Field row: Thai tiler in new bid for visa

Taito Phillip Field

A tiler at the heart of MP Taito Phillip Field's alleged work permits racket is trying to get back into New Zealand.

The Labour Department last night confirmed that Thai Sunan Siriwan had applied for work permits for himself and his wife Aumporn Phanngarm, a deported overstayer.

Mr Siriwan - a central figure in the Ingram report into alleged misconduct by Mr Field - was allegedly sent to Samoa to tile the MP's home while Mr Field helped him apply for a permit to work in New Zealand.

Mr Siriwan is understood to have tiled Mr Field's home for little pay, and is now living in poverty in Apia. His family's Auckland-based lawyer was yesterday quoted by radio station 531-PI as saying Mr Siriwan and his wife were "suffering at the whim of the people who sent them to Samoa".

The work permits scandal led to an independent inquiry and a police investigation. Police spokesman Jon Neilson last night said Mr Siriwan could be questioned if he were allowed to return.

"The case would be wide-ranging, to cover anybody who had been involved in it."

Mr Field is on indefinite paid leave from Parliament while police investigate the case.

Mr Siriwan's Auckland lawyer, Olinda Woodroffe, yesterday told the Herald her client and his family were living in a "desperate situation", and were applying for a visa to enter New Zealand.

Mrs Siriwan was deported from New Zealand to Thailand in February last year, after being in the country illegally since November 2001.

The couple have a 4-year-old New Zealand-born son.

Ms Woodroffe said they had been in Samoa "coming up for two years".

"They have got absolutely no money, and that's what I refer to as a desperate situation. He has no one else to turn to in Samoa."

She said her client had lost a chunk of his life because of the actions of others.

"He is disappointed with the position that he is in. So would you if two years of your life had been taken away by sitting somewhere in the Pacific, not knowing where you are going."

But she stopped short of blaming Mr Field outright for her client's predicament.

"You can draw your own conclusions from that," she said.

Ms Woodroffe said she had been hired in the past two weeks to oversee Mr Siriwan's visa application as it was processed by immigration authorities.

Papers lodged with the Immigration Service were a follow-up to a letter sent to Mr Siriwan in June last year by former Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor.

She would not discuss the contents of that letter.

But the Ingram report says a letter sent by Mr O'Connor to the Immigration Service's Apia branch manager James Dalmer ordered him to issue work visas to Mr Siriwan and his wife.

The visas were not issued because of the questions raised over Mr Field's involvement.

In an interview with 531-PI, Ms Woodroffe described Mr Siriwan and his family as caught "in a no-man's land, a victim of a foul political storm".

Since arriving in Samoa, Mr Siriwan - who Ms Woodroffe said was a master tradesman who had worked in Japan, Singapore and Saudi Arabia - had been paid low wages or not paid for tiling jobs.

He and his wife and son were "three poor human beings who are the forgotten victims, suffering at the whim of the people who sent them to Samoa", she said.

Attempts to contact Mr Siriwan in Samoa were unsuccessful.


Sunan Siriwan

1957: Born Lampang, Thailand.

January 1997: Arrives in New Zealand on visitor visa.

July 2001: Applies for refugee status after staying illegally for four years.

February 2002: Application declined.

2004: Seeks legal advice to remain in New Zealand.

February 2005: Meets Mangere MP Taito Phillip Field and subsequently leaves for Samoa.