Probe a 'shabby whitewash'

By HELEN TUNNAH

An internal inquiry into claims Immigration Service workers agreed to "lie in unison" over the arrest of a suspected terrorist has been condemned as a "shabby little whitewash".

National MP Murray McCully, whose party spent months officially hunting the internal memo containing the claim, last night said the report amounted to "amnesia in unison".

He said the report would not satisfy Ombudsman Mel Smith, who is running his own inquiry into denials by service staff that the memo existed.

"It won't wash with the Ombudsman," Mr McCully said in Parliament yesterday. "He knows he's been done, he knows he's been lied to."

The Department of Labour inquiry into a memo written by the service's media adviser Ian Smith has cleared staff of any deliberate intent to lie, or collude to deceive anyone, over the arrest of Algerian Ahmed Zaoui.

It also cleared staff of deliberately trying to mislead the Ombdusman, who was assured by the service's general manager Andrew Lockhart the memo did not exist.

Mr Lockhart was one of at least 300 people who received the memo, an internal media log circulated by Mr Smith.

But last night the department said it did not know if Mr Lockhart had read the memo, spoken to Mr Smith about it or been asked as part of its own inquiry if he had seen it.

The memo was written on December 17 and referred to media criticism of Mr Smith and the service about the release of information on Mr Zaoui.

Mr Smith wrote: "I was let down badly.

"Everyone had agreed to lie in unison but all the others caved in and I was the only one left singing the original song."

Mr Smith told the internal inquiry he had no memory of writing the comments.

Another staff member released the media log to the Ombudsman, eventually, but only an edited copy which had Mr Smith's remarks deleted.

Mr Smith is facing disciplinary action for writing the comments. But no one in the service is facing censure for withholding the memo from the Ombudsman's office, which has an important role in overseeing the workings of the civil service, including their compliance with Official Information Act requests.

Department of Labour chief executive James Buwalda said yesterday his internal inquiry had uncovered poor judgment by one staff member and "systemic" failures in the Immigration Service's handling of the OIA request from National, and later inquiries from the Ombudsman's office.

He rejected any suggestion staff members had deliberately obstructed the Ombudsman.

"I found no evidence of a conspiracy to deceive," Dr Buwalda said in his report.

"The 'lie in unison' reference in a media log was the product of one person's actions. It was intended as a sarcastic and humorous response to media criticism of Departmental staff failing to answer media questions about Mr Zaoui."

Mr Smith told the inquiry the comments were an attempt at humour, and said he was "astonished" by the reaction to them.

Dr Buwalda said Mr Smith's comments showed poor judgment, a lack of professionalism and a lack of respect for the media.

But although action is being taken against Mr Smith, Dr Buwalda said there was no need to take any disciplinary action over the failure to release the memo under the OIA, and also to the Ombudsman.

He said he did acknowledge those decisions meant the Department had not met its legal obligations under the OIA "but I found no evidence of a conspiracy amongst officials to deceive".

Dr Buwalda said management changes would be made to ensure OIA requests were properly met in the future.