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Prime Minister John Key has responded to the Kim Dotcom residency - Source: ONE News -
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Prime Minister John Key says he is comfortable with how immigration officials handled the residency application for Kim Dotcom.
US authorities are seeking to extradite the multi-millionaire German national to face internet piracy and money laundering charges.
Key said there was "clearly a potential anomaly" between the Overseas Investment Act and immigration rules and he had asked officials to look at whether immigration rules need changing.
Dotcom, 38, was granted residency in October 2010, but was barred from buying the $30 mansion he is renting in Coatesville, Auckland after ministers intervened in an Overseas Investment Office decision to approve the application.
"In the case of residency, what has to be taken into consideration is the record of the individual," Key said at his weekly post-Cabinet media conference.
"Because Mr Dotcom's record is effectively cleaned through the clean slate provision, his record was clear. He self-disclosed that he had convictions, but his record was clear.
"Under the provisions of the Overseas Investment Act, it's not the record that ministers have to consider, it's the convictions. And they are never swept away, despite any clean slate provisions."
Key said he was comfortable with the Immigration Department's decision to grant residency, but said it was not clear-cut.
"In both cases, both in terms of the ministers' decision to decline the application to buy the property in Coatesville and the officials' decision to grant residency, they were what I would describe as an 'on balance' decision. They were not clear-cut either way."
Key said the Immigration Department has reviewed Dotcom's file and found all of the correct procedures were followed in granting residency.
He was not sure if immigration officials looked into how Dotcom obtained the money that he invested in New Zealand Government bonds, one of the provisions for him being granted residency.
He said neither the Overseas Investment Office nor ministers knew US police were investigating him when they declined his bid to buy the mansion.
Dotcom has been remanded in custody until February 22 for an extradition hearing, after a judge determined he was a flight risk.
