The New Zealand Immigration Service has been in the news recently, for all the wrong reasons. The head of the service, Mary Anne Thompson, resigned last week after it was found that she did not have a PhD after all. Before this job with Immigration, she had worked in Treasury and in the Prime Minister’s department. On her CV, she wrote that she had a PhD from the London School of Economics, and nobody checked it. Now there is a police inquiry into her qualifications to see if she gave false information.
She was also in trouble because 3 of her relatives from the Pacific island of Kiribati were given permanent residence in New Zealand after the quota was already filled. Some of the staff in the Immigration Service say that Mary Anne Thompson told them to give these people visas. The staff said they were not happy about doing this. There is now an inquiry to look into this matter.
Another problem is in the Pacific Division of Immigration. This is a part of Immigration that was set up by Mary Anne Thompson, to deal with Pacific Islanders coming here. New Zealand has a special relationship with Samoa because our country controlled Samoa after World War 1, until 1962. We have a quota to allow more than 1,000 Samoans to immigrate to New Zealand each year but many more want to come. There are smaller quotas for other Pacific countries. As well as immigration, many Pacific Islanders are coming to New Zealand for shorter periods to pick fruit and work in the wine industry. One immigration agent said he was worried about the possibility of bribery, that people could pay money to get a visa illegally. The Labour Department is going to have an inquiry to make sure there is no corruption in the Pacific Division of Immigration.
New Zealand, Denmark and Finland are 1st equal in the world for being free from corruption. Our world reputation is very important to us. Today, the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said there will be another inquiry into the New Zealand Immigration Service. The Auditor-General, Kevin Brady, will hold an independent inquiry. He is not a friend of the Labour government or any other political party.
