Dalziel All Over The Show Like A Mad Dog's Breakfast

"Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel has today sent disturbingly confused signals about a bungled dawn raid in Auckland," National's Marie Hasler says.

"Ms Dalziel started today by signalling that 'dawn raids' are okay by her, as long as no-one uses that phrase to describe them. On radio she said that 6.30am was an 'acceptable' time for an Immigration Service raid, and that she would not 'describe 6.30am as a dawn raid at all'.

"Maybe it slipped her notice that the sun didn't rise in Auckland on the day in question until 6.43am. Perhaps this raid didn't qualify as a dawn-raid in her eyes because it was, in fact, a pre-dawn raid.

"In Parliament today she reiterated that 6.30am was an acceptable time, then announced that she was banning any further raids before 7.00am. Anyone who can see the logic in that may follow Alan MacDiarmid in becoming New Zealand's next Nobel Prize winner.

"Then she blamed her officials, hanging them out to dry for 'letting this House down'. Moments later, in an astounding U-turn, she defended their actions noting that a light was on in the house at the time of the raid.

"Quite simply Lianne Dalziel is a buffoon who is not fit for Ministerial office. She has today banned raids between 6.30am and 7.00am - despite saying that is an appropriate time for raids - while simultaneously arguing that raids before dawn do not constitute dawn raids.

"If the Prime Minister has any sense she will deport Ms Dalziel from Cabinet with all possible haste. If she does so before sunrise I for one will not complain," Marie Hasler says.

Ends

A printable formatted copy of this press release will be available on http://www.national.org.nz along with an archive of previous releases.

© Scoop Media