November 23, 2020
Deportee dump straining relationship
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the system is starting to show the strain of dealing with the number of people being deported from Australia.
In the past month the Australian government has dumped more than 50 people at our border after cancelling their visas for failing the character test under section 501 of Australia's Migration Act.
While some have relatively minor or historic offences, to tally also includes some with links to outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Mr Davis, who has criticised the way the policy breaks up families, says New Zealand is also now seeing much more sophisticated gang activity driven by deportees.
He says the Government has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the policy, and new Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will continue to do so.
"She will approach this with the Australians in a very diplomatic way but there is very little we can do for any country that decided to send back non-citizens to their country of origin – in fact we do it too, to a lesser extent – but I think there has been over 2000 501s returned to New Zealand and our system is starting to feel the strain of it," Mr Davis says.
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