“New Zealand has got to stop being the dumping ground for Australian criminals,” Matthew Tukaki, the executive chairman of the country’s National Maori Authority, told the Guardian on Monday. “Quite frankly, I don’t think any Australian would accept their country becoming a penal colony.”
The controversial Australian law, which New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labeled “corrosive” last year, allows Canberra to deport foreign nationals who commit violent crimes back to New Zealand, even if they have lived for most of their lives in Australia.
In one instance, an Australian court ruled last month that a 37-year-old criminal should be deported to New Zealand because he was deemed likely to reoffend if released into Australia. The man, who has 28 convictions, including assault and aggravated breaking and entering, has not lived in New Zealand since when he was eight, and all of his relatives are living in Australia.