Australia should consider its ties with New Zealand forged by the ANZACs when deciding whether to deport Kiwis according to Jason Wood. (Picture: Gary Ramage)
12 March 2019
Primrose Riordan – The Australian
The Joint Standing Committee on Migration report released last month recommended that the Ministerial directions that govern deportations be revised to consider “the historic special immigration status of New Zealand citizens”. Committee Chair Mr Wood said there were too many cases of New Zealanders being deported for minor crimes.
It also recommended that all young New Zealanders living permanently in Australia be given access to student loans through the Higher Education Loan Program. “I just thought that was the right thing to do,’’ Mr Wood said. “Because I’ll give you another example, the child’s been here since the age of two or three and they can’t get access to (HELP) and it’s a loan and the intention is to pay it back and they don’t get that opportunity.”
Labor members of the Committee, including Immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann, supported the recommendation about HELP loans. However, Labor issued a dissenting report, saying broader changes were needed to Ministerial directions and arguing for a review of the directions to consider the impact on New Zealanders.
“Evidence suggested the visa cancellations regime under the current government has resulted in non-citizens being detained for unnecessarily long periods of time and some detained indefinitely, and … deportation for relatively minor crimes or offences committed 20 years ago,” the Labor MPs said.
[The Australian article is paywalled].
