Chester Borrows: Aussie cruelty scar from past

REMORSE: Singer Chris Brown, who badly assaulted his partner six years ago wants to perform in New Zealand. PHOTO/AP AP150927163430

I AM sure the irony of the Australians' new deportation laws in light of their convict history - of which they are so proud - has not escaped many readers.

The policy has the "look what we have made of ourselves from pretty rough beginnings" piety about it which makes me want to vomit.

Aussies can wear their forebears' convictions like badges of honour, yet today they will move retrospectively to deport people who have been raised in the Australian education system among Aussie families in Aussie communities for sometimes quite minor offences committed even as very young people.

I recall a young Australian man who had drifted to New Zealand as a miscreant youth and committed several crimes relating to drugs and dishonesty. He was a serial burglar and hard drug user and most of the burglaries were for drugs or food.

He was on the dole (a luxury he would not be afforded these days if he was a young Kiwi living in Australia) and he had never worked.

He was caught burgling a chemist shop in Nelson, sentenced and a deportation order was signed but overturned on appeal after he got married to another druggie. On release he belted someone in the head with a cast-iron water toby cover and was charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

This is a charge with a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment, and he went to jail after being sentenced knowing he would be deported to Australia on completing his stint inside. And so he should have been - he was a very expensive and threatening pain in the rear end for the Kiwi taxpayer.

What the Australian government is doing now is retrospectively deporting on the basis of a previous prison sentence of more than 12 months.

So, regardless of the crime or the actual time spent in jail - which may be well under 12 months - and regardless of subsequent behaviour, contribution to society, family circumstances or the length of time they have been in Australia, they get the boot.

Deportation should be after a very serious crime that posts a significant sentence and should be known at the time of sentence.

In New Zealand, the prisoner has the right to appeal the Deportation Order, but not in Australia. They are held without access to lawyers, not charged with a crime, with no opportunity to appeal the action being taken against them - which may relate to an incident that happened 10 years earlier - and they get no warning or suggestion that they leave the country of their own accord.

Now, some people here are arguing against themselves. We abhor what Australia is doing, but this week we have news of a man in his mid-20s wanting to come to New Zealand to work as a performing artist. As a teenager he assaulted his partner and was convicted and sentenced; he has shown remorse and done his time, and six years later he wants to come to New Zealand to perform.

His name is Chris Brown. I don't know his stuff - it probably ain't country music, which is my preferred taste - but if it is correct that he has talked to groups about his violence and warned them against going down the same track, what more does a person have to do to show he has been rehabilitated?

Cannot compassion be shown to him as he gets his act together and tries to move past this?

Nobody has heard what his victim now thinks, the steps he has taken to redeem himself with her, but we have heard from others.

I reckon not many of us are perfect, and there are things I did and said last week that I wouldn't do with the benefit of hindsight, let alone more than six years ago.

We have a number of well-regarded New Zealanders who have colourful and, in some cases, criminal pasts. We allowed them to be rehabilitated. It is no wonder we call the Aussies our cousins.

-Chester Borrows is the MP for Whanganui.