Jonathan Coleman

Wellington, June 14 NZPA - New Zealand's immigration system is "unacceptable and it has to be fixed", Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said.

An Auditor-General's report released earlier this month said the Immigration Service, within the Department of Labour, was focused on processing as many visas as possible without worrying about quality.

"This meant that staff who were under pressure to meet quantity targets had incentives to approve visas and permits, rather than decline them," the report said.

It was "especially troubling" that the culture at the service was so bad staff were too afraid to raise concerns about their workplaces and integrity issues.

The report found that problems were worse in the Pacific Division than elsewhere in the service.

The division was set up by the service's former boss Mary Anne Thompson in 2005, who resigned last year after accusations of a conflict of interest in helping overseas family members gain residency.

Recently the service gained media attention for refusing permits to several pregnant woman, at least one of whom was too sick to travel.

The service reviewed its decision on 29-year-old Jurga Skiauteris and she and her family were allowed to remain in New Zealand until the birth of her baby.

Today, Dr Coleman told TV1's Q+A show that the Auditor-General's report was "very bad".

"What it is really showing is that if you go to a New Zealand Immigration office you can get a different decision on a different day depending on who you speak to and what branch you go to.

"It's unacceptable and it had to be fixed."

The problems meant some people may be in New Zealand who should not be and others with legitimate rights may have been turned away, Dr Coleman said.

The report's recommendations needed to be implemented, permanent senior management was needed to replace those in acting roles, the IT system needed an upgrade worth $117 million over four years and the entire process needed to be taken apart and looked at "from top to bottom", he said.

An independent manager would be appointed to "work alongside" the department's chief executive to ensure the changes were made.

The chief executive had a difficult job managing the immigration, ACC, employment and labour functions of the department, Dr Coleman said.

However, the cost and risks of separating out the immigration service were too high, he said.

Two years was the "outside limit" for changes to be made and New Zealand to have "a superb immigration service".

Immigration was important, despite the recession, to ensure there were enough skilled workers in New Zealand, Dr Coleman said.

Temporary work permits were labour market tested and were therefore likely to fall during hard economic times when there were New Zealanders available for jobs.

But, if the number of skilled migrants decreased now "when we come out of the recession we're not going to have the skills we need", he said.

It did not matter where migrants came from as long as they had skills needed in New Zealand, Dr Coleman said.