The Australian government has declared it makes no apology for dramatically accelerating visa cancellations, as it faces an increasing backlash in New Zealand after the policy triggered the deportation of a 15-year-old boy.
Pressure is mounting within New Zealand for the government to condemn Australia as a “rogue nation” in breach of human rights following the minor’s deportation.
The teenager was sent to New Zealand under the controversial policy by which the Australian government has been deporting non-citizens determined to have a “substantial criminal record” under a character test within the Australian Migration Act.
Australia’s home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, who last week described the transfer of deportees as “taking the trash out” in order to “make Australia a safer place”, told parliament on Tuesday he was “proud of this government for the way in which we have kicked these people out of our country”.
Without detailing any specific cases, including the minor’s deportation, Dutton said the government had a policy of “cancelling visas of dangerous criminals, of people that have committed serious offences against Australian citizens”.
He said the Coalition had changed the law in 2014, “because we were quite amazed when we came in to government and saw the fact that very few people, particularly those who had committed the most heinous offences against children and women and men in this country, were allowed to stay in our country and to repeat those offences against further victims”.
“So we make no apology for having ramped up that program and done it in a dramatic way,” Dutton said.
The home affairs minister said the Australian government had been “able to cancel 309 visas for rape and other sexual offences” during Scott Morrison and Dutton’s time in the immigration portfolio. He said there were just 43 similar cancellations in the previous six-year period.
More broadly, Dutton said Australia had “cancelled now the visas of 6,300 non-citizen criminals” but he did not break down these figures by nationality or offence type.
“I am proud of this government for the way in which we have kicked these people out of our country. They will not offend again against Australian women and children,” he said.
Dutton’s defiant speech came after New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, repeated her strenuous opposition to the deportation policy while being clear that Australia was operating “within their rights”. She has also resisted suggestions that it has damaged the trans-Tasman alliance, saying the relationship between the two countries was “excellent”.
But the deportation of the 15-year-old – which Ardern was made aware of by media on Monday – has inflamed tensions and increased pressure on the NZ prime minister to take a stronger stance against Australia.
On Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report program on Tuesday, the Greens foreign affairs spokesperson, Golriz Ghahraman, said Australia was behaving like an “outlier” and needed to be treated as one.
“They need to know they are now damaging their relationship with us, that being a traditional ally and trading partner doesn’t mean that we will continue to be an ally and partner to them as they treat us with absolute disdain in this way.”
The deportation was against the “rule of law and a commitment to human rights” and should be taken to the United Nations, said Ghahraman.
“It is time for all what we call like-minded nations to recognise that Australia is actually behaving like a rogue nation, as we call countries who very consistently flout human rights laws, and raise this in our international forums, have our allies join together with us to condemn this and put pressure on Australia to start behaving like a good global citizen.”
The opposition National party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Gerry Brownlee, said that, without knowing the boy’s circumstances, at face value the deportation was “pretty appalling”. The party’s leader, Judith Collins, said it was “pretty bad”.
Collins last week suggested that New Zealand’s government should reciprocate with a deportation policy of its own.
The children’s commissioner, Andrew Becroft, said on Twitter he had “serious questions” about the deportation, though he was proud of New Zealand “for putting the child first”.
He said New Zealand and Australia had both signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child “and are required to put the best interests of the child first in making decisions about them. What led Aus to decide his best interests were better served by deporting him here? Was it a principled decision, or just convenient?
“Are the ‘501 character tests’ being applied to children & if so, why? These are questions every New Zealander would want to know the answer to. I certainly do.”
The foreign affairs minister, Nanaia Mahuta, confirmed on Tuesday morning that New Zealand had been notified in advance of the incoming minor on 10 March, and knew to engage the children’s ministry Oranga Tamariki.
Stuff has reported that the teenager is now in a managed isolation facility. A spokesperson for Oranga Tamariki said in a statement supplied to Stuff that it had been “working extensively with the relevant authorities in both Australia and New Zealand to support this young person’s arrival into New Zealand”.
The advocacy group Iwi N Aus have said the deportation has widened the spectrum of “ongoing discriminative legislation that the Australian government is putting in place for New Zealand citizens”.
Coordinator Filipa Payne, also the co-founder of the Route 501 support network for New Zealand-born detainees in Australia, addressed Dutton directly in a statement posted on YouTube on Tuesday: “Hands off our children.
“Our children are our future, and our children will not be brutalised through your system.”