Minister says he didn't know MP hired overstayer

Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor says no work visa has yet been issued to a Thai overstayer who was employed by another Government minister to work on a house in Samoa.

Mr O'Connor said he had not known that his Labour colleague, Taito Phillip Field, had employed the man as a tiler.

One News reported last night that Mr Field, an Associate Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, had asked Mr O'Connor to review applications for New Zealand work visas by Sunan Siriwan and his wife.

Mr Siriwan asked Mr Field for help. He was facing deportation, and his de facto Thai wife had already been deported.

Mr Field sought Mr O'Connor's intervention, and apparently did not tell his ministerial colleague that he was flying Mr Siriwan to Samoa to work on a house he owned there.

"My intervention was to allow Mr Siriwan to re-apply for a work visa, which has not yet been issued and the issuing of which is subject to all standard criteria," Mr O'Connor said.

"I will be reviewing the application in the next couple of days, given the new information that has come before me."

Mr O'Connor said MPs from all parties regularly asked him to intervene on behalf of individuals.

"I consider each case on its merits - as I did in this instance - and intervene where justified and when in the best interests of New Zealand," he said.

Mr Field said there was no connection between the review he had asked for and the fact that the man carried out work on his house in Samoa.

Mr Siriwan and his wife are still in Samoa.

- NZPA