The Senate Inquiry into Immigration Irregularities continued today - with more from current Director of Immigration Diana Locke.
Director Locke is always forthright and provides full disclosure, but today's session turned into a real slog through administrative minutiae - with the Committee members going point by point through a checklist of shortcoming identified by the Auditor General.
It was about as fun as watching grass grow. Sparks didn't fly at all but we did get clarity on a few issues like this bogus entry stamps in circulation which are used to falsify entry dates into the country. We have footage courtesy the National Channel on CCV cable:
Mark Lizarraga - Senator, Private Sector
"The illegal use of stamps for validating a person's length of time in the country, so that they could get their permanent residency and nationality."
Diana Locke - Director of Immigration and Nationality
"The stamps are being check by the staff at this time. They are aware of some of these things and they have been checking. Since I've gotten there as I said we began to use the, so we have the printouts, so if you are comparing stamps against the printout and they don't match, then something is wrong. So we are doing more extensive checks. I am not sure what was the practice back then, but clearly now we are doing those checks."
Mark Lizarraga
"But this question, this specific recommendation refers to those instances where the stamps were used in an illegal manner and my specific question to you is what it is that you plan to do about those instances?"
Diana Locke
"If we come across them they have to be looked at and reported to the police for investigating."
Mark Lizarraga
"Only if you come across them, but you will not..."
Diana Locke
"I do not have the resources to go - I've said this before, there is a lot of things in this book and a lot of things that needs to be looked at. I will be more than happy to do that, if I can be given a separate team."
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