This is edition 2026/113 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Immigration Biometric Project Exposed
John McLean
- 🛂 Immigration Minister Erica Stanford accused MBIE of repeatedly and deliberately misleading her about a $38 million biometric IT project at Immigration New Zealand.
- 💸 The project was abandoned after less than ten years, achieving nothing despite NEC having delivered equivalent systems for the US, Japan and Singapore.
- 📄 A review by Greg James was handed to MBIE on 1 April 2026 but not passed to Stanford until 12 June, with officials blaming a “wrong call” and then the “fuel crisis.”
- 🎙️ On Newstalk ZB, Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche claimed no culpable individuals remained in the public service and insisted the failure was unique.
- 🛡️ Roche has now appointed Michael Heron KC to lead an inquiry likely to drag past the election, prompting accusations of a whitewash timed to let the scandal fade.
- 📝 Former MBIE CEO Carolyn Tremain, who covered most of the project period, wrote to Stanford claiming a junior staffer was responsible for false assurances about independent quality reviews.
- 🔥 Winston Peters is not buying it: he says he has “no doubt” Immigration NZ officials deliberately misled the Government and wants the “fibbers jailed.”
- 🚨 Former Immigration NZ head Alison McDonald and current MBIE CEO Nick Blakeley appeared before a select committee in March without disclosing the project had been axed in November 2025.
- ⚖️ McLean invokes Judge Peter Mahon’s “orchestrated litany of lies” to describe the pattern of omissions and misleading statements.
- 🏛️ The affair is framed as evidence that public servants have become insulated from democratic accountability and need radical reform.
