I’m glad Golriz has called Australia out with the level of righteousness that is demanded when they begin forcibly removing teenagers to be orphaned in New Zealand…
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman slams Australia’s deportation of 15-year-old boy to NZ
Australia is facing condemnation from National and Green Party MPs over the deportation of a 15-year-old boy to New Zealand.
Little detail has been made public about the teen other than that he is being held in a quarantine facility and is receiving support from Oranga Tamariki.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has asked for more details.
Green Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman said the deportation was both outrageous and heartbreaking.
Ghahraman said Australia’s actions had put the transtasman alliance in jeopardy.
“They need to know they are now damaging their relationship with us, that being a traditional ally and trading partner doesn’t mean that we will continue to be an ally and partner to them as they treat us with absolute disdain in this way.”
Ghahraman told Morning Report Australia was “absolutely an outlier” in deporting the teenager.
“It’s not something that nations who do have a rule of law and a commitment to human rights are doing.
…that is what real leadership on this issue actually looks like.
Jacinda has enormous soft power, it’s time she started using it.
They are exiling children for Christ’s sake!
If you aren’t going to speak out against that, what the fuck else will you be silent over?
So I applaud the Greens for showing leadership on this.
But we can’t condemn Australia for a lack of kindness if we don’t extend it to ourselves as well.
Look, migrant workers shouldn’t read the law, we all agree on that, but deporting an entire family back to the Covid ridden world because they took food vouchers over lockdown…
Family to be deported after wrongly claiming food vouchers during Covid-19 lockdown
A family with a young child have been ordered to leave New Zealand because the father used false addresses to claim food vouchers during the Covid-19 lockdown.
…come on. Punishing hungry people for stealing food is petty to start with, deporting them is fucking way over the top.
Now I know that because it’s Deep South Alexandra, the banjos be plucking, so somebody else up the food chain needs to step in urgently here and rescind a very very very cruel ruling.
If we are going to stand up for kindness, we have to practise it as well.
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How about we start treating Australians living in NZ as NZers are treated in Australia?
Remove benefits ect for Australians, deport em too. But here we are even keeping that Tarrant wanker. we’re such a soft touch…
There is a big difference between deporting a family and deporting a 15 year old as he is considered a minor.
All I can say is we need to deal with it and expect more of the same. Also I see Judeath is calling for open borders to Australia, well our borders were opened and Morrison closed them when we had a community case in Auckland. Australia has a different set up to us with states, so now they have had an outbreak do we rollover and say haere mai, nah! we don’t we do what is best for us, our people and our country. By the way wasn’t the outbreak in Cairns where Morrison said Australians could go for a holiday if they can’t come here to NZ, good luck to them there.
The trouble is the opposition want the Government to hold Australia to account. When they do, the opposition scream blue murder that our relationship with Australia is the worst it’s ever been. If the Government don’t hold Australian to account then they are labelled weak. What a very poor opposition we have.
Correct Bert and that is precisely why they are the opposition and that is where they will remain based on the lack of talent and poor leadership. I suggest instead of them pitching to their traditional old support base all the time they get to work on some policy.
Some facts would be lovely.
Australia accepted Kiwis with no quarantine. An open border.
Jacinda did not.
When Jacinda snapped in to Level 3 for Auckland situation.
Aussie suspended quarantine free entry.
They did not close the borders
If you read the Family to be deported after wrongly claiming food vouchers during Covid-19 lockdown, you will see they deprived other hungry families of food which is despicable. They had multiple fake addresses. Who knows maybe they were on-selling the food.
This man was a carpenter and if it was a real job his employer would be receiving wage subsidies to pay for his food.
Now we are in the situation where construction workers in NZ are better off on the dole (and quite a few comments on TDB about disenfranchise trade workers who can’t work in NZ) from local tradespeople who no longer work because the construction/trades industry is not fair in NZ. Australia with better conditions for construction workers, strict immigration rules etc, have more houses built and they are cheaper to build than NZ’s monopoly system.
Since the immigration experiment focusing on construction we seem to have a large amount of people in that industry committing suicide. A huge increase. Maybe because the construction industry is an immigration ponzi, with lowered wages and conditions due to the immigration bringing in new ‘blood’ who are supposed to be here on a real job, with real wages and not negatively effecting local people. Well it seems like that’s a big failure.
Since the immigration experiment in construction, we have also seen housing prices soar, actual houses on the ground few and far between and council rates soar, during which there seems to be a reduction in services to people from social welfare systems and councils.
