Contradictory claims under inquiry spotlight

By RUTH BERRY AND MATHEW DEARNALEY


The State Services Commission will have to wade through a cluster of contradictory claims to ascertain how a privileged legal document got into the hands of sacked Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel.

Prime Minister Helen Clark announced the inquiry on Friday at the time Ms Dalziel lost her job.

A spokeswoman for State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham said yesterday that it would be a week before the terms of reference for the inquiry would be drawn up and released.

But Helen Clark has said the inquiry will investigate "the matter of officials' involvement in the circulation of the letter in question".

This includes inquiring into whether any Immigration Service staff played a role and into assertions made by staff in Helen Clark's electorate office.

The letter is a Refugee Status Appeal Authority document on which Carole Curtis, lawyer for the sexually abused teenager sent home to Sri Lanka, handwrote additional notes outlining how to fight the girl's expulsion.

Included in the notes, written last June and containing a drawing of a guinea pig, was an option to go the media about the case.

But just how Ms Dalziel got the letter remains unclear.

This is an outline of just some of the claims made so far:

Claim: Ms Curtis says she left the letter with the teenager at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in June after breaking the news of the failed refugee status appeal. She says it could have come to Ms Dalziel only from Immigration officials searching the girl's belongings.

Counter-claim: Ms Dalziel says the letter with attached notes was faxed to the Mangere centre in June. An official saw it and was concerned about the "campaign" and reported it to a manager. But the letter was not copied or details of its contents reported to Ms Dalziel.

Claim: Ms Dalziel maintains she doesn't know how the letter got to her and restates it didn't come from "her" officials.

Later, however, she says it came from Helen Clark's electorate office, to which Ms Curtis' office faxed a copy.

Counter-claim: Ms Curtis denies her office sent the letter to the Mt Albert electorate office and produces a signed affidavit and fax logs.

Claim: Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen says it is "clear" the letter was sent to the electorate office.

Helen Clark's parliamentary office produces notes to the press gallery from her electorate worker backing Ms Dalziel's claim.

Claim: Ms Dalziel changes tack in the Sunday Star-Times yesterday and says she now believes the teenager's grandmother may have had the letter sent to a lobby group. The lobby group may have sent it to the electorate office, she says.

Counter-claim: Ms Curtis says the grandmother denied from Sri Lanka last week taking any copies of the letter. She did not ask if the grandmother asked anyone else to copy it.

Further confusion: The lobby group appears to be the Shakti Asia Women's Centre. Ms Curtis sent documents to Shakti, but not the guinea-pig letter.

There have been suggestions Shakti had an office in Helen Clark's electorate office. Shakti national co-ordinator Farida Sultana denies this. But the electorate office has confirmed that Ms Sultana once had a part-time job there.

COMMISSION PROBE

State Services Commission to determine how Dalziel got guinea pig letter.

Government's answer appears to have changed several times.

First it doesn't know, then says Sri Lankan teenager's lawyer sent it to Helen Clark's electorate office, now says a lobby group probably sent it there.

Still maintains Immigration Service officials not involved.