KEY POINTS:
Just how bad do things have to get before the Government sets up a full commission of inquiry to independently investigate the mounting allegations of corruption in the Immigration Service?
Despite growing calls for such an inquiry with judicial powers to summon witnesses, the answer is a lot
worse yet.
It is understood the Prime Minister, who returned from overseas yesterday, is satisfied that the three separate investigations now being conducted by the Department of Labour, the police and the State Services Commission are sufficient to reassure the public the allegations are being taken extremely seriously.
The Government has sought to distance itself from the Department of Labour's earlier inept handling of the apparent conflict of interest of the former head of the Immigration Service, Mary Anne Thompson, filling in New Zealand residency application forms on behalf of family members.
But the Government is at risk of being tainted as more light is shed on Thompson's tenure and whether ministers knew what was allegedly going on. It is consequently putting its faith in the department's recently appointed chief executive, Christopher Blake, wielding his authority and cleaning up the mess in its immigration branch without having to resort to an independent inquiry.
Thompson resigned last Tuesday. But rather than quell things, the focus shifted to the service's Pacific division. Saturday night's One News on TV made disturbing claims about the contracting arrangements involved in the division's establishment in 2005 and the seemingly conflicted roles of staff who worked under Thompson.
While that further strengthens the argument for a commission of inquiry, there is not yet enough concerted public pressure to force one.
Blake, who took up his post last October, has already set up a formal review of the Pacific division. He has called in independent consultants - understood to be Ernst & Young - to scope the range of of that review and develop terms of reference. The next phase will see the selection of someone with independent status to undertake the review which is scheduled to be finished in mid-September.
It is hoped within the Government that this will satisfy those who argue that the department cannot be trusted to investigate itself because of its previous secretive and obstructive response to outside efforts to shed light on the Thompson affair.
Meanwhile, the State Services Commission is examining whether the department's earlier investigation of Thompson and its subsequent decisions were appropriate. The police are investigating questions about Thompson's qualifications after it was revealed there is no record of her claimed PhD from the London School of Economics.
Labour would be loath to set up a judicial inquiry - especially in election year. But it must also weigh up the political cost of not doing so if the allegations continue to snowball.
National has accused Labour of being party to a deliberate cover-up.
It has pressed present and past Immigration Ministers to reveal how much they knew about the Labour Department's initial investigation into Thompson and why they did nothing about such an obvious breach of public service ethics. Those ministers insist the investigation was strictly an employment matter for the department's chief executive and they were legally barred from interfering under the State Sector Act. But Labour looked distinctly uncomfortable in the House last week.
* John Armstrong is the Herald political correspondent.
