Bakshi, that he offered jobs that did not exist to help immigrants enter. The allegations may well be baseless, but if John Key wants to set a different style to Helen Clark, he would do well to make sure there is an inquiry into them – even if just to ascertain the total number of job offers made by his new MP to potential immigrants.

And on the 15th of May 2009, I repeated my call for an inquiry, in response to  report that an Immigration Service staffer thought a witness had been paid off. I said it was “not a good look”.

Personally I have never had much trust in departmental inquiries, and would have preferred a fully independent inquiry with powers to compel testimony. But to be fair to the Immigration Service they appear to have been quite thorough in their investigation, considering they learnt enough to refer issues to the Police.

There will obviously be some speculation about whether Bakshi will remain an MP. Being investigated by the Police is never good for your political career. Again until evidence is known, I would not jump to any conclusions, but for those interested the next person on National’s list is Dr Conway Powell from Dunedin who is in position 59. Stephen Franks is next after that on no 60.

I don’t think we realise how bad things have been. The ODT editorial lays some of it out:

Mr Brady’s report was initiated under the Clark government, but it will be the National-led Government that must fix the problems long identified.

Among these are the grounds for approving or declining applicants for entry to this country, since it is obvious from his report that these are so variable, and so subjective, as to be nonsensical in some cases.

It is especially concerning that some branches had invented their own risk profiles rather than using the service’s standard assessment guide.

Some might also find it quite extraordinary that in the year 2009, the service’s computer system cannot store basic identity and verification information, such as photographs and scanned copies of passports, or that the majority of our overseas posts that process visa applications cannot access the system.

This means, according to Mr Brady, that nearly 40,000 visa applications a year are processed without access to the applicant’s application history and travel history, or to any warnings or alerts stored in the service’s computer.

Amazing. This is the most basic requirement.

And Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman doesn’t hold back on Q&A:

GUYON OK, let’s turn to your ministerial responsibility of immigration and start with your department.   The Auditor General’s report that was released recently – it’s a fairly damning report on the department.

JONATHAN It is. Absolutely.

How nice to have a Minister not try and sugar coat it.

GUYON Basically they’re saying that this department is rushing its visa decisions about who gets into the country and making very poor judgements about who gets into this country.  I mean how bad are things?

JONATHAN Look that is a very bad report and we knew things were bad but this really confirms it and what its really showing is that if you go to a New Zealand Immigration office you can get a different decision on a different day depending on who you speak to and what branch you go to…it’s unacceptable.

GUYON It’s a lottery..

JONATHAN It’s unacceptable and it has to be fixed.  They’re saying that 21% of the decisions are not up to scratch.   In the Pacific division that was 40% so things  definitely have got to change because customers are not getting the service.

And how many years had this been going on for?

JONATHAN Well there’s people acting in some of those roles at the moment and they will apply for their jobs as part of that process.   But the other thing we’re going to do, we’re going to be putting in someone independent to work alongside the CE as a liaison between me and the CE to make sure these changes get implemented.

GUYON So the Chief Executive gets a minder essentially?

That is not exactly a vote of confidence in the CE.

GUYON Can I just clarify something you said, you said that 20% of those decisions were poor quality decisions..

JONATHAN that’s right, not up to scratch&

GUYON now the department approves 543,000 visa and permanent applications a year, does that mean about a hundred thousand people are in New Zealand who shouldn’t be?

JONATHAN Well it could also mean there’s a lot of people in New Zealand or who aren’t in New Zealand who by rights could be.  I mean we don’t. It’s hard to quantify really what it means one way or the other, but what we do know is its completely unacceptable& and the quality of service really has to improve within a time line.

What a mess. He has his work cut out.

NZPA reports:

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman has criticised his department’s initial decision to decline a heavily pregnant Lithuanian tourist’s permit to stay in the country.

Jurga Skiauteris, 29, her husband Robertas, 34, and their six-year-old son, Leonardo, arrived in New Zealand in January on three-month visitor permits.

The family became overstayers when their permits expired on April 2.

Immigration New Zealand rejected two appeals for an extended permit, despite doctors advising that any travel could harm Mrs Skiauteris and her child.

