Jacinda Ardern sends NZ criminals back to Tonga despite slamming Australia for doing it with Kiwis
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Australia’s practice of deporting Kiwi-born criminals to ‘home’ has been a pain point in trans-Tasman relations, but New Zealand has been accused of using the Pacific islands as its own ‘garbage dump’ for released prisoners.
New Zealand’s deportation of 400 criminals to the Pacific islands over a five-year period from 2013 has fueled violent crime and gang culture in those places, according to a report by the Australian think tank the Lowy Institute earlier this year.
Many of the deportees have little or no connection with where they were born, which is often New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s complaint about Australia’s policy of deporting ‘Kiwi’ criminals.
Sione Moli was deported straight from a New Zealand prison cell to Tonga, despite not living there since he was a young child
Sione Moli is typical of the deportees being banned from New Zealand.
After immigrating to New Zealand as a child, he became involved in the islanders’ gang culture and ended up in prison for three years for a violent assault.
He was deported to Tonga as soon as his prison term ended.
‘I couldn’t even figure it out. They just deported me from prison,” Moli said in the 2019 Vice documentary Gangsters in Paradise.
‘I came with the police, I had an escort. It’s an outrageous ordeal and you have to walk through the entire (airport) terminal.
“Everyone is looking at you, walking through it in handcuffs, because you’re the first to go in with the cop and you sit in the back.
Tonga Prison Commissioner Sione Falemanu said New Zealand, as well as Australia, treat the Pacific islands as their human ‘garbage dump’
“The police officer is going, because you’re already in Tonga, you can’t go back.”
Moli has a wife and children in New Zealand, but his partner does not want to live in Tonga, so they only visit each other.
“I’ve been here (Tonga) for about six years now, I probably haven’t seen my family for one of the six years,” Moli said.
“It will be difficult to explain, especially to my eldest son.
“I tell him what happened, I committed a crime, I did something bad.
“I went to jail and served my time, but this is what the New Zealand government wants, they want me back here (Tonga) and he’s not getting it.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would consider his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern’s request to review Australia’s deportation laws.
Tonga Prisons Commissioner Sione Falemanu told the documentary that armed robbery had been committed in the Pacific islands by deportees from New Zealand, Australia and the US.
“If they come right away, there’s no hope, no family,” he said.
“Every week we have news, there’s a robbery… and I think that’s what they (Indigenous Tongans) learn from the deportees.”
Falemanu accused the deporting countries of not being concerned that the people they sent are “people”.
“It’s just dump garbage everywhere, dump to Tonga, dump to Samoa, dump to Fiji,” he said.
About 2,000 New Zealanders were deported between 2014 and 2020. Most have lived in Australia since childhood. Pictured: A Kiwi being deported from Australia in September 2020
Timothy Fadgen, a politics lecturer at the University of Auckland, told the New Zealand Herald earlier this year that while the Ardern government is using “moralistic rhetoric” about Australia’s deportation policy, it is doing something “substantially similar” in the Pacific.
After a meeting between the two leaders in July, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would consider Ms Ardern’s request to stop deporting criminals with Kiwi passports, if they have lived in Australia for a long time.
Despite looking like a paradise, there are mounting problems with violent crime in Tonga (pictured) and other Pacific islands, with some blaming deportees from New Zealand and other countries
Ms Ardern, who had clashed with Scott Morrison over the matter, declared a ‘reset’ in relations between the two nations now that Mr Albanese is in charge.
“I see this as an opportunity for a reset, because there were clearly some friction points. There are clearly still issues to work on,” she said.
During a trip to Australia in 2020, Ms Ardern told the former Prime Minister: ‘Don’t deport your people and your problems.’
Between 2014 and 2020, approximately 2,000 New Zealanders were deported from Australia. Most have lived in Australia since childhood.
New Zealand publication Newshub revealed that criminals deported from Australia have committed 8,000 crimes since 2015, including 57 sex crimes and 861 drug and antisocial behaviour.
Ms Ardern has previously said that the deportation policy “without doubt” increases gang violence in New Zealand. Pictured: Comanchero bikes
Ms Ardern has claimed that Australian policies ‘without doubt’ are increasing gang violence in New Zealand.
New Zealand is not asking Australia to lift its deportation policy. We never did that,’ she said.
New Zealand deports natural persons who have been in New Zealand for a short time and who have acted beyond our expectations to anyone who chooses or wishes to remain as a resident.
“But there are people who are being deported from Australia who are Australian in every way.
‘Often no connection with New Zealand. Sometimes not even set foot there. That is the place where we ask you to make that decision.’