Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed media about under fire Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. / News Whakatane
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is visiting Whakatāne today and addressed media about under fire Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway.
Lees-Galloway admitted this week that he made the controversial decision to grant drug smuggler Karel Sroubek residency in about an hour and without reading the whole case file.
Ardern told reporters todaythat her minister's position was not in jeopardy, despite the week's revelations.
"My understanding is that [with] the information placed in front of the minister, there was contradictory information now out in the public domain," Ardern said.
"We need to sort that, and sort this case - then we need to fix the process."
Ardern is visiting the Te Manuka Tutahi Marae, speaking at the launch of Te Tai Whakaea Treaty Settlement Stories, a national project to collect, preserve and share the broad and multi-faceted history of Treaty settlements.
Te Tai will offer audio-visual oral history interviews, research articles, documentaries, multi-media web stories as well as a range of cross-curricular education resources in both English and Māori.
Earlier in the day Ardern was gifted a landscape painting during her visit to the town's newly re-developed museum, which was officially opened last week.