This may read like a description of the current predicament facing John Key with the indefinite detention in Australia and deportation of so many New Zealanders. It could certainly be that. But it is also what happened to the Labour Government of Helen Clark when Australia signalled in 2000 it was going to place serious restrictions on New Zealanders' access to welfare and citizenship.
There are parallels between what Clark experienced in 2000 and what Key faces now. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that Key - long a critic of Labour's supposed "deal" with the Australian Government of John Howard in 2001 - is now getting to experience just what it feels like.
Let us look back to 1999. Australia was unhappy with the size of its welfare payment to New Zealand citizens, and Howard and New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley agreed to a thorough review. Australia argued the bilateral social security agreement should be extended to cover dole payments and that New Zealand should reimburse it nearly $1 billion a year.
Australia was also disgruntled about the proportion of New Zealand migrants born in third countries, and sought a common border policy. Among other things, this would have ended New Zealand's control of its migration relationship with Pacific states.
If New Zealand did not yield on these fronts, the distinct possibility existed that Australia would even go as far as to end the free flow of labour across the Tasman.
New Zealand changed its Government later that year and, on principle, Clark and her Foreign Minister, Phil Goff, would not agree to pay New Zealanders' dole money in Australia, nor would they surrender control of New Zealand's borders.
Their way out of the impasse was to suggest to Australia that each country look to its own conscience over what labour market benefits it would pay to the other country's citizens, and sign a social security agreement that dealt with pensions and severe disabilities only.
The Howard Government accepted with alacrity and imposed its restrictions.
Clark and Goff's mistake at this point was to proclaim this outcome as a "win-win". They were being diplomatic - they had, at least, managed to preserve New Zealanders' access to the Australian labour market, but this exposed them to later criticism that they had "done a deal". In reality, they had little choice.
The full impact of Australia's restrictions became publicly apparent from about 2011 at the time of the Queensland floods, when New Zealand expats were at risk of missing out on relief.
In 2013 and 2014, Phil Goff and a new Labour leader, David Cunliffe, pressed Key to do more for the rights of New Zealanders in Australia. Justice Minister Judith Collins hit back, tweeting "Cunliffe wants fair go for Kiwis in Oz - yet was part of Labour Govt that gave away these rights in 2001". Key called Cunliffe an idiot for not accepting "the role the Labour Government played in signing New Zealanders up to this deal".
Now the boot is on the other foot. In May this year it was revealed officials had advised the Government that Australia's toughened deportation policy would see a significant increase in New Zealanders sent home, a proportion of whom "have lived most of their lives overseas".
It was not until news that hundreds of New Zealand citizens were indefinitely detained - many of them on Christmas Island and some who had committed only minor crimes - that the Government was seen to act.
Labour leader Andrew Little has accused it of not doing enough.
Key and his Government will now have to negotiate a deal of their own with Malcolm Turnbull. It will not be easy and the outcome will probably not be perfect, but they too will need to talk it up. The lesson of recent history is that it would be wise not to talk it up too much.
Paul Hamer of Te Kawa a Maui, the School of Maori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, has been researching New Zealand's negotiations over a bilateral social security agreement with Australia in late 2000.
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