Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Yong Ming Yan – also known as Bill Liu, Yang Liu and William Yan – has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges relating to false declarations on immigration papers and using fake identities to obtain a passport. …

The Herald was first to report the criminal charges against Yan, a development which was embarrassing for several MPs who assisted his successful bid for citizenship.

The Herald may be first to report the criminal charges, but one should recognise that the entire story was broken by Ian Wishart.

Yan became a New Zealand citizen in August 2008 under the name Yang Liu. But he changed his name days later, and was granted a passport in the name of William Yan.

Passports in two other names were earlier seized by investigators. He was granted citizenship in a VIP ceremony in Wellington last year after lobbying from former Labour MP Dover Samuels, who regards him as a close friend.

Labour’s Chris Carter and National’s Pansy Wong also wrote letters of support for his citizenship. Rick Barker, the then Internal Affairs Minister, was also on the list of politicians who knew Yan.

And while slightly embarrassing, they had no idea that Liu was wanted on criminal charges, had been deported from Australia and had multiple fake aliases.

Because of this, he passed the file to another minister, Shane Jones.

Mr Jones overruled Internal Affairs advice that Liu – now Yan – did not meet character requirements and granted him citizenship.

Among the reasons officials gave for opposing Yan’s citizenship application was that they did not know his true identity as he had two names, two passports and two birth dates.

This is where the scrutiny should be. Shane Jones did know all of this. DIA was absolutely insistent that Liu should not be given citizenship. They talked of him being under criminal investigation.The Immigration Service said he should not even have residency, and wanted to revoke his residency status,

Yet Jones went ahead and made him a citizen. Why? Well he won’t say.

The Herald report:

A Labour Party official is being investigated over immigration irregularities, just weeks after he helped Labour MP Su’a William Sio facilitate a meeting with Pacific Islanders duped in a fake-visa scam.

Immigration New Zealand confirmed it was investigating Semisi Faka’osikimuli, the secretary of the Labour Party’s Tongan branch, but would not disclose details or comment further while the investigation is going on.

There comes a point at which you wonder if certain problems are due to individuals, or are institutional. We have the current trial of Taito Philip Field. We have the unresolved issue of why Bill Liu was granted citizenship by Shane Jones despite official advice of his criminal record in China and offences in Australia. We have the Choudary immigration scam. There was also the dropping of list candidate Steven Ching over allegations of bribery. And now this case. Important to note only Choudary has been convicted of crimes.

The Herald understands the investigation centres around fake skilled employment offers to help immigrants get New Zealand work permits and residencies, but it is not clear how much money or how many people were involved.

No doubt details will emerge in time.

Mr Sio said he had known Mr Faka’osikimuli for two years and had worked with him in various capacities – most recently at a meeting with Pacific Islander victims of a fake residency stamps and visa scam on July 4, where Mr Faka’osikimuli chaired the Tongan group.

“He’s an active member of the Labour Party, and like many members of the local Pacific community, Semisi comes regularly to my electorate office in Mangere,” Mr Sio said.

The question is whether the alleged scam was being run out of Sio’s office, and whether that office was used for meetings. Regardless of the criminal allegations, commercial money making ventures should not be using MPs offices.

Han Jian, a former client of Mr Faka’osikimuli – whom he knows as James Semisi – said he decided to lodge a report to the police and Immigration, after receiving a letter from Immigration accusing him of fraud and submitting fake employment job offer documents, and for falsely claiming he had an offer of skilled employment from a company, TVP Computers.

“I was shocked, because I didn’t go for any interviews and didn’t even know I had any job offer, and I definitely did not submit anything to Immigration,” said Mr Han in Mandarin.

“After paying James about $14,000, all he said was to trust him and that is what I did. I thought with his involvement in the Labour Party, he will have good connections with Immigration.”

And this is what I mean about is there institutional issues. Regardless of the criminal issues against Field, it is very clear that his mate the Associate Minister was massively more likely to allow someone to gain residency here if Field acted on behalf of the migrant. There seem to be strong incentives that if Labour is in Government, you deal with people connected with Labour to gain residency or for Bill Liu citizenship.

Regardless of the change of Government, I would like to see much more transparency around MPs involvement in immigration issues. Maybe a quarterly report of the number of applications sponsored by MPs, and their sucess rates. If we had this years ago, it would have been obvious that Ministers were whitelighting almost all applications sponsored by Field.

