A tetraplegic sent to New Zealand after 36 years living across the Tasman is the latest victim of Australia's tough new immigration laws.

The 56-year-old New Zealander, who asked to be identified only as "Paul", said the Australian Government "dumped me at Auckland Airport" three weeks ago.

He has no friends or family here and landed with only $200 and a voucher for a week's accommodation.

The case is a fresh embarrassment over the treatment of New Zealand-born convicted criminals by Australia.

It comes as Prime Minister John Key and his Australian counterpart met in Auckland yesterday when Turnbull described the transtasman neighbours as "family".


Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection would not comment to the Herald on Sunday last night.

Paul - who is wheelchair bound but has some feeling in his arms - said he was jailed twice after being caught self-medicating with controlled painkillers.

After the first incident in 2012 he served 13 months in jail. A few months after his release he was caught again and served a further seven months.

He was extradited last month under a controversial new Australian law which allows foreign nationals who have served a year or more in jail to be deported.

The man says he would be begging on the streets of Auckland had it not been for government-funded charity Prisoners' Aid and Rehabilitation Society (Pars).

"I feel like I've just been dumped - away from all my family and friends. I have nothing here."

Earlier complaints about the deportation system include Angela Russell who has spent 37 of her 40 years in Australia but is being sent here after being convicted of theft.

Junior Togatuki, 23, died while in a detention centre after his pleas not to be deported were rejected. He was 4 when he moved from Auckland to Sydney and told authorities he had "no memory" of New Zealand.

More than 200 New Zealanders are held in seven detention centres, including some who have lived in Australia their whole lives.

Key tried to force a backtrack on the law but Turnbull has refused to budge, saying only more resource would be poured into the appeal process to speed it up.

Turnbull said there had been a large number of revocations since the law was introduced last year but the numbers would go down as the backlog was cleared.

Paul, who broke his neck in a 2010 accident, said the deportation policy didn't take into account the severity of someone's crime.

"I'm not making excuses for what I did, but I didn't hurt anyone and I wasn't dealing anything," he said.

He was told his visa was being withdrawn by the Australian Government two days before his second jail term was up. He said he then spent an additional four months in a detention centre while his deportation was organised.

Paul's case, and that of other Kiwi deportees, is putting strain on Pars' resources, the Department of Corrections-funded service.

Tui Ah Lo, Pars' executive director, said the level of resource available to them has posed serious difficulties in trying to offer Paul the service he needs.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11530899

A quarter of a million Australian kiwi expats may not agree with the treatment though.

When push comes to shove, this voting block may not be as inhumane as you might hope come election day.

When they start to send homosexual kiwis back, you may have something to whinge about.....

Armchair_Politician wrote on Oct 18^th, 2015 at 9:31am:

Drug addict = not of good character?  That would exclude 90% of Australians then.

... wrote on Oct 18^th, 2015 at 11:31am:

Hear hear!

I know someone in intense pain a lot of the time and the tightening up of laws relating to opiates means constant worry lest the pills run out before they can get the next scrip filled. When you have a terminal illness and lots of pain all this crap just makes life almost unbearable.

Deporting that man was a low act.

Jovial Monk wrote on Oct 18^th, 2015 at 11:43am:


Opiates are a controlled drug for a very good reason. They're highly addictive and can be dangerous when not administered under supervision.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Oct 18^th, 2015 at 11:45am:

breaking the law does not necessarily mean immoral or bad. Especially in cases, such as this, where clearly the law is outdated.

And to assess ones character on what ifs is not really the way we determine anything.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Oct 18^th, 2015 at 11:45am:



I don't think I'd be surprised.

It starts with an injury and a script - take 2 pills twice a day with meals - and it works a treat. 

But after a couple of weeks, 2 pills does nothing and the pain returns - they take 4 and get soem relief.

But after a couple of months, 4 does nothing, so they take 8, but they can't get a legit script for that much. 

It's at this point where they'd be better off trying another drug to see if it works better, but they mightn't be able to get it. 

So they're stuck on the oxys, taking more and more to get the same effect they once had.  But to get those numbers they've got to do some dodgy poo.  These might be people who'd never even return a library book late, but constant pain will make them plumb depths they'd never ordinarily sink to.  Yes, they're addicted, but they became so not because they were chasing a high, but becasue they simply wanted to go a day where they could go about their business like a normal person.