Bribery, fraud rock Immigration 

The troubled Immigration Service is again under fire with news staff at its Pacific division have been involved in a raft of offences including bribery and fraud.

It follows the resignation this week of Immigration boss Mary Anne Thompson after ONE News revealed she had used her position to get family into the country.

ONE News has obtained shocking figures under the Official Information Act that show Immigration's Pacific division has been rife with dodgy dealings for years.

The Pacific division decides the fate of thousands of Pacific Islanders desperate to live in New Zealand. Instead, it has been a disaster, besieged with dishonest and corrupt staff.

"I think that unfortunately it's the extreme end of the culture that I referred to as a nod nod wink culture," says Richard Small, immigration lawyer.

Around 60 people work at the Pacific division. But ONE News has discovered in just three years from 2004, 19 cases of serious offences were proven against staff there, including theft, bribery and fraud.

From those 19 cases, nine people were fired or resigned and three were referred to police.

"I take it very, very seriously. It's just not acceptable to have problems like that occurring in what is a very, very important service in the department," says Christopher Blake of the Department of Labour.

National Immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith says heads should roll.

"What confidence can people have when they see that fear and favour is the way the outfit runs? It's got to change. Ministers have to accept some accountability and some heads are going to have to roll," says Smith.

That may yet happen. The Department of Labour has launched a review of the Pacific division which was the brainchild of its disgraced boss Mary Anne Thompson.

A former Pacific division employee told ONE News last month that she felt pressured by senior management to break the rules.

"You sort of don't want to rock the boat, do your job even [though] you know it was wrong, so I did it," Sarah Flesher said.

The Pacific community has long complained about staff at the division.

Last year, the Residency Review Board was scathing about how the division handled many of its cases. It listed a raft of failures including unfairness, inaccuracy and breaches of justice.

"I believe that hundreds of Pacific families have potentially not been given access to correct policy or correct processes," Small said last December.

That is hardly surprising given the activities of some of the staff they had to deal with.