According to Immigration documents, the application papers were submitted by Rosie Brown, JP, a community worker who works part-time out of Mr Sio’s electorate office.

Again, this may not be about individuals, but institutions.

Finally we have the mainstream media publishing on the Yang Liu citizenship scandal. Well done to the NZ Herald who have a long story by Phil Taylor:

Jones granted Liu citizenship against the advice of Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) officials who informed the minister that Liu was suspected of identity fraud, including entering New Zealand and applying for permanent residency and citizenship under a false name, and was subject to an Interpol red notice indicating he was wanted for arrest in China on charges relating to alleged large-scale misappropriation and embezzlement and of stealing another person’s identity and using it to obtain two false passports.

Liu had not resolved the matter, either by contacting the Chinese authorities or through the Chinese court system, Jones was told, and “had not fulfilled the onus of satisfying … that he meets the good character requirement” of the Citizenship Act.

Jones has not publicly explained why he overrode advice to decline Liu’s citizenship application and earlier this month declined the Herald’s request to do so.

And that is not good enough. MPs and Ministers need to be accountable for their decisions. You can refuse to comment if it is some issue of private business. But you can’t hand out cizienship to alleged wanted criminals and refuse to explain.

And then we have:

By 2007 Immigration officials recommended Liu’s permanent residency be revoked on grounds that he had allegedly provided false information.

The Immigration Minister of the time, David Cunliffe, did not act on the advice, instead recommending further investigation and noting that he did not “discount the possibility of reconsidering it in the future”.

As part of those further investigations, Immigration last April obtained a search warrant to seize from the DIA identity documents Liu had provided as part of his citizenship application.

Two weeks later Samuels wrote to Barker again, condemning the delay and urging Liu’s citizenship application be given urgent attention.

Delegating for Barker, Jones granted citizenship to Liu on August 6, 2008.

Five days later, Liu had a citizenship ceremony at Parliament, in the Maori Affairs select committee room. Samuels officiated.

So DIA are saying this guy is so bad you should revoke his residency, while Labour Ministers not only refused to do that, but did the opposite by making him a citizen and giving him a private VIP ceremony at Parliament.

A second story by Taylor focuses on David Cunliffe:

The Weekend Herald can reveal that Mr Liu was given citizenship nine months after officials advised the Immigration Minister at the time, David Cunliffe, that dual identities allegedly used by Mr Liu were grounds to revoke his permanent residency. They provided a legal opinion in support.

So you have multiple people in the gun:

• Shane Jones for giving him citizenship, against advice
• David Cunliffe for refusing to revoke his permanent residency, against advice
• Dover Samuels for advocating on behalf of Liu, despite knowing about the allegations from China

As I said, it is excellent to see the Herald cover this story. A pity though they did not credit the original investigation by TGIF.

The Herald reports:

Documents show former Cabinet minister Shane Jones was told a Chinese businessman was under criminal investigation for alleged identity fraud at the time Mr Jones approved his citizenship application.

Mr Jones approved Yang Liu’s application in August against the strong advice of officials. Mr Liu has donated money to Labour and National in the past and received letters of support from MPs of both parties.

Papers released to journalist Ian Wishart under the Official Information Act show the extent of officials’ concerns in their recommendation to Mr Jones.

In his weekly newspaper TGIF, Wishart quotes parts of the report which show Mr Jones was told Mr Liu was under criminal investigation by Immigration’s fraud unit over allegations he had used a false identity, including obtaining two false passports.

Under another name, he was also subject to an Interpol “red notice” for a warrant of arrest in China for alleged serious financial fraud.

The report advised against accepting the application, saying “it is considered that Mr Liu does not meet the good character requirement” to be eligible for citizenship.

The first question is a simple one. Why did Shane Jones ignore all this information, and grant citizenship against the advice of officials?

Ian Wishart has more damning documents in tonight’s TGIF. It’s proving very good value for $3 a month.

His documents include the clear advice from Internal Affairs that Shane Jones decline the application and that Liu was under active criminal investigation within New Zealand. There is also a revelation of a Cabinet Minister who received a donation from Liu, lobbying his Cabinet Colleague Jones on Liu’s behalf.

