Detainees in NZ within days: PM

John Key says Parliament would today consider a bill under urgency that ensured that Corrections and Police have the ability to conduct "proper oversight" of people who come back.
John Key says Parliament would today consider a bill under urgency that ensured that Corrections and Police have the ability to conduct "proper oversight" of people who come back.

More than 10 New Zealand-born criminals being detained by Australