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National immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith has called for a wider probe of the Immigration Department after a report suggested it was not uncommon for staff to be ordered to make decisions with which they did not agree.
Immigration staff were ordered by a senior official to override normal
policies to process late residency applications by Kiribati family members of top immigration official Mary-Anne Thompson.
An independent report into the case cleared Ms Thompson, who had helped fill out the forms, of exerting influence after an official admitted directing staff to process the applications against the rules.
In the report, former justice secretary David Oughton said he was concerned about a more widespread problem, saying staff told him the order to breach policy was "not an isolated case".
Mr Oughton said that when staff were ordered to make decisions they felt breached policy, they wrote "as instructed by" to indicate they had not made the decision themselves.
"The fact that staff feel themselves obliged to make such an entry in order to protect themselves from what they regard as breaches of policy is a matter of concern."
He said it may simply be a question of staff not understanding the discretion managers had, however, "if the decisions that have been taken are outside policy or delegations then the matter is more serious".
National immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith said there now had to be a wider investigation into those other cases where staff had indicated they were pushed into making a decision against proper policies.
He said the report also raised concerns about the way the Pacific division of Immigration operated.
"The report shows an official had the practice of going round the office until they found someone prepared to take the direction. The fact that staff said this was a reasonably common practice is very serious."
A spokesman for the Department of Labour said staff concerns had related only to the official who ordered Ms Thompson's case to be processed.
That official had been disciplined.
He said there was no review of other individual cases because the internal audit which picked up irregularities in Ms Thompson's relatives' case had not picked up any other cases that were outside normal policies.
The report cleared Ms Thompson of trying to influence the decision after the applications were lodged.
But Mr Smith said it did not address why Ms Thompson helped with the applications despite the closing date having passed.
"As head of immigration, she must have known the applications were out of time and yet she allowed the officials to make those decisions outside of protocols.
"And she had already been cautioned by [former Labour secretary James] Buwalda not to get involved in immigration matters relating to family."
He said it was "appalling" that people who had otherwise met all the rules had missed out, but there was space for Ms Thompson's family.
"You can understand why staff members caught up in it didn't want to do it."
The department spokesman said Ms Thompson's family had been taken in on top of the quota, so had not taken other people's quota slots.
The State Services Commission is investigating the Labour Department's handling of the investigation and the processes by which decisions were made.
A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove said he would not comment while that investigation was in progress.
