The 45 minute decision

Stuff reports:

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway did not get legal advice when making his decision to grant Karel Sroubek residency.

National’s immigration spokesman Michael Woodhouse says the revelation points to the file being a simple deportation case, where a “shocker” of a decision was made.

“No legal representation and a comprehensive file suggests to me that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) did not anticipate this being anything other than a straightforward deportation process.” …

New documents now show it took him 45 minutes – and within an hour, he also considered one other deportation liability file.

In written questions to the minister, Woodhouse asked if an INZ lawyer and the minister’s private secretary attended the meeting, where he made his decision on September 19.

Lees-Galloway said there was no lawyer, but his secretary and one INZ staffer attended the meeting.

In his answers, Lees-Galloway confirmed the meeting was held about 4:30pm and when asked how long it took, he said: “From memory it was approximately 45 minutes.”

I suspect Immigration NZ were stunned when the Minister granted residency.

Far more deserving cases have been turned down, as also reported by Stuff:

A “law abiding” chicken farmer is devastated he’s fighting to stay in New Zealand when Czech drug smuggler Sroubek was granted residency.

Jeremy Hedderwick came from South Africa 14 years ago. His Kiwi wife, Raewyn, died from cancer last year. Hedderwick says he’s on antidepressants because his situation is “emotionally tortuous”. 

“A criminal has got residency and I’m a law abiding person,” Hedderwick says. “I’m 65, but working as hard as any 20-year old.”

Sroubek, who was jailed for drug offences, was granted residency by Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. 

So the law abiding chicken farmer whose wife just died of cancer gets deported while the convicted drug dealer gets residency!!