Domestic politics is driving Australia while geopolitical concerns are shaping New Zealand’s response.
To date the NZ Government’s response to Australia’s racist and appalling deportation policy has been mute.
Watching NZ Citizens who have spent their entire lives in Australia perp walked across the tarmac and taunted by arsehole Australian journalists alongside Australian Politicians describing them as trash alongside Australia deporting children is a bitter cocktail of Aussie spite we are being asked to swallow.
But NZ is swallowing it. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the deportees became criminals under Australia’s society and as such are the fruits of Australian culture, despite the 501s causing a tsunami of violent gang related crime sprees, our public response to Canberra has been a thin tight lipped quiet reminder that this is bullshit.
Kiwi bashing in Australia is as much a cultural treasure there as bashing beneficiaries and Maaaaaaaori is here. The Australian Government and right wing media are bashing Kiwis to distract from the scolding rape scandal that is currently engulfing the Australian Government.
New Zealand is being tepid on the unethical treatment and immoral deportation of our citizens because geopolitical matters trump Australia’s petty and desperate domestic agenda.
Th 5 Eyes believe China is going to cause an incident at the beginning of Biden’s term so solidarity is immediately required which Australia is all aware of.
It’s the equivalent of standing on our foot during the family photo daring us to respond and is a reminder that Australians are arseholes.
At some point someone is going to legitimately ask if China would actually be worse.
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Exactly! Which one do you think will invade us first? Australia, China or USA?
NZ urgently needs to adopt Australia’s immigration policies of deporting foreign criminals and their foreign social welfare policies to avoid destroying NZ’s health and superannuation system by intense foreign demand.
What a load of shite.
When you reduce it to geopolitics, NZ gets a very good deal from Australia. They act as a sponge for our excess labour when we go through a downturn and provide a land and sea buffer from the only viable military threat from the North.
This 501 stuff is just noise at the margins that sings to their conservative choir and we should do exactly what we’re doing now, grump, moan and whinge about it domestically and carry on content in the fact that when you look at the facts we have a bloody good deal all things considered.
Be careful what you wish for when considering making your bed with China. China has operated a tribute based vassal state system for millennia for the benefit of the Han and the belt and road strategy is just the latest iteration of this strategy (as the 3rd world is slowly discovering the hard way). You might think the US operates a similar system but that doesn’t survive much intellectual scrutiny. The international trading system the US has created, defended and presided over is the most open and fairest in history all things considered and small countries like NZ are fortunate that we can trade under this model. I’d rather throw my lot in with Australia and the US than China given the culture and values alignment even if we have to swallow some shite from time to time.
You have seen 4 years of the worst elected US President & you still trust them? It should be evident that the US gets the best(?) president money can buy, it’s just unfortunate that those spending the money are such a bunch of control freaks & the religious right are certain to be back.
It’s all relative. Trust Austrlia/US slightly more thqn China. Yes. Definitely
I’ve really noticed in the last couple of years the number of Kiwis I’ve come into contact with who don’t really see going to Australia as a longer term option for improving their lives anymore. Good sorts as well, if you know what I mean. They may still consider going for a quick money fix but nothing long. I guess you are better off in many ways to stay here when/if the proverbials hit the fan, especially when you’ve paid into a kitty for years maybe and no chance of a help if you require it.
Excellent article, Martyn. And thank you for the retraction of my flippant post on Chris Trotters post. I admit that was inappropriate however I did it to lighten the heaviness of the topic. Again I thank you, mate.
However, a song from Brother Bob Marley to patch things up.
Pimper’s Paradise (1991) – Bob Marley & The Wailers
https://youtu.be/YEt5glhR-aU?t=4
We need to be more than just a nation of pimps and stand up for ourselves.
We should consider cancelling NZ citizenship for all those who have lived and worked in Australia for more than 5 years. Australia has shown us they believe this is a legitimate response with their treatment of the ISIS bride.
Couldn’t agree more. We simply have to do something or the Australian crime wave continues.
And in respect of deportees, they are arriving in a country without plans to do so, pretty much with the clothes on their backs, straight into a housing meltdown. They have virtually no hope of not endng up destitute.
Under NZ law, “the Minister can remove a person’s citizenship only if the Minister is satisfied that:
as an adult, a person has effectively taken on the citizenship or nationality of another country and “acted in a matter contrary to the interests of New Zealand”; or
a person was granted citizenship under the Act as a result of fraud or mistake.” https://oag.parliament.nz/2013/citizenship/part3.htm
I was born in NZ but lived and worked in Sydney for 17 years. I returned to live in NZ in mid-2016. You suggest that I should have had my NZ citizenship revoked for no reason in 2005. Fortunately that would not be possible under NZ law as it stands today.
