One-fifth of immigration decisions 'questionable'

The public will be "appalled" that one-fifth of Immigration New Zealand decisions are considered "poor and questionable", Labour says.

The new figures were released at a select committee hearing at Parliament yesterday.

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman told MPs that the 21.8 per cent of decisions the service considered "poor and questionable" was an improvement on a previous score of 29.1 per cent. "There is going to be an ongoing drive to improve the quality of decision-making across Immigration New Zealand," he said.

The service's performance was an issue the National-led Government had "inherited".

"We have set some clear targets around quality of decision-making [and] customer satisfaction."

Coleman said the proportion of good decisions had risen from 36.2 per cent to 53.6 per cent.

Labour MP David Cunliffe, a former immigration minister, said the figures showed that decisions were about one-third good, one-third bad and one-third indifferent. The latest improvement in the figure was encouraging, he said.

"But if it's that rumpy to start with, the public must be appalled to receive this news that it's essentially a random walk in an immigration decision-making process between the wrong decision, the right decision and something in between."

- © Fairfax NZ News