Associates of injured man left at hospital contact police

Four men who dropped off a seriously injured Indonesian at Tauranga Hospital on Friday made contact with the police yesterday.

The man, believed to be an illegal immigrant, has a serious head injury and was last night in a critical condition in Auckland City Hospital's intensive care unit, to where he was transferred on Saturday morning.

He was in an induced coma.

Detective Sergeant Greg Turner said an official from the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington flew to Tauranga yesterday and helped the police to contact the man's companions.

The man, believed to be working as a kiwifruit picker, was dropped at Tauranga Hospital by the men, who left without explaining how he received the severe head injury.

It is thought the men may have fled the hospital because of concerns about their immigration status.

Police said the man had suffered a blow to the back of the head but, contrary to reports that the injury was probably intentional, they were keeping an open mind about the cause.

"It could well be an accidental fall," said Detective Lindsay Pilbrow of Tauranga's criminal investigation branch.

The injured man was found with kiwifruit-picking gloves and a wallet containing an Indonesian identity card and business cards.

Police said that, if he was the person in the identity card, he was an illegal immigrant.

Mr Pilbrow said the police were working with Indonesian authorities to contact the family of the man named on the identity card, but they lived in a village outside the capital, Jakarta, and reaching them could take days.

Before the intervention of the embassy staffer, the police had been expecting to have to spend considerable time establishing the identity of the injured man's companions.

They were also believed to be kiwifruit workers.

Detectives had begun calling all contractors in the Bay of Plenty kiwifruit region, between Katikati and Te Puke, in their efforts to track them down.

They thought the injured man might have worked at Te Puna, west of Tauranga, after he was seen at a gas station there on Thursday night.

The kiwifruit industry has been accused of knowingly employing illegal workers and yesterday admitted it was a problem.

New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers president John Allen said the situation had improved in recent years but illegal immigrants still made up about 10 per cent of the kiwifruit workforce, or about 1000 people.

He said most came into the country on visitors' permits and overstayed their visa. They were then unable to apply for a valid work permit.

But the industry was working with contractors and Government agencies to weed out employers who hired illegal workers for cash, and seasonal visas available to backpackers were helping stem the problem.

Most overseas kiwifruit workers were from Asian countries, but many also came from the Pacific Islands.

- Additional reporting by NZPA