Immigration Service broke the law

The Ombudsman’s report into the “lie in unison” saga is out and it is totally damning of the NZ Immigration Service, and the internal report of the Secretary of Labour which previously cleared NZIS.

The report concludes that the denial by NZIS that there existed a note regarding an agreement to lie in unison “appears to have been contrary to law” and was “wrong”. One could cynically note that it may be no surprise that a Department lies when their Minister does likewise.

The earlier inquiry of the Secretary of Labour found ‘no evidence that officials deliberately misled the Ombudsman’ but the Ombudsman found that there was ‘a deliberate attempt to avoid reference to the real information being sought’.

This absolutely reinforces why one must have a full independent inquiry into the guinea pig letter scandal. There can be no confidence the SSC inquiry will reach conclusions damaging to the Government he reports to, especially as the PM’s personal electorate office is involved.

In fact the Government conceded in question time today that they should have agreed to an independent inquiry into the “lie in unison” memo as National demanded at the time.

Having agreed that they were wrong last time to only have an internal inquiry, they *must* be pressured to an independent inquiry into the guinea pig letter. Anything less will stink to high heaven of a white wash, just as the Secretary of Labour presided over in this case.

Murray McCully has called for the Secretary to resign over his whitewash report.