Immigration NZ has since reviewed the decision and the woman has been offered a visitor’s permit allowing her to remain in the country beyond the birth of her child.

“I believe that declining the permit was a poor decision by the department,” Dr Coleman said.

“I am pleased that common sense has prevailed and that the woman has now been issued a permit allowing her to stay in New Zealand.”

While diplomatically worded, that is a Ministerial arse kicking of a Department,

Poor old Pete Hodgson doesn’t seem to have realised they lost the election, and is complaining that Jonathan Coleman is going to dismantle the Pacific division of the Immigration Service. The Herald reports:

Labour Immigration spokesman Pete Hodgson said Dr Coleman’s decision was short-sighted and based on political grounds because Labour had created the division.

So let us look at this wonderful legacy Labour left, according to an independent report:

• the division had had no clear picture of its duties
• lacked strong leadership
• had become isolated from the rest of the Immigration Service
• its leadership created an “us and them” approach
• attitude prevailed among staff that its leadership was “untouchable”
• staff were not properly trained or resourced
• problems with inconsistent decision-making
• difficult decisions were sometimes put in the “too hard basket”
• staff morale problems included grievances over pay and conditions
• poor internal relationships
• concern regarding financial processes and compliance
• huge backlogs of applications and issues regarding timeliness and quality

They should be proud.

The SSC Report is online here. Here are the conclusions of Commissioner Iain Rennie:

Mr Shanks’ report shows that Mary Anne Thompson was involved with six immigration-related procedures relating to members of her family in 2004 and 2005. Although the investigation finds no evidence that Ms Thompson’s family members were seeking preferential treatment, the report is clear that her involvement resulted in them receiving personal benefits that they would not have normally received if she had not held her position in the Department.

A clear statement of fact that there was preferential treatment.

Ms Thompson’s behaviour was wholly inappropriate on two counts. First, it consistently breached the Department’s clearly-stated requirements for staff to disclose potential personal conflicts to their manager before taking any action. Secondly, the long-standing expectation of State servants, outlined most recently in the Code of Conduct for the State Services, is that they are trustworthy. This includes not acting in a way that may improperly benefit our family or friends or groups in which we have a personal interest.

Ouch.

Overall, the Department did not deal with the issue in a timely or effective fashion up to the end of 2007 and because of ineffective investigations Ms Thompson was consequently dealt with in a manner that was too informal and lenient in relation to the conduct she displayed.

In particular, the actions taken by Dr James Buwalda, the Chief Executive of the Department of Labour until May 2007, were not effective in terms of clearly establishing what was happening and dealing with the conflict of interest. Concerns about visa waivers were first raised with Dr Buwalda, in 2005. The informality of Dr Buwalda’s engagement with Ms Thompson around his concerns at that time led her to consider that he thought the issue was of little consequence.

Now that Departmental CEOs are being paid over $500,000 a year salary, we should be expecting much better from them than this.

If you read the report in detail you see that Dr Buwalda deserves most of the criticism. He had numerous reports coming to him from staff concerned about Thompson’s involvement, and he did little to manage the problem or to assert authority.

Thompson made some serious errors of judgement. She did not seek special favours, but should have been aware that her involvement would create problems. If her CEO had been more onto it, then it might have all been sorted at an earlier stage.

More goodness from the Immigration Service:

However, yesterday, Mr Blake admitted he had not read the report when he first briefed Mr Cosgrove on the issue in December last year so was not aware himself of the wider issues raised by Mr Oughton.

Admittedly Mr Blake was new into hsi job,but really to brief the Minister on a report you had not even read yourself!

The Government is moving in the right direction with its decision to have the Auditor-General investigate the Immigration Service. This is on top of the SSC, Labour Department and Police investigations.

Few would dispute that the Auditor-General has more independence than an internal inquiry by SSC or Labour. In that regard, asking the AG to investigate is a good thing.

Lockwood Smith makes the point that the AG may not be able to investigate what Ministers were told, and when. Certainly it appears in some areas Ministers were never briefed – namely the non doctorate by LSE. But they were briefed it seems on the Oughton report and the investigation into setting up the Pacific Branch.

