Police take documents in raids on Phillip Field's offices and home

Taito Phillip Field is suspended from Parliament while police investigate claims over immigration dealings. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Labour MP Taito Phillip Field was given five minutes' notice before a police search of his office at Parliament today.

Detectives and uniformed police raided his electorate office, Auckland home and Parliament office as part of their inquiry into his dealings with constitutents seeking help with immigration.

Mr Field has been suspended on full pay while police investigate allegations against him that he accepted cheap labour on his properties from people he helped with immigration.

The investigation was sparked by the case of Thai tiler Sunan Siriwan, after claims he worked on Mr Field's house in Samoa in return for immigration assistance.

Mr Siriwan is now stranded in Samoa, but says he wants to come back to New Zealand with his Thai wife and New Zealand-born son.

An inquiry by Noel Ingram, QC, cleared Mr Field of any conflict of interest as a minister. But new allegations suggest Mr Field or his wife misled either the Ingram inuqiry of the Samoan Government.

Sunan Siriwan - who said he had poor recollection of his meetings with Mr Field when interviewed for the Ingram inquiry - now claims he had not been free to speak the truth. In two affidavits the National Party tabled in Parliament yesterday, Mr Siriwan alleges Mr Field instructed him to tell the police he had not done any tiling on the Mangere MP's property in Samoa.

The affidavits also allege Mr Field last year invited Mr Siriwan to his house in Mangere and told him that if he went to Samoa to do tiling on Mr Field's house, "he will get me back to New Zealand with a work permit".

Mr Field's lawyer, Simativa Perese, last night rejected the Thai's version of events. Mr Perese said Mr Siriwan had been interviewed by the Ingram inquiry for five hours with an independent interpreter and had not said what he was saying now. The release of Mr Siriwan's claims comes at an awkward time for Labour, which is heading into its annual conference this weekend trying to focus on the future.

Mr Field's lawyer Simativa Perese said Mr Field was co-operating fully with the police investigation.

He said the search warrants were "not unexpected". It was police "best practice" to get evidence in this way.

"We want to ensure that all of the relevent evidence is gained."

Mr Perese said he had been called by a detective around 8.20am today to be told the police search at Parliament was about to begin.

The detective had said it would be preferable for Mr Field or his lawyer to be there but it had been impossible to get there.

"We were advised five minutes before the execution of the warrant."

Mr Perese said he arranged for Wellington barrister Greg King to attend the search at Parliament on his behalf.

"I know that the searches up here (Auckland) have been conducted reasonably well, and so far as Mr Field is concerned he is relaxed about any search taking place because he has nothing to hide."

Police had copied the contents of Mr Field's computers, and were likely to take away documentation, Mr Perese said.

"They clone the hard drive and take that away."

Mr Perese said Mr Field would have been happy to provide copies of the contents of his computers if he had been asked.

Mr Field had provided a lot of information to the inquiry carried out by Noel Ingram QC, including bank statements.

He had waived his legal privilege allowing letters from lawyers to be also looked at, Mr Perese said.

"He's waived his privacy and given the police the authority to look at all those documents so he's already provided a lot of information to Ingram's inquiry and now to the police."

A police spokesman would not comment, other than to say police had executed search warrants at Mr Field's Parliament office, and at Auckland addresses, including Mr Field's home and electorate office.

Speaker Margaret Wilson said today she had made an interim protocol with Police Commissioner Howard Broad to allow the police search of Mr Field's office at Parliament to go ahead.

The protocol was designed to ensure any search was executed without improperly interfering with the functioning of Parliament.

That meant the search could not take place while the House was sitting.

The protocol says that where practicable, the search warrant should be executed at a time when the MP or the MP's authorised representative was present.

The protocol also says the Clerk of the House of Representatives should be present during a search of a MP's office at Parliament.

Ms Wilson said police met with the acting clerk of the House this morning.

Accompanied by a representative of the Parliamentary Service, which oversees the administration of Parliament, police had sealed Mr Field's offices.

Ms Wilson said the sealing of his office was necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation.

The protocol recognised that parliamentary privilege did not confer any general legal immunity on a Member of Parliament, she said.

MPs were not exempt from prosecution, nor could evidential material be placed out of the reach of police.

"Neither Parliament nor the member's premises are a sanctuary," the protocol said.

Ms Wilson said the interim protocol had been put in place because such a situation had not arisen before.

She would make a statement when the House resumed, after a week's recess, and the protocol would be referred to Parliament's privileges committee for consideration.

- NZPA, Herald reporters