Give Pacific division a second chance New Zealand

[Stacey King]

Monday Mar 09, 2009
By Tapu Misa New Zealand Herald

I don't blame the new Immigration Minister for wanting to accentuate the negative in the Ernst & Young report on Immigration New Zealand's beleaguered Pacific division. It makes it so much easier to sign the execution order that will put it out of existence.

But it's not the whole story. And if the Pacific communities here and in the islands are to lose the services of the still-fledgling division, we should at least get the record straight.

To understand the now (seemingly) terminal troubles of the Pacific division, it's necessary to go beyond last year's headlines.

When Mary Anne Thompson quit as head of Immigration amid allegations that she'd used her position to get her Kiribati relatives into New Zealand, it was inevitable the Pacific division should get caught in the crossfire.

The division was Thompson's baby; she'd nurtured and apparently favoured it, giving it more latitude than anyone in the Department of Labour approved of. Consequently, the division was widely resented within the department, and when Thompson found herself in the midst of corruption allegations, so did the Pacific division.

No fewer than three external inquiries have subjected its workings to searching scrutiny; the report from the Ernst & Young review team is the latest. The picture it paints is not pretty but it's not quite the damning indictment that the current Government makes out. Importantly, there is no evidence of corruption, or serious concerns over financial arrangements.

In fact, the report concludes that the Pacific division should stay - as did almost everyone it talked to outside of the Labour Department.

Which isn't to say that it got an unqualified pass. It had its failures, but some of these were systemic and could be applied to the Department of Labour as a whole. Some were the inevitable consequences of setting up the division "very quickly" and without a clearly defined mandate or role. Some seem to have been the result of cultural differences - and a clash between a compliance-focused public sector and the division's leadership and management style,
which emphasised "getting things done" before ticking boxes.

It's important to remember that all was not well before the Pacific division was set up in 2005. There was widespread disgruntlement among Pacific nations about New Zealand's poor immigration service to the region and our failure to fill immigration quotas, which were supposed to recognise our "special relationship" with the Pacific.

That grumpiness reached a peak at the 2004 Pacific Forum, and led to a number of Cabinet directives aimed at healing the breach. As Mary Anne Thompson explained in 2004, our immigration policy was seen as "an important expression" of our relationship with our Pacific neighbours.

The Pacific division was our way of showing the love to our poor relations in the Pacific - and keeping our influence in the region.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the Department of Labour got the memo.

The report notes that there was limited consultation within the department and, thus, "a low level of buy-in to the Pacific division's objectives by the wider department".

Little wonder then that the harshest criticism heard by the review team came from inside the department. The Pacific division was the wild child of Immigration New Zealand - a "fiefdom", apparently beholden to no one but Thompson.

Its leadership was accused of cultivating an "us and them" style, which assumed that the rest of the department wasn't interested in, and didn't understand, the Pacific (an assumption that, on current evidence, doesn't seem entirely unjustified).

They were criticised, too, for putting their targets (of improving relationships with Pacific states and the filling of quotas) ahead of trying to "understand and comply with legal, public sector and/or departmental frameworks and procedures".

There's no doubting the division made mistakes. It succeeded in raising awareness and expectations in island communities, but then didn't have the skilled staff or the systems in place when the queues lengthened in response, and the backlogs grew. "Cultural competency" was emphasised in the appointments of overseas branch managers, perhaps at the expense of managerial experience and competency.

Its branches were underfunded and under-resourced, too, with inadequate office space and outdated computer systems, and the staff didn't get the training they needed - but, as the report noted, these problems aren't confined to Immigration's Pacific operations.

None of these is a good look, but nor should they be fatal. Judged solely on the objectives that led to its creation, the Pacific division would be deemed a success.

It met its targets of filling the quotas - by understanding that islanders would never get the job offers they needed to emigrate unless Kiwi employers went to them. It "significantly achieved its aims of establishing effective relationships with Pacific Governments, ministers and officials", said the review team. And it got the successful RSE seasonal work scheme running in a remarkably short time.

Among Kiwi employers, Pacific Governments and our own Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the division's leaders have been praised for their "passion for the Pacific and desire to achieve better outcomes"; their in-depth understanding of the needs of Pacific people and the barriers they faced; their motivation to "get things done and respond quickly to opportunities"; their entrepreneurial zeal; and their strong "cultural competence", which won the trust and confidence of Pacific Island leaders.

That seems more like a good beginning than an end.