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The Immigration Minister, Clayton Cosgrove, is to look over the residencies given to relatives of former Immigration boss Mary Anne Thompson to decide if any action is required.
The residencies for three members of Ms Thompson's family from Kiribati were approved despite being outside immigration policy - a power reserved for ministers alone.
Yesterday Mr Cosgrove said he had asked his department for advice on the residencies, saying it was "appropriate".
He indicated that it was likely he would allow them to stand, saying it was standard practice if the applicants had acted honestly but "the department has made a mess of it [and] you don't punish the innocent for the sins of someone else".
It is the latest episode in the fall-out from help Ms Thompson gave to her relatives to travel to New Zealand in 2004 and subsequently get residency.
She resigned on Monday in the middle of a State Services Commission review of the matter.
Ms Thompson also faces a police investigation over allegations she falsely claimed to have a doctorate from the London School of Economics.
That institution says it has no record of her getting a doctorate.
Yesterday National immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith said the department's over-riding of policy meant others who failed to get residency because the quota was full could cry foul.
Olinda Woodroffe, the lawyer of Sunan Siriwan, the Thai tiler involved in the Taito Phillip Field court case, says she has written to Mr Cosgrove to ask that the same reasoning should apply to her client. "There is a double standard there," she said.
The Immigration Service is also undertaking a review of the Pacific division, about which former justice secretary David Oughton raised concerns in his report into the residency applications of Ms Thompson's family.
The branch has also been the focus of attention because of the high rate of cases overturned by the Residence Review Board and the high number of staff misconduct findings.
The investigation into Ms Thompson's CV centres on information she gave for public service jobs in 1990 (her first public service job with the Ministry of Maori Development) and 1998, when she was appointed to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Yesterday her former boss, Winston Peters, said he would reserve judgment until he had heard Ms Thompson's side of the story.
Prime Minister Helen Clark told Radio New Zealand yesterday that she was surprised discrepancies in Ms Thompson's qualifications would go undetected, given rigorous checks into the background of most civil servants.
Government policy requires all employees with access to confidential material to have a security clearance from the SIS, which vets employees upon the request of Government departments "to establish their trustworthiness, loyalty and discretion".
It is not clear whether the SIS checks the validity of academic qualifications or restricts itself to security matters.
Helen Clark said Ms Thompson had been in the civil service for many years and her qualifications might not have been rechecked for subsequent appointments in higher-level jobs in the Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
