Dalziel hazy on Tampa

By AUDREY YOUNG

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel said yesterday that she does not know when she learned that the Immigration Service had passed on the addresses of the Tampa refugees in New Zealand to the police.

But it appears to have been before she implied in an interview that Immigration had nothing to do with it.

In fact, the service was central to it.

She was reported in the Press on March 9 last year as stating that the service had not provided Australian police with the addresses of the refugees.

It turns out that the service was responsible for getting the addresses to the Australian police; it gave them to the New Zealand police to give to the Australians.

Asked yesterday whether she should have been obliged to tell the whole truth when asked about the Immigration Service supplying the addresses, she said: "At that stage I'm not sure whether I knew that.

"I was asked whether the New Zealand Immigration Service had given the information to the Australian police and I answered honestly that, no, the New Zealand Immigration Service had actually been asked for that information by the Australian police and they declined to give it."

Asked if she was briefed by the Immigration Service before it gave the addresses to the NZ police, she said no.

"I was away in Bali for the people-smuggling [conference] at the time and so that is when I first learned that there had been approach from the Australian police for the addresses of people who were rescued by the Tampa."

The Press article appeared the week after the Bali conference.

An Immigration Service spokesman said general manager Andrew Lockhart, who dealt with the police request could not recall when the minister had been briefed.

But she had definitely asked for information about it on March 8.