Questions swirl over immigration boss's credentials (+ video)

Former Immigration Department executive Mary Anne Thompson. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The fall from grace of former Immigration Service boss Mary Anne Thompson continued today as questions swirled around qualifications she claimed when applying for top jobs in the country's public service.

Ms Thompson resigned her position as head of the Immigration Service yesterday amidst a scandal over preferential treatment given to residence applications from her relatives in Kiribati.

She helped them complete the forms and an inquiry discovered that immigration officials were instructed to override policy when dealing with them.

Ms Thompson was cleared of personal involvement.

The State Services Commission (SSC) is investigating Ms Thompson's involvement and has referred questions around her credentials arising from that to the police.

Labour ministers largely avoided commenting directly on the police investigation today, but Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen confirmed the inquiry was linked to job applications in 1990, and 1998.

Ms Thompson, 53, was appointed chief economist at the Ministry for Maori Affairs in 1990, and joined the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, under Jenny Shipley, in 1998.

It has been widely reported Ms Thompson graduated with an MA in economic policy from Victoria University and a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Victoria University today confirmed a Maria Anna Thompson graduated with an MA from the university in 1980. NZPA is still waiting on a response from the LSE.

Ms Thompson spent several years in Kiribati in the 1980s, before returning to New Zealand in 1987, when she began work at the Institute of Economic Research.

She took the Department of Labour role she held until yesterday in 2004.

The Labour Department said last night Ms Thompson did not claim she had a doctorate when she was appointed to the position of deputy secretary - the title she held as head of the Immigration Service.

Today, questions in Parliament centred on how successive immigration ministers had failed to make public a conflict of interest case involving allegations of corruption dating from 2005.

National Party deputy leader Bill English said Ms Thompson's relatives were granted residence permits around the time Taito Phillip Field was obtaining "large numbers of discretionary approvals from the associate minister of immigration.