Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader

2 August 2013

Minister Should Investigate Shonky Student Visas

The Immigration Minister should spend some time investigating the thousands of invalid student visas issued by his department while he is in China pretending to be important, says Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Mr Peters says the Minister is in denial over the thousands of parental reunion applications from China which have been stockpiled at Immigration New Zealand so he could perhaps tackle the student visa charade.

“The Palmerston North office is described within the department itself as the student visa "factory" and it is well known to insiders that thousands of visa applications were rubber stamped because of pressure from the education export sector.

“These people are wandering around New Zealand somewhere doing something well outside their original application purpose and this should never have been allowed to happen.”

Mr Peters says the Government is in total denial over the immigration shambles it helped create through taking short cuts in response to greedy demands.

“The Government is actually the biggest part of the immigration problem so the Minister should stop having a pillow fight with himself in a Beijing hotel and start cleaning up the mess.”

ENDS

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