New Zealand has expressed its “disappointment” at a decision that is likely to mean more criminals, with no connection to the country, will be deported there from Australia.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles announced he will update a ministerial directive—Direction 99—after several Administrative Appeal Tribunal (AAT) decisions cited it for allowing foreign nationals guilty of serious crimes, to avoid having their visas cancelled.
The directive was created following concerns from New Zealand’s Labour government over mass deportations of its citizens who had closer ties to Australia.
It comes after a New Zealand man, known as CHCY, was allowed by the AAT, under ministerial Direction 99, to keep his Australian visa despite being found guilty of raping his step-daughter.
The 37-year-old man, who left NZ when he was aged 17, raped the 14-year-old while her mother was in hospital giving birth.
Another man, jailed for choking the mother of one of his children, was allowed to stay in the country by the AAT, and weeks later allegedly murdered a man in Brisbane.
New Zealand Has ‘Grave Concerns’
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he had spoken with his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, on May 30 and indicated his concerns about the changes.“I have said to him that we regret that decision that they have taken to modify ministerial Direction 99,” Mr. Luxon said. “All I can do at this point is raise in very clear terms our grave concerns about the change to that policy.
“It’s not fair that we get deportees coming back to New Zealand that have got very little connection, or no connection to this country—that’s not right.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters accepted that Australia had a right to determine what level of offending by non-citizens was unacceptable.
“But we do not want to see [the] deportation of people with little or no connection to NZ, whose formative experiences were nearly all in Australia,” Mr. Peters said in a statement, in which he expressed the wish to discuss the proposed changes as soon as possible.
“We note Prime Minister Albanese’s previous commitment to take a ‘common sense’ approach to [the] deportation of people to NZ who had effectively spent their entire lives in Australia. We intend to engage with Australia at a political level on this matter as soon as possible.”
Mr. Albanese responded that Australia made decisions in its own national interest, and that he and Mr. Luxon enjoyed “a good relationship.”
Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan called on Mr. Giles to explain why he refused to entirely rescind Direction 99 in light of CHCY’s offending
“To rape a stepdaughter while your partner is giving birth in hospital—what it shows is that ministerial direction 99 is clearly failing,” Mr. Tehan told Sky News.
“I don’t think that you could get a worse example that that ministerial direction is clearly failing and that is why it needs to be rescinded.”
