Minister rejects blame for grievance claims

By EUGENE BINGHAM

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel has held a peace summit with the staff she blasted over the botched deportation of a Filipino family, but does not accept responsibility for personal grievance cases brought by two Immigration officers.

Ms Dalziel has refused to say whether she apologised to the staff, but has confirmed she travelled to Auckland to smooth her relationship with the Immigration Service's border and investigation unit at the centre of her parliamentary outburst last year. She accused the officials of misleading her about the timing of the raid on the Milla family.

A Weekend Herald investigation into the fiasco has also uncovered a mounting taxpayer bill that includes legal costs relating to the two personal grievance cases and settlement so far of one of them, and counselling provided to the Millas for the trauma suffered when they were wrongly bundled out of the country after a dawn raid last October.

The Herald can also reveal that an internal report into why the Millas were wrongly deported will find that an appeal against a removal order had been lodged only in the name of mother Rosanna and 9-year-old Jirah because the form they had sent in to the Removal Review Authority was filled out wrongly.

Even then, a breakdown in the computer system meant Rosanna and Jirah's names did not show up when Immigration officers checked if they were entitled to act against the family.

Mrs Milla, her mother, Maria Guzman, husband Oscar and daughter Jirah were on the plane back to the Philippines before officials realised the mistake and ordered their return.

They had been taken from their Glen Eden home soon after 6 am, despite a policy of no dawn raids.

Ms Dalziel said this week that she was given three different times for the raid before she had to face questions in Parliament over the affair.

Rather than defending her staff, she told the House on October 11: "I cannot take responsibility for something about which I have been misinformed." She then said her officials had let the country down.

Two officers have subsequently taken personal grievance cases against the Department of Labour, which oversees Immigration. One of them has made a confidential settlement, which included a compensation payment.

Ms Dalziel took exception to a Weekend Herald story last week which said that the personal grievance claims were over her outburst.

Following a meeting with Ms Dalziel on Monday, the department's chief executive, John Chetwin, issued a statement saying the minister's comments in the House "did not form the basis of the personal grievances."

Interviewed by the Herald this week, Mr Chetwin said: "The claim against me as employer could not be based on comments by the minister in the House. The issue was about the way the matter was handled subsequently by management."

Herald: So nothing flowed from the minister's comments in respect of the personal grievances?

Mr Chetwin: The minister's comments were not part of the basis for any claim.

Herald: That is categorical? [Ms Dalziel's comments] hadn't come into the equation at all?

Mr Chetwin: Hang on, don't put words in my mouth. I said they were not the basis for a claim.

Ms Dalziel told the Herald she did not know what the basis was, but she would ask for a report.

She confirmed she met the border and investigations unit before Christmas, although she refused to say whether she apologised to its staff.

"This was a private meeting," she said. "For me, it was to clarify what my expectations were and also to acknowledge the work that they do."

It is understood that while she did not say the word "sorry," the staff were happy with their discussions with her.

Ms Dalziel said she stood by the allegation that she had been misled, although she never thought it was intentional.

"I didn't know what the truth of the matter was more than 24 hours [after the raid] and I was angry and frustrated at being left in that position ... But I never asserted that I was deliberately misled."

National MP Marie Hasler, whose complaint of breach of privilege against Ms Dalziel has been rejected by the Speaker, said the minister should publicly apologise to her officials.

"I do question her fitness for the job - her actions in the House show that she is not competent."

The department's report is expected to show that Mr Milla's name was on his wife's application form when he should have lodged his own appeal. Mrs Guzman did not have an appeal before the authority.

The staff who moved against the family of overstayers had checked a computer database, but did not find any trace of Mrs Milla's appeal, lodged with the Removal Review Authority on September 30. Documents obtained by the Herald show the authority processed the appeal on October 2, eight days before the raid.

The report will find the system was overloaded because of a requirement for overstayers to lodge their appeals by the end of September, before tougher laws came into place.

During the last week of September, there were 1020 appeals to the Removal Review Authority, compared to 710 during the whole of 1999.

The pressure came on the electronic information system by which the authority was supposed to notify the Immigration Service of the appeal.

Mr Chetwin said the service had since initiated manual checking and made sure staff were properly trained.

He had also asked for a full review of the immigration systems.