Australia looks to unwind 'common sense' approach to 501 deportees

Friday, 31 May 2024

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese he “regrets” a pending re-write of Australian immigration rules that could reboot the deportations of criminals to New Zealand.

Albanese’s Labor Government has in recent days been suffering political heat from the Opposition in Canberra over the release of criminals the government has sought to deport.

Albanese, in the Australian Parliament on Wednesday, said a recent “directive 99”, which required an Administrative Appeals Tribunal which reviews immigration cases to consider a person’s connection to Australia when deciding deportation cases, will be revised.

The directive resulted from extensive lobbying by the New Zealand Government, primarily under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, to end cases of Australia deporting non-citizen criminals to New Zealand when they had New Zealand citizenship but little other connection to the country.

“We regret the decision that Australia has made, I spoke with Anthony Albanese about it yesterday morning, he reassured me that a common sense approach would remain,” said Luxon, on Friday morning.

“We understand Australia as a sovereign nation, a nation that can make its own decisions but we have great concern about that decision, because we don't think that people who actually have very little attachment to this country and strong connections to Australia should be deported here.

“Obviously we will be monitoring this situation very closely … we will be advocating very strongly.”

Such deportees, dubbed “501s” due to the clause in Australia’s immigration law which permitted such deportations, were blamed for a rise in organised gang crime in New Zealand.

Albanese’s government also made a major change to Australia’s immigration policies in 2023 for New Zealanders, allowing Kiwis to directly apply for citizenship after four years of living in Australia, affording them social security and voting rights.

However, directive 99 has recently come under scrutiny after an Australian high court in November determined the government could not hold people in immigration detention indefinitely.

This led to the release of a number of convicted criminals who were not deported when the tribunal applied directive 99, and accusations of mishandling by the government. The controversy was sparked by the case of Emmanuel Saki, whose visa the government sought to cancel after he was convicted of choking a woman in 2019, but the tribunal decided against the deportation to Sudan due to his connection to Australia. According to the ABC, he allegedly murdered another man after the decision.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Thursday that since November three murderers, 26 sex offenders and seven domestic violence perpetrators were released without ankle monitors.

Australia’s immigration minister Andrew Giles, who has been deemed “embattled” by the Australian press, has been trying to regain control of the issue as Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who was unrepentant about deporting 501s to New Zealand when in government, has attacked the Albanese government over the issue.

'Direction 99 was created as a result of the prime minister's meeting with the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in July of 2022,“ said Dutton in the Australian parliament on Thursday.

“Why did this weak and incompetent prime minister put his close and sycophantic relationship with Jacinda Ardern ahead of the safety of Australians?”

Albanese, in response, criticised Dutton for “all the anger … the abuse” in his question.

He said on Dutton’s watch “1300 hardcore criminals” were released from immigration detention centres, not because of the high court decision, with “no curfews, no ankle bracelets, no monitoring, no regard for community safety”.