We see people making fortunes out of zoning and grandiose schemes in the middle of nowhere by the most wealthy people and organisations such as Fletchers and the ‘Sleepyhead’ estate.
Also weird how Ghahraman is speaking publicly against human rights in OZ and destroying the relationships with NZ, but not much said by the Greens & Ghahraman on the China human rights situation of wide spread reports for years now on killing and raping people and detaining lawyers & doctors advising on Covid. That activity seems to be brushed under the rug by the Green Party and Labour. Greens and Labour would have more respect if they were consistent with their human rights outcries and more worried about genocide than one case of one teen where without knowing any other circumstances of the case.
Indeed. You could ask “Mark” about that one, too 😉 It might have something to do with the fact that their policy person within the party is Han Chinese? *crickets chirping*
Or the situation in Myanmar.
Seems she is happy with the Coup
Why anyone bothers to listen to her and give her any credence is beyond me.
She is a stirrer.
Only goes for the headlines to make her sound good(she is not)
Yep – haven’t heard much about human rights abuses of US, Israeli, UK or many other counties either from Government or the opposition either. Perhaps the fact that Ghahraman is part of the Government that has already raised concerns about China and Myanmar makes voicing her opinions on these abuses superfluous. Is having the same sorts of concerns as the Commissioner for Children at a time when it appears there is some official acquiescence in this case a justifiable reason for her to be pilloried by the usual ‘what aboutists’ who always do SFA about any such issues themselves? Of course, the same ‘why doesn’t she…’ clique were quick to slam, Dr Russel Norman also a then Green MP, when he showed up with a Tibetan flag to protest when a Chinese delegation were formally welcomed to Parliament some years ago. Of course, he was also supposedly ‘destroying the relationships with NZ’ as saveNZ claims Ghahraman is now guilty of doing.
The judge clearly did not see a link between hunger and the dishonesty, commenting the act was “quite despicable” which makes me think using language like that, that the judge did not buy into that excuse. And I note this excuse is the current go to for lawyers at the moment to anyway.
There is a massive difference sending this family home and some dickhead Aussie politician being the tough man for political reasons sending a kid on his own to another country because he can.
He was not deprived of food, he opportunistically took food vouchers from a district that he was not entitled to and did this by using 4 different fake addresses. The guy was receiving income presumably by wage subsidies, and told what to do by the food bank, but decided he should just lie and cheat instead of going to the correct district. As soon as dishonest is detected NZ needs to start to automatically cancel visas and get people working here to leave.
“Santos had previously been told he could not access the food vouchers as he lived in Cromwell and should instead apply for assistance from the Central Otago District Council.
However, he also used four separate false addresses to get four $400 grocery vouchers from the Queenstown Lakes District Council, which he used at New World Wakatipu.”
I happen to agree with Bombers principle for this post.
People who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones.
You’re being harsh on Jacinda, Martyn. She’s happy to let in The Lion King folks.
Jaspinda – It looks as if the buck stops with the Minister of Immigration, Chris Faafoi, when it comes to kicking out the Filipino family.
I’m as unhappy as the next chappie about the Nat govt exploiting cheap off-shore labour to subsidise their mates, and to keep NZ workers skint or jobless. But the seeming inconsistencies about who gets the boot and who doesn’t, suggests that the time is well overdue to revisit the algorithms operating here, and Faafoi should be asking his department to do so.
This is the govt which theoretically champions transparency, so they should not be averse to explaining why they favour the policies and practices which favour some individuals over others, when it comes to criminal offenders.
If there is a good reason for preferring big crooks to little crooks, they should say so.
$1600.
That was the amount of food vouchers. We are deporting an entire family for $1600.
What a kind country. What a bunch of hypocrites.
No. He was deliberately dishonest. We do not need this type of person here. Savenz puts it well.
Fold your wings you angelic soul, the whiteness is blinding! Will you be lonely when the last person who is even mildly dishonest is deported?
Ada- Agree 100%. A rich Indian can build a showy mansion and deprive his own people their right wages, and do we boot him out ? No, we don’t. There are many stories of immigrants ripping people off for significant amounts of money, and misleading them re residency and visas, and they get to stay here.
This is clearly a poor man, and the poor are easier to kick around. It is NOT a large sum of money.
Australia was built on the backs of Brit convicts deported for doing precisely this sort of thing, stealing food for their families, and it is disgraceful that we are engaging in exactly the same sort of heartless colonialist ruthlessness. These are far from ordinary times. The family appear to have little, if anything to return to. We have a PM who talks of “kindness” . This is as unkind as it gets. Shame on New Zealand,
Correct Bert and that is precisely why they are the opposition and that is where they will remain based on the lack of talent and poor leadership. I suggest instead of them pitching to their traditional old support base all the time they get to work on some policy.
Nothing from Ghahraman and Greens on the genocide with our major trading partner. (Castro’s theory is It might have something to do with the fact that their policy person within the party is Han Chinese?).
“A group of more than 50 global experts in international law, genocide and China this month concluded there was a “clear and convincing” case to be made that Beijing had deliberately acted to destroy the ethnically and religiously distinct group.
Lawyers will debate definitions, but it is clear that horrific acts have been committed in China.
It is also clear that New Zealand has done the bare minimum required of an open, law-abiding liberal democracy to condemn them.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/300254219/nz-must-stand-up-for-human-rights-in-china
NZ business and political links to blacklisted Chinese company iFlytek
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/stuff-circuit/300253078/nz-business-and-political-links-to-blacklisted-chinese-company-iflytek?rm=a
China forces 500,000 Tibetans into labour camps
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300114287/china-forces-500000-tibetans-into-labour-camps?rm=a
Stop derailing saveNZ – the topic was clearly headed, “Comrades, we can’t complain about Australia deporting a teenager while deporting a family”. Address the issue rather than venting on your unrelated concerns.
aom, this is on topic – aka the worst atrocities and our relationships with other trading partners don’t seem to be on Ghahraman and Greens radar unlike how easy it is to call out OZ on human rights abuses (which without knowing more on the 15 year old, can’t call out how abusive it is, aka does the child have relatives in NZ, etc, why are they being deported, where are the parents, sounds like they consented to come to NZ etc). Until the public knows the full picture it’s too early to judge the abuse level.
Meanwhile NZ actively helping abusive human rights companies getting government money, is pushed under the table by the Greens.
Tired of politicians focusing on ‘easy’ targets like OZ who can’t be bothered reporting NZ news unlike China that punishes governments over minor slights. If our government bothered to focus on human rights abuses of harder targets who are doing worse things, then maybe the genocides would stop. Worked for South Africa. China’s turn to be boycotted.
Remember the old Greens with Russel Norman and his Tibetian flag. No wonder he was bullied out of parliament with all the sycophants currently in residence and Greens bizarrely dropping below 10% of votes when environmental and buy NZ concerns are now mainstream.
You have pretty much derailed again but here is a response to your various beliefs and assumptions saveNZ:
What makes you think you know what is on anyone’s radar and why just single out Ghahraman’s and Greens. It is almost as if you assume everyone but Ghahraman and the Greens are in concert with your concerns. You also seem to be making some assumptions that you have dressed up as unknowns with regard to the 15 year old. Next, did it occur to you that on the world stage, it is harder to call out an abusive friend than it is to join a team tag chorus of accusations against the likes of China?
Where is your evidence that, “…. NZ actively helping abusive human rights companies getting government money, is pushed under the table by the Greens.” It would seem that if that was correct, you are happy to disregard the obvious, in that National, Labour, ACT and the Maori party also appear pretty much in the same league.
Your final paragraph is a real head scratcher. What makes you claim that Norman was bullied out of parliament? When the Greens have gone from 7.9% to over 9% since the elections, it is strange that you consider they are failures. In fact, they seem to be doing reasonably well to hold in there, given that you state that “…environmental and buy NZ concerns are now mainstream.” If everyone else is hogging their platform, they should have disappeared from Parliament shouldn’t they?
We seem to have a new ‘Mark’ spouting pro China propaganda… NZ political parties that get in bed with Chinese donations and gifts seem to end badly for them, aka Natz. Media is dying in NZ due to their paid for advertising and editorial direction to the highest global bidder. NZ First survived until deals to get more foreign investors into NZ apartments and help sell off NZ, the flights to Wuhan – currently NZ First are being prosecuted by the SFO…. I guess the right wingers and totalitarian interests can destroy the Greens from the inside out when social media start to decry that China is a decent country and the Greens should support them.
FFS – picking your prejudices apart is now ‘apologist for China’? Get a life.
FFS – picking your prejudices apart is now ‘apologist for China’? Get a life.
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