I advocated that Labour, when in power, should have established a full independent inquiry into the granting of citizenship. They failed to do so, once again trying to hide beind a Departmental Inquiry knowing such an inquiry can not question Ministers over their actions.

Now it is slightly more difficult for John Key to launch a public inquiry, as it is into a former Minister and could be seen as partisan. But what he should do is approach Phil Goff and get Goff’s agreement to a terms of reference into the granting of citizenship to Liu. Key and Goff would both be praised for ding the right thing, and a break from the past practice of trying to over these things up.

The NZ Herald reports:

A Chinese man granted citizenship against the advice of officials and wanted in his homeland for “large-scale misappropriation and embezzlement” was given a VIP citizenship ceremony at Parliament.

Yang Liu, also known as Bill Liu, was granted his citizenship in August by ministerial prerogative.

He became a New Zealander at a private citizenship ceremony in the Maori Affairs select committee room, officiated over by Labour MP and former Cabinet minister Dover Samuels.

And who is Yang Liu?. The latest TGIF from Ian Wishart reveals:

His real name, confirmed for the first time in this country by TGIF Edition, is indeed Yongming Yan

Even worse, an informant resource report to the Immigration Service last year, but apparently ignored by Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones, provides detailed information on Yan’s involvement at the head of an Asian organised crime syndicate, which “paid large cash sums to various ministers and delegates indirectly through secret anonymous accounts

Now whether this is correct or not is one issue. But what is not in dispute (it seems) is that Shane Jones knew of these allegations, as the were part of the file officials had who fought against citizenship. So why did Jones ignore this?

Tonight, TGIF Edition can also reveal that one of Yongming’s former associates in this country – Shane Phillips – was a Labour Party campaign manager, and his brother Daniel Phillips works in the office of Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones – the man who gave ‘Bill Liu’ citizenship against the recommendations of officials who’d investigated his background.

Shane Phillips is also known as Shane Te Pou, and in 2000 Helen Clark vetoed his appointment to a ministerial job. Also:

There are fresh allegations this week, including that ‘Liu’ (in reality, Yan Yongming) may have donated cash to the campaigns of Rick Barker and Dover Samuels.

And Wishart has unearthed some interesting aspects of donations to Dover Samuels:

A further $5,000 was given to Dover Samuels by the oddly-named ‘Tamaki ki te Paki Wu’, apparently residing at a house in Derrimore Heights in Manukau City.

So, according to the official documents, two separate Wu’s slipped a total of eight grand between them into the Dover Samuels campaign fund. But who was this mysterious Mr Tamaki Wu? A check of the Manukau address Dover had given for him provides an added twist to this story: it was registered not to Mr Wu but to Daniel Phillips – Dover’s former private secretary now working for Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones. So $5,000 had come to Dover from the address of a man whose brother was involved with Chinese
businessman ‘Yang Liu’ (real name Yan Yongming), yet the money was not in Daniel Phillips’ name, but a person or entity named Tamaki Wu.

There is also a suggestion that an anonymous $5,000 donation to Rick Barker was from Yan.

The issues raised here can not be dealt with by a departmental inquiry. Departments can not investigate their own Ministers. A fully empowered commission of inquiry should be set up to investigate this. The key tasks should be

1. To verify the real identity of the man granted citizenship by Labour Ministers over the protests of officials
2. Does he have a criminal record, and what is the nature of that
3. Determine the full extent of his donations to all parties and candidates
4. Why Ministers both refused to revoke his residency and further granted him citizenship against the strong advice of officials

The HoS has more details on Yang Liu:

• donated $5,000 to Cabinet minister Chris Carter’s Te Atatu electorate
• donated $5,000 to National
• Had letters of support from Dover Samuels and Pansy Wong. Wong says she never knew of the issues around his past, while Samuels does (but not sure when) and says they are politically motivated from China
• His citizenship application took three years to approve as officials were against it, but SHane Jones granted it, over-riding his officials
• Liu was wanted in China for alleged embezzlement
• Charged in Australia with operating bank accounts under a false name and in November 2006, the Supreme Court of New South Wales ordered Liu to forfeit more than $3.3 million

Liu’s restaurant has hosted fundraisers for Asian candidates from Labour, National and ACT. It seems clear that he built up connections across the political spectrum. The two key issues are:

1. Did any MP write a letter of support knowing about the false passports, the court orders in Australia?
2. Why did Shane Jones grant him citizenship?