Nathan Teraki has avoided deportation from Australia after he was jailed for causing a fatal crash. Photo / 123rf
A New Zealand-born man, serving time in an Australian prison for killing a person when he drove while drugged, has won a fight to remain in his adopted country.
Nathan Brian Teraki was jailed for seven years in September 2024 after pleading guilty in the Brisbane District Court to the dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death while affected by an intoxicating substance.
He was said to be fatigued and taking “poor man’s meth” tablets when he killed a mine worker in the head-on collision.
His dashcam recorded him veering into the opposite lane nine times as he drove for another hour and 27 minutes before colliding head-on with a Toyota Hilux driven by Northern Territory man Leslie Noel Huxham.
At the time, Teraki tested positive for amphetamine, methamphetamine and the active ingredient of cannabis.
He faced a looming deportation order, but has succeeded in having it overturned, after Australian immigration authorities agreed to cancel an application to revoke his visa.
Teraki claimed he had become so stressed about events in his life, and after the tragedy in October 2022, he began self-harming by “pulling out his teeth”.
The process to cancel Teraki’s special category (temporary) visa began soon after he was convicted and sentenced.
Despite his appeal, authorities decided last December to continue down the path of cancelling the visa, because the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship was not satisfied that Teraki passed the character test.
But in a decision released this month, the Administrative Review Tribunal of Australia found that, after weighing all the evidence, factors in favour of reversing the decision to cancel his visa outweighed the alternative.
The tribunal said that while Teraki’s criminal conduct was “very serious”, as highlighted by the fact he killed an innocent person, his conduct in Australia otherwise was not, in the nature of systemic criminal activities, over an extended period of time.
Instead, his conviction arose when driving to work in circumstances where he was affected by drugs and should not have been driving.
While there was evidence of different criminal conduct from 2001 until 2003, when Teraki was living in New Zealand, there was no suggestion, let alone evidence that such conduct had been repeated in Australia, senior tribunal member Mark Harrowell said.
His record in New Zealand included common assault, possession of cannabis and utensils, burglary and breach of a community work order.
Teraki claimed he could not recall the assault charge or what had occurred.
The 44-year-old was born in New Zealand and arrived in Australia in September 2010 with his then-wife and two children.
Their third child was born after they arrived in Australia. The pair later separated.
Teraki had since faced a domestic violence order imposed by police in 2023, effective until August 2028, which contained a good behaviour condition.
Teraki, whose mother lived in New Zealand, said in his original revocation application he had not been back for eight years since there was nothing for him to return to.
“This is my first and only charge I have had and is really out of character for me,” he wrote.
Teraki wrote that he had been independent since an early age, and had lived with his grandmother during his teens.
He described his relationship with his mother as “good” and that they talked, and that she had offered him a place to stay with her.
However, he feared “returning to old habits” if sent back to New Zealand, and separation from his children, who were a “massive” part of his life.
He claimed to have been working too hard to hide his depression from his children since the death of his father in 2017, when he ought to have sought help instead.
A medical specialist’s report pre-sentencing described Teraki having a “major depressive disorder” which was both chronic and severe.
The court also noted his “chronic cannabis dependence”, alcohol abuse and “some symptomology consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder” and a previous history of methyl amphetamine use.
The PTSD was said to be partly related to Teraki’s early family history.
Teraki said he was working three jobs at the time of the fatal crash, to help pay the mortgage and support his family.
He started taking drugs to sleep and to be awake for work, and had taken them before driving to work on the morning of the crash.
He claimed to have started “pulling his teeth out”, because of everything that had happened, but was now getting help.
“I want my kids to look up to me, not down at me,” he wrote.
Teraki said since being in prison he had become completely drug-free, had stopped taking medication and “felt the best” he ever had.
He said he had “awesome support” from family and upon release he aimed to work full-time as a builder.
“I have to live with what happened that day and always will. But [I] have changed my thinking and look at life,” Teraki wrote.
The tribunal concluded that it was not in dispute that Teraki failed the character test; the issue in the proceedings was whether there was another good reason why the cancellation of the visa should be revoked.
It considered his risk of re-offending as low, and his family ties and social links in Australia were “significant”, which all weighed in favour of reversing the decision to cancel his visa.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.