Editor's Blog

Warning Australia that it is straining the trans-Tasman ‘special relationship’ by deporting Kiwi born criminals, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has told Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, that  New Zealanders should not be treated this way.

"I was pretty blunt and I said there's a special relationship between New Zealand and Australia and you challenge that relationship to a degree when you see New Zealanders being treated in this way," he told Radio New Zealand. "They've often spent their entire life in Australia and went over there when they were very, very young," he said.

"It's like the Australians are saying 'we're going to pick and choose, we'll keep the ones we like but send back the ones we don't like'...Well... you have to take the rough with the smooth," said NZ Prime Minister Key.

In the 2011 census, there were 483,000 people living in Australia who were born in New Zealand. Of these, it has been estimated anywhere from 150,000 to 280,000 hold SCVs (Special Category Visa) which allows Kiwis to live and work in Australia ‘indefinitely’.

There are concerns that Pacific Islanders who arrived in Australia on NZ passports are being unfairly targeted by Australia’s tough new deportation laws. Some figures indicate that so far this year 484 New Zealanders have been deported with 184 in detention centres awaiting deportation.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Sky News the government was generous with its visa arrangements for Kiwis and did not require visitors from across the Tasman to submit their criminal history in order to be granted an Australian visa.

But he confirmed there had been a “dramatic” increase in child sex offenders coming from New Zealand, and as such, the crackdown was necessary.

“Some people who get to Australia from New Zealand, if they’ve got a criminal history they would be stopped from ever coming into our country (as they would) if they were coming from Brazil or the US or elsewhere,” Mr Dutton said.

“And if an Australian went to New Zealand and was ­involved in child sex offences or a serious assault … we would ­expect the Australian citizen to have their visa cancelled,” Mr Dutton said.being deported from Australia at record levels