Yesterday National’s immigration spokesman, Lockwood Smith, said the Auditor-General’s inquiry had to include ministerial involvement. “David Cunliffe and Clayton Cosgrove were briefed but did nothing.”

But Helen Clark said she was satisfied her ministers had acted appropriately on the information they were given.

With all respect, I’d feel much more reassured if there was some verification of that. The issue is whether the public agree that Ministers acted appropriately – and for that to happen, more information is needed.

However it appears the Auditor-General will get to set his own terms of reference – that is a good thing.

John Armstrong makes the case for a commission of inquiry into the Immigration Service.

Just how bad do things have to get before the Government sets up a full commission of inquiry to independently investigate the mounting allegations of corruption in the Immigration Service?

Despite growing calls for such an inquiry with judicial powers to summon witnesses, the answer is a lot worse yet.

Remember that none of us at all would have any idea about all this, if it were not for some good journalism. For those who missed it, TVNZ also had some further revelations about a $500,000 contract that wasn’t put out to tender and conflicts of interest with staff.

It is understood the Prime Minister, who returned from overseas yesterday, is satisfied that the three separate investigations now being conducted by the Department of Labour, the police and the State Services Commission are sufficient to reassure the public the allegations are being taken extremely seriously.

But the Government is at risk of being tainted as more light is shed on Thompson’s tenure and whether ministers knew what was allegedly going on. It is consequently putting its faith in the department’s recently appointed chief executive, Christopher Blake, wielding his authority and cleaning up the mess in its immigration branch without having to resort to an independent inquiry.

With no disrespect to Mr Blake, but the last time the Department of Labour inquired into NZIS, it was the “lies in unison” scandal and that report was seen as a near total whitewash – the Ombudsman then used his rarely used powers to investigate – uncovering a very different story.

In another Herald story, Audrey Young reveals that a recruitment agency in 2004 is responsible for finding out that Mary-Anne Thompson did not have a PhD, when she applied for DPMC Chief Executive.

It appears she withdrew her application after the then State Services Commission, Michael Wintringham, discussed the issue with her.

Now there are two issues in regard to what Wintringham did. The first is whether he should have ruled her ineligible for any further senior state sector roles, and informed Ministers at the time. Now one can debate whether or not he was right to do nothing – I happen to think he was very wrong, as clearly history has shown us.

But there is another bigger issue regarding Wintringham. While it was his call as to how to handle it at the time, he did have a legal obligation to record in Thompson’s personnel file the issue of the fake doctorate. Anyone with even a minor involvement in HR knows you record absolutely everything as files notes in someone’s file. It would be beyond belief if the most senior CEO in the public sector knew of a fake qualification, and did not record it in her file. If he failed to do so, then the SSC has failed completely as a role model for the public sector. If he did do so, then questions should be asked as to whether the current Commissioner checked Thompson’s file when the allegations regarding her conduct with the Immigration Service became public.

So MPs and journalists should ask whether Wintringham made a file note or not. This is separate to the issue of whether he alerted anyone. The latter issue was within his discretion (even though he used it badly), but if he failed to make a file note, then that is a major credibility issue for the SSC.

John Armstrong puts the Mary-Anne Thompson issue into context of what responsibility Ministers have:

Try as he might, though, Cullen’s assurances to Parliament on Wednesday were never going to negate National’s assertion that Cabinet ministers were aware of the improper conduct by the head of the Department of Labour’s Immigration Service for months but did nothing about it until public exposure of that conduct forced some action.

It would be going far too far to say there has been a cover-up by ministers in the normal meaning of the term – a deliberate and sustained attempt to conceal what has really been going on.

But neither did those ministers go out of their way to reveal what had been going on.

Neither the Labour Department nor the State Services Commission felt any compunction to inform the public of last year’s inquiry into what was an astonishing breach of public service standards by someone running a major branch of a government department.

This is part of the wider problem in the public service, and the Government. The main focus has been on keeping things quiet and how to “politically manage” serious issues rather than actually confronting the core problems, and subjecting them to public scrutiny.

Ministers should have insisted that these breaches of law and policy be made public. They could have blanked out the names of staff involved.

Were it not for some concerted digging by journalists, the public would still be completely unaware of Thompson’s blatant conflict of interest in filling out residency application forms for close relatives. She would still have her job.

Once the details of the Thompson affair broke through the bureaucratic wall of silence, the two Cabinet ministers who already knew about the investigation inevitably looked complicit in officials’ inept and shoddy handling of the matter.

I think there is a growing realisation that one cannot trust internal inquiries anymore. National should seriously look at a replacement to the Serious Fraud Office which can also investigate the Government. I’ll post more on this at some later stage.

This has been an appalling week for Labour, with high-profile job losses, appalling retail sales data, the failure to be totally upfront about how much was paid to buy back the country’s rail services, further equivocation from Cullen on tax cuts just days out from the Budget, and yet another death knell-sounding opinion poll.

But hey Labour are helping with housing affordability a – a bold scheme to help oh 700 families out of the 1.5 million families in NZ!

Good God. The State Services Commission announced yesterday that it has referred Mary-Anne Thompson to the Police in reference to her claimed academic qualifications.

If this is correct, it is very concerning, and even sadder.

Meanwhile The Press covers the cover-up:

In Parliament, Acting Immigration Minister Michael Cullen admitted the Government found out about the allegations against Thompson in April 2007, but said it was a matter for the department’s chief executive. …

Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove is overseas but said through a spokesman that he became aware of the allegations against Thompson only when he was briefed by Blake in December. “He did express his concern about it (to Blake), but he cannot get involved in an employment matter.”

While the Minister can not direct the CEO to take action against any individual staff member, a Minister could very easily say that he regards the situation as totally unsatisfactory, wants action, will make the report public etc etc.

Oh yes. Ministers can only get involved when a staff member has a boyfriend who works for National. But hey having staff in a Department break policies, intimidate staff and give preferential treatment to family members is not something they can get involved in.

It is with sadness that I see that Mary-Anne Thompson has resigned her job as head of the Immigration Service and Deputy Secretary of Labour. She finished work yesterday

It was the right decision. There had been a lack of judgement by getting involved with applications from family members. And while she did not ask anyone to bend the rules for her, they did, and that reflects adversely on the culture of the NZ Immigration Service which she headed up. And she put staff in a difficult position by even getting involved.

By resigning, Mary-Anne is putting the reputation of the agency and public service, ahead of her own security. She could have demanded a negotiated settlement but chose to simply resign.

As I have mentioned before she has had an excellent career in the public service, and it a shame to see it end over uncharacteristic errors of judgement.  I hope she does very well with her future endeavours.

Today’s Dom Post editorial is on the Immigration Service:

The case raises questions about Dr Thompson’s conduct, the conduct of the staff member who ordered that the residency applications be processed, the culture within the Immigration Service, Dr Thompson’s bosses and the adequacy of the inquiry itself.

Put bluntly, it is not acceptable for public servants to use their positions to advance personal or family interests. Nor is it acceptable for senior public servants to leave doubt in the minds of staff about their intentions when personal or family interests are involved.

Dr Thompson should have refused to play any part in her relatives’ bid to come to this country and, when her connections became known, she should have made it explicitly clear to staff that their application was to be treated on its merits just as every other application should be.

By failing to do so she has damaged her reputation and public confidence in the Immigration Service.

To restore it, public service bosses have no choice but to take drastic action. If they do not, service staff will continue to wonder about what a nod or wink from the chief executive means and migrants will continue to suspect that it is not what you know but who you are related to that matters in New Zealand.

It really was an extremely serious failure on judgement to get involved in any way with your own family’s application.  And the wider issues of the culture are the bigger concern – how many other times are policies broken to do someone a favour?

The Sunday Star-Times reveals more information about the Immigration Service, and with great sadness I am starting to conclude that Mary-Anne Thompson’s position is becoming untenable. She appears to have shown a lack of judgement which is incompatible with the role she holds. What is strange is how out of step this lack of judgement is, with what has been a very successful career founded on sound judgement and ability. I can just presume people develop a blind spot when it comes to trying to help their own family.

In one article, the SST reveals:

It was December 2004, Christmas was fast approaching and, in an email to an immigration official, Thompson made it clear that the matter was urgent.

“We would like them to stay with us for three months for a significant family function, and then return to their families,” she wrote, adding “my husband and I are flying to Nadi to meet them (a surprise for them).”

The Fiji-based official, whose name is blanked out in documents released under the Official Information Act, was only too eager to help, arranging visa waivers, usually reserved for emergencies. He even provided his mobile and home numbers in case the family ran into any trouble on arrival in Fiji.

About four months later, Thompson was at it again, asking for assistance to get more family members to New Zealand. “My preference would be a visa waiver, given the certainty of [names deleted] returning back to Kiribati and given that they will live with me and our family,” she wrote.

I am amazed that Thompson was personally e-mailing staff (something which I am sure is not available to members of the public) asking for visa waivers. It doesn’t matter at all that she was not explicitly asking them to break any rules. When you are effectively the Head of the Immigration Service, you can not be and should not be in any way involved with immigration issues concerning your family. The mere fact that a staff member is dealing with their ultimate boss can only be seen as pressure on them.

Thompson should have got another family member (such as her husband) to do the applications, and deal with Immigration Service staff members. It is just incredibly inappropriate to do what she did.

They also talk in some detail about the application which was approved outside the rules:

Flesher says she told the branch manager, Nancy Sandoy, that the application was outside the timeframe. Sandoy said the application should be processed, but said she would make a call, Flesher says. According to Flesher, about a week later Mai Malaulau, the Pacific division director based in Wellington, appeared in the office, brought the file to her desk and said: “Put it in the system, there are slots available in the grid.”

This is what happens when you are the head of the Immigration Service and you get involved in applying for your family. You may not have asked anyone to do favours for you, but who really wants to turn down the boss’ family?

Ever since the “lie in unison” scandal it has been apparent not all has been well with the NZ Immigration Service. As more is revealed over the preferential treatment given to family members of the NZIS Head, the need for a full inquiry into NZIS grows.

Immigration staff were ordered by a senior official to override normal policies to process late residency applications by Kiribati family members of top immigration official Mary-Anne Thompson. …

In the report, former justice secretary David Oughton said he was concerned about a more widespread problem, saying staff told him the order to breach policy was “not an isolated case”.

Mr Oughton said that when staff were ordered to make decisions they felt breached policy, they wrote “as instructed by” to indicate they had not made the decision themselves.

And even worse:

“The report shows an official had the practice of going round the office until they found someone prepared to take the direction. The fact that staff said this was a reasonably common practice is very serious.”

That is amazing. How can Ministers not think such a culture is an issue?

TVNZ had a major story last night focusing on Mary-Anne Thompson, the head of the Immigration Service. They report:

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.

Visa waivers are usually only granted in emergencies. But emails obtained by ONE News show the waiver was granted to save the family the inconvenience of getting proper visas. …

But there were big problems with Katekeimoa and his family’s residency application. The quota from Kiribati was full and New Zealand was not accepting any more immigrants from there, and the application was lodged outside the allocated timeframe.

Despite all these issues, the head of immigration’s family were fast-tracked through and made New Zealand residents.

This is not a good look.  When you are the CEO of the Immigration Service you need to be cleaner than clean when it comes to any Immigration issues concerning your own family. I would have expected formally notifying your boss (Labour Dept CEO) that family members are making an application and ask your boss to ensure than decision making is done in such a way that you are not involved and no-one reporting to you feels any pressure, and most of all no deviation from normal practice happens.

I’m very surprised that someone as competent as Thompson would follow less than bess practice. Thompson is one of the top female civil servants. She was a high flyer at Treasury and then ended up helping manage Winston’s office when he was Treasurer (no mean task). After that she headed up the highly respected policy advisory group in the Dept of PM and Cabinet.
I didn’t know her well, being a very junior political flunkie in the PM’s Office, but Thompson was highly regarded as astute and professional.  Since then she has been a bit of a trouble-shooter, cleaning up after the lies in unison scandal in Immigration etc.

The allegations are pretty serious in that there appears to have been a serious lack of judgement involved, something which in Immigration especially can undermine confidence. I think this issue will not go away for a while.