Terry Sarten: Christmas Island is no place for Santa

HOLIDAY HOME: If you don't get any prezzies, it may be because Santa is holed up here.

I HOPE Santa is not planning to come to New Zealand via Australia this year? He may find himself being treated as an "illegal arrival" with possible terrorist connections.

I mean red suit and big bushy beard - how weird is that?

He might find his sleigh being turned back over the ocean by a Border Force jet fighter or, depending on current government policy, be given money and extra hay for the reindeer to fly back to where he came from.

If he does reach Australia then it will create major problems.

There will be the matter of bringing unwanted animals (reindeer) with all manner of bio risks.

Then there's failing to submit a flight plan and travelling in an unlicensed flying contraption.

If he brings any of the elves with him they may be detained as undocumented minors, while the sack of toys will be confiscated by customs, played with by the drug sniffer dogs, then locked away as contraband.

There will come the next big question - what to do with him?

One tried-and-true Australian way of dealing with such situations is to pay poor countries millions of dollars to allow the Australian government to build detention facilities, guarded by contracted multi-national corporations who are paid additional millions to ensure no one escapes, while avoiding any pretence of following international legal requirements.

The addition of legislation that means those working in the detention centres can be jailed for talking about living conditions in the camps is simply the icing on the totalitarian cake.

So some bright spark, with absolutely no sense of irony, will say: "Send Santa to Christmas Island" and the now-not-so-jolly man in the red suit would then be secretly shipped off the mainland to spend Christmas with the other detainees and deportees on Christmas Island.

Because he will have arrived without a passport or any form of identification, the authorities will be flummoxed. A child would recognise him immediately, of course, but a government official may think that either (a) Santa is a potential threat to national security who thinks a red suit and white beard will help him blend in with the locals; (b) a fabulist who believes he can deliver toys to all the children in the whole world in one evening; (c) or someone's dad dressed in a Santa suit and a fake beard; (d) some combination of all of these.

Santa will then be held indefinitely without charges on the basis that he might be a threat - although he cannot be told what kind of threat as this is a secret and ... well, what use is a secret if you tell the person what the secret is?

If the Australian government can prove he has entered and left the country every December 25 for the past 100 years, they may be able to make a case for deporting Santa as a repeat offender. But where would they send him - back to the North Pole in handcuffs? And what about the elves?

If they can't sort it all before Christmas, Santa may find himself in detention well into the New Year ... because all government officials will be on holiday at the beach for the whole of January.

-Terry Sarten is a writer, musician, social worker and satirista - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz