Former immigration minister Anthony 'Aussie' Malcolm says New Zealand's reputation abroad will be damaged by accepting refugees from Australia's asylum centres.
Mr Malcolm, an immigration consultant, told Radio New Zealand the deal announced last week for 150 asylum seekers to be brought here from Australia was "a tragedy".
He said the agreed United Nations conventions on dealing with refugees in a humanitarian way had been ignored by Australia.
"Australia and Australia alone stands out from the rest of the world with arguments about queue jumpers and all sorts of populist jargon that actually hides racism, and now New Zealand has joined Australia it's a tragedy," Mr Malcolm told Radio New Zealand.
"We've left the community of European nations and responsible nations around the world and joined a minority of one. We've gone the occa way.