What did I do wrong living and working in Aus as a law-abiding dual citizen that would justify revoking my NZ citizenship?
Good question
The problem is that dual nationals are not paying tax in NZ but come back here for free services. Particularly a problem for health and superannuation. You should have to live in NZ for 1/2 your life before retirement (aka 32.5 years) before you get a free NZ pension. It’s nuts that the current taxpayers who paid for everything under rogernomics now have to pay into Kiwisaver and the pensions will be gone or means tested in the future due to mismanagement currently, while someone from overseas can not work at all in NZ and within 10 years (used to be 5) gets free pension and aged care. Likewise they need to change for health care that if you are out of NZ for more than 2 years then you should not be able to come back and immediately claim free health care. All visitors to NZ should have to have compulsory health insurance and ACC put on their stays so when they have accidents and health emergencies their health insurer pays out not NZ taxpayers again.
NZ and Aus have a reciprocal agreement where Aus pays a portion of the NZ pension based on years worked in Aus and NZ pays the proportion based on years worked in NZ. Same arrangement for the opposite scenario. There are several other countries where this arrangement is in place. I agree that if such an agreement is not in place, it is an unfair impost on the NZ taxpayer especially where chain migration of older relatives is involved. Maybe immigration should be limited to countries where such an arrangement exists?
NZ only needs Australia more than v/v under the current political economic system which is failing anyway and the poor get poorer. Ultimately NZ can feed itself. If we can work out a way to work together and share the wealth of NZ we have the best chance in the world. I don’t pretend to know the details of how this can be done and it may be naive, but we are doomed if we think the current system and reliance on Australia will provide us a viable future.
Well put …
“If we can work out a way to work together and share the wealth of NZ we have the best chance in the world. I don’t pretend to know the details of how this can be done and it may be naive, but we are doomed if we think the current system and reliance on Australia will provide us a viable future.”
I’m hoping that is attainable.
When the flow of climate refugees from Australia to NZ start, they’ll need us more than we allegedly need them today.
Plus the Govt should stop banking with Westpac and do so with Kiwibank PLUS put WAT more money into Kiwibank to hit the Aussies where it matters most, in the pocket.
Then let’s chat around the negotiation table as ‘more equals’ than present.
We never did need Australia, – the neo literal NZ treasonists did.
…” Plus the Govt should stop banking with Westpac and do so with Kiwibank PLUS put WAT more money into Kiwibank to hit the Aussies where it matters most, in the pocket.
Then let’s chat around the negotiation table as ‘more equals’ than present”…
—————
Indeed.
LOTS not WAT….weird typo error….LOL
It may help your understanding to see it from an Aussie perspective.
Australians see us as defence bludgers who don’t keep up our end of the bargain. It’s been a long time coming but the straw that broke the camels back was Clark scrapping the Skyhawks without consultation instead of replacing them with F16s, as the Bolger government had planned. Their response came a few weeks later when Clark visited Aussie and was told that Kiwis had lost their access to welfare across the Tasman: A direct tit-for-tat move.
Since then it has gone downhill further. Ardern has made several trips to Canberra and on each occasion made public statements openly critical of their immigration and climate change policies. This was childish virtue signalling at the expense of trans-Tasman relations. At the same time we have not backed Morrison’s criticism of China. Instead we have made a quick buck selling wine, lobsters and dairy products to them while Aussie exports were blockaded. That’s not how good friends behave and the payback is the 501s.
Welcome to Realpolitik!
Stopping NZ citizens from accessing Aussie benefits had been building for years due to more relaxed NZ immigration policies that saw immigrants arriving in NZ from around the world, gaining NZ citizenship and then departing to Australia where they were Permanent Residents as soon as they landed. Australia saw this as an immigration ploy and stopped access to benefits for anyone who arrived after 2001 and wasn’t an Australian citizen.
How about moving the Australian deportees down to places like Queenstown, they could boost tourism and occupancy by living in motels plus when the travel bubble is opened and other Australians start visiting the region it will be like a reunion
You light up my life…
If I may repeat myself: Blaming Oz for the criminality of the 501s is (a) unfair, and (b) does not lead to kindly reactions from Aussies.
The point: the way children turn out is in largest part due to THEIR PARENTS. These 501s, born in NZ to (we may presume) NZ parents; and it’s these NZ parents who bear the greater responsibility for how their offspring turned out, not some amorphous “Australia”.
Not that I like seeing them back here; not at all. The old Norfolk Island arrangement would have been a better bet! But if you must blame/complain, due so where it’s due.
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