KEY POINTS:
The Labour Department told Damien O'Connor last March it had concerns about the implications of his overturning failed asylum seekers' residency applications after requests from Taito Phillip Field.
This was several months before Mr O'Connor, the then Associate Immigration Minister, issued a ministerial direction granting failed refugee applicant
Sunan Siriwan a work permit.
It is the first confirmation Mr O'Connor was made aware of concerns about Mr Field's applications to him before he issued the direction.
The admission was made by Labour Department Deputy Secretary Mary Anne Thompson in a select committee yesterday, after Secretary of Labour James Buwalda denied any concerns were raised.
The pair were being questioned by National Party immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith.
Ms Thompson was asked last year before the committee by Dr Smith whether officials had communicated "any unease" over the Field applications to then Immigration Minister Paul Swain.
She said then she had raised the issue with him before he joined a ministerial delegation to Apia in March.
Mr Field was also on the trip and took Mr Swain and other ministers to his house, where Mr Siriwan had allegedly just begun working.
Ms Thompson did not last year elaborate on what concerns were raised with Mr Swain, but did yesterday, and confirmed they had also been flagged with Mr O'Connor.
"I was aware of a number of submissions being made that involved asylum-seekers, refugee-seekers, who had been though the traps a few times and I was just raising that with the minister in general terms."
The concerns were raised with her by a department manager, Kerupi Tavita.
After speaking to Mr Swain, she asked Mr Tavita to also relay them to Mr O'Connor, whose job it was to deal with requests for ministerial intervention in immigration cases.
Ms Thompson was asked how Mr Swain had responded to her concerns, but Dr Buwalda intervened, saying the question should be put to Mr Swain.
Before Ms Thompson's disclosures, Dr Buwalda was asked by Dr Smith if anyone in the department had raised concerns about Mr Field's submission. "I'm not aware of that sort of alarm, no," Dr Buwalda said.
Ms Thompson's contradictory comments came after she was directly questioned by Dr Smith.
Interviewed after the committee hearing, Dr Buwalda said the concerns raised with Mr Swain were about "the nature of some cases being put forward and, subsequent to that, Mr Tavita then talking to the Associate Minister's office in the same general terms".
"We are talking about what the operational implications of failed asylum seekers and so on being granted residency in New Zealand [are]."
Despite admitting Mr O'Connor's decision to overturn previously turned-down applications had implications for the department, Dr Buwalda maintained "it wasn't a concern about the minister's decisions, the minister had the authority to make decisions, it was simply us alerting the minister in a general sense to operational matters associated with those decisions".
Ms Thompson said the department was trying to "calibrate" the minister's approach with its own.
Mr Field made 438 applications for Mr O'Connor to intervene in immigration cases during the last term of Parliament - over twice that of any other MP - and over half were supported by Mr O'Connor.
A significant number involved failed asylum-seekers.
Dr Smith has regularly questioned Immigration Minister David Cunliffe over why a series of concerned emails about Mr Field's involvement with Mr Siriwan, and other Thais alleged to have worked on his house in Samoa, were sent to the department's immigration intelligence unit from its Apia branch early last year - but not passed on to Mr O'Connor.
The Ingram report said Mr Tavita maintained he called Mr O'Connor's private secretary with the information before he decided to grant Mr Siriwan a work permit.
The private secretary denied recalling the conversation.
Warnings
* Government ministers Daniel O'Connor and Paul Swain were warned last year about the number of successful visa applications Taito Phillip Field was making on behalf of failed asylum seekers.
* The warnings came months before Mr O'Connor used his ministerial powers to grant a work permit to failed refugee applicant Sunan Siriwan.
* Mr Siriwan claims Mr Field promised to get him a work permit in return for tiling Mr Field's house in Samoa. Mr Field has denied the claim.
