NZ politicians attack Australian minister Peter Dutton for comparing deportees to 'trash'

Australia’s home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has triggered a political backlash in New Zealand by characterising the transfer of deportees across the Tasman as “taking the trash out” to “make Australia a safer place”.

The comments from the home affairs minister were broadcast by the Nine Network this week in a news report into what the channel said was the “secret prisoner plane booting foreign criminals out of Australia”.

Dutton appeared in the report which included footage of deportees, who had committed criminal offences in Australia, boarding the plane. The Queensland-based crime reporter for Nine was given access to the handcuffed deportees as they boarded the charter aircraft at Brisbane international airport. He asked questions such as: “How does it feel to be kicked out of Australia?”

The home affairs minister said the returnees were the “most serious offenders” and Australia was “safer for having deported them”. Dutton noted in the report that more than 700 people had been deported over the past 12 months.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said she did not intend to “get into a tit-for-tat” over Dutton’s latest remarks.

But she reiterated her “strongly held” opposition to Australia’s policy to deport non-citizens who have committed crimes in Australia.

“The Australian government is within their rights to do what they’re doing,” Ardern said. “It just so happens that we strongly disagree with it.”

Adern has repeatedly expressed concerns to the Australian government that New Zealand citizens who were long-term Australian residents – including those who had never stepped foot in her country – were captured by the Australian policy.

New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister, Nanaia Mahuta, said Dutton’s remarks “only serve to trash his own reputation” and were a “reflection on his own character”. She said the Australian government should “reflect on how they portray the transfer of people back to New Zealand”.

The Māori Party co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, told Newshub that the majority of the deportees were Māori and Dutton’s derogatory language reflected wider societal hostility, including within the prison system.

“Here’s the problem: that is indicative of the system that our people are currently working in or living in,” he said. “The prime minister should be calling on him to explain what he means by trash.”

In condemning the policy, New Zealand’s Covid-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins, initially told reporters that Australia was “exporting its garbage to New Zealand” – before quickly backtracking to clarify that he did not think of the deportees as “garbage”.

“Those are Peter Dutton’s words, not my words.”

The deportation policy, Hipkins said, was a “deplorable move by the Australian government, which we completely disagree with”.

“Having said that – they are entitled to do it,” the minister said.

National leader Judith Collins has called for New Zealand to retaliate by returning Australian criminals.

“We cannot be the dumping ground for everything wrong that’s happened in Australia with people and criminal behaviour,” she told 1News. “We do need to stand up for ourselves and we do need to stand up for Kiwis.”

Ardern said she had raised New Zealand’s profound objections with the Australian government on more than one occasion. But the prime minister rejected Collins’ assessment that the relationship between the two countries was “the worst” it had been in many years.

“There is no breakdown in our relationship at all,” Ardern said. “We have an excellent relationship with our counterparts in Australia and indeed myself, with prime minister [Scott] Morrison, we speak frequently and we work together often.”

The deportation issue has been a strain on the trans-Tasman relationship for several years. In 2020, Ardern publicly rebuked Morrison over the policy, declaring that New Zealand would “own our people [and] we ask that Australia stops exporting theirs”.

Last month, Ardern also criticised Australia for “abdicating its responsibilities” by unilaterally cancelling the citizenship of 26-year-old Suhayra Aden, an alleged terrorist with the Islamic State who was arrested at the Turkish border.

“New Zealand, frankly, is tired of having Australia exporting its problems,” Ardern said at the time. “If the shoe were on the other foot, we would take responsibility – that would be the right thing to do and I ask Australia to do the same.”