Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with John Key at Government House. Photo / Hannah Peters for Getty Images
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with John Key at Government House. Photo / Hannah Peters for Getty Images
Australia's new Prime Minister has declined to budge on his country's controversial policy of deporting Kiwis who have committed crimes across the ditch.
Malcolm Turnbull was officially welcomed to New Zealand by Prime Minister John Key this morning at Government House in Auckland.
After holding about 90 minutes of bilateral talks, the two prime ministers held a joint press conference.
Turnbull said it was Australia's "absolutely legitimate sovereign right" to revoke visas should the holder commit a crime.
He said much of the concern in New Zealand existed because there had been a large number of revocations since the law was introduced last year. This was because there had been a considerable backlog and he said the numbers would go down as it was cleared.
He said more resources would be put into the appeal process so it could be carried out more quickly.
"We pay a lot of attention to public opinion in New Zealand," he said. "Trans-Tasman harmony is very important to Australia and Australian leaders but the concerns have emerged largely from those temporary factors and the delays."
Turnbull said both countries' immigration ministers would get together "very soon" to review the situation.
Key said the discussion was "frank, honest and constructive".
Turnbull lays wreath at Auckland War Memorial Museum today. Photo / Doug Sherring
Deportation of New Zealanders and the rights of New Zealanders at Australian detention centres played a large part, he said.
"It's not the first time in the history of New Zealand and Australia that there have been points of contention."
He hoped the Australian Government would take on board New Zealand's call for compassion for some of the affected New Zealanders.
Turnbull also announced today that New Zealanders who have lived in Australia since childhood may be given access to the Australian student loans programme from next year.
He said legislation to introduce this measure would be introduced into Australia's Parliament next week.
It would give access to Special Category Visa holders who first entered Australia as a dependent child and who have lived in Australia for at least 10 years.
If the bill passes, about 2600 New Zealanders would be eligible for loans to help them study at university or other tertiary training institutions.
Work was also underway in both countries to explore how the two countries could share data to best support student loan debt recovery programmes.
The controversial Australian deportation law change, which was introduced last December, means non-Australians who have incurred a prison sentence of a year or more can be deported.
The law is retrospective and cumulative and, since its passage, immigration officials have been actively dredging through old records and rounding up Kiwis, sometimes in dawn raids.
More than 200 New Zealanders are held in seven detention centres. This includes New Zealanders who were brought to Australia by their parents and have lived there their whole lives.
Labour leader Andrew Little also met with Turnbull today, along with senior party members Phil Goff and David Shearer.
"While it's encouraging to see that they're taking steps to speed up the appeal process for those facing deportation, there is still a major issue about the discretion being exercised for those subject to deportation. And I asked for him and his Government to consider how they are exercising their discretion," Little said.
"What we're seeing is that people who have been born in New Zealand but left in childhood, grown up there, went to school there, [are] for all intents and purposes Australian, but when they offend and do a prison sentence and are subject to deportation they are essentially being sent to a country they have no links to, no roots in, no social networks in and it's simply not going to be helpful for their rehabilitation."
He said Turnbull gave the trio a "good hearing" and that Turnbull was "very interested" to hear some of the stories they told him about Kiwis in Australian detention.
