Darien

FENTON

Immigration Spokesperson

22 November 2012 MEDIA STATEMENT

Immigration Minister must tell full story

A decision by Immigration New Zealand to keep clients who have had personal details compromised in the dark needs explaining, Labour’s Immigration spokesperson Darien Fenton says.

Figures obtained by Labour show that of 207 people who had private information wrongly released in the last three years, just 12 had been told of the breach.

“Immigration Minister Nathan Guy needs to explain why. For all we know, it could be the tip of the iceberg.

“Immigration NZ is in the process of developing a Global management database that will be shared around the world.

At the same time staff, already under pressure with their merger into the “super ministry’, MoBIE, are also dealing with fall-out from the Student Visa scandal and questions around off-shore corruption.

“Immigration New Zealand store the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are now permanent residents or here on work visas. The potential for a nightmare of the scale we’ve seen at Work and Income, ACC and Inland Revenue is enormous

“I want to know that Nathan Guy is on top of this. He also needs to assure the New Zealand public he is,” says Darien Fenton.

labour.org.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media

World Refugee Day:
Are We Doing Our Bit?

On World Refugee Day, Thursday June 20th, Doing Our Bit will officially launch a campaign to double New Zealand’s UNHCR Refugee Resettlement Quota...

New Zealand’s low refugee intake is not a new issue. In February a NZ Herald editorial commented that our intake was ‘paltry’, remarking that ‘surely we could do more’. In April, Amnesty International described the quota as ‘tiny'.

“Despite being a small country in the middle of the South Pacific, New Zealand prides itself on being hospitable. We are friendly to overseas visitors and we see ourselves as punching above our weight in international affairs,” said Murdoch Stephens, coordinator of Doing Our Bit.

“However, in terms of accepting refugees New Zealand is clearly not doing our share.” More>>