For the past two weeks, NZ, and the southern half of the North Island in particular has been thrashed by a series of weather paterns that are not just most unseasonable, but verging on unique.

The cause, we are told, is a high pressure system that has developed over Antarctica where normally there is a stable low pressure system. The effect of this high pressure system has been to shift the weather patterns normally reserved for the likes of the Auckland and Campbell Islands up to the latitudes of Wanganui and Wellington.

The consequence, if you have not heard, has been a series of violent storms with very heavy rain and strong winds. That has resulted in flooding throughout the Manawatu and Wanganui, and down through Kapiti, into the Hutt Valley and across the Rimutakas into the Wairarapa.

Current estimates of the damage and economic fallout are in excess of $100 million, and I believe will continue to rise to close to double that if government support for farmers and others affected by the floods is factored in.

As a matter of statistics, places such as Palmerston North, Levin and Wanganui have had in excess of 120% of their average February rainfall, with only half the month gone. To make that worse, the weather boys are saying that there is little sign of the system abating.

However, it is also proving that one man's black cloud can have a silver lining for another.

Over the past 18 months or so, the Immigration Department has been grappling with a series of "tough" decisions. Leading the pack in the public eye has been the case of A. Zaoui; ex Minister of Foriegn Affairs in the Algerian government and erstwhile political refugee. The main thrust of the public debate in that instance has become strongly political with some strange similarities to other larger and more internationally known examples. As a result we now are waiting on a Commission of Enquiry to establish "the truth" in the way that Mr Zaoui's application for residence as a refugee has been handled.

On top of that, a second and more problematical example has surfaced - that of a 16 year old Sri Lankan girl and her grandmother. When they first arrived here (as most "refugees" do) the first application was for "political refugee" status - their lives were in danger because of political beliefs etc etc...

Toward last weekend, after that application and the related appeals had all been exhausted fresh grounds were "brought to light. In fact, the grandmother admitted lying because she had been advised that "political refugee status" was the only reliable grounds for admission. The "truth" was that the girl had fled her family, accompanied by her grandmother, because she was being systematically sexually abused by her father and uncles. By Monday, one of the local tv networks had "obtained" a copy of a letter to the girl from her legal counsel, on which was a drawing of a guinea pig, and notes on how best to obtain residency status - a plan of action - which ended with the idea of "media" and publicity.

During the week, this developed into a political stoush about when and from whom TV3 had obtained the letter. The legal counsel was very upset because the letter was privileged. The Minister of Immigration Lianne Dalziel was incensed because it showed the lengths that people were going to pervert the course and use of refugee status processes - an indirect tilt at the Zaoui case and probably others as well. The National Party opposition could smell at least one or two drops of blood in the air and were baying after the wounded.

On Wednesday night, Lianne Dalziel was called by NZPA and asked some very direct questions. Because those answers did not swing with the evidence that NZPA and others had obtained they held publishing until the following morning and rang the PM. I can just hear Auntie Helen's growl down the phone to "hold that, there will be bigger news this afternoon".

And so it came to be. Because of a simple untruth, not even a political "hedge", the Hon Minister of Immigration and four other minor portfolios Lianne Dalziel, good mate of the PM, found herself relegated to the back benches of the House to lick her wounds and left over this weekend to ponder upon her political future.

There are parallels and connections that I could make to at least two major international instances of much the same kind of statement having far greater and different (and in one case tragic) repercussions.

This local example has none of the ramifications of the Beeb, WMD or any of that. It is, by comparison, very small beer.

So, it is sufficient that the storms in the lower North Island have been of such intensity and consequence that they have taken some of the heat out of the Dalziel saga much, I suspect, to the relief of the PM at least.