October 01, 2015
Deportation response to poor policy
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says New Zealanders caught up in Australia's harsh new visa policies are paying the price for this country's lax approach to immigration.
More than 200 New Zealanders are now in detention across the Tasman awaiting deportation, and new rules allowing the cancellation of visas for anyone who has ever been sentenced to a year in jail means thousands more could follow.
Mr Peters says he was called xenophobic and racist for speaking up against uncontrolled immigration.
But one of the consequences was migrants using New Zealand as a back door into Australia.
"Sooner of later Australia was going to react and they did and by 2001 they changed the arrangement and we have never been the same since. You can't go over there and get a benefit in the way they can if they come to New Zealand, can't go over there and access certain university grants and whatever, all this has been denied us," he says.
Winston Peters says the Government needs to make arrangements to deal with the needs of those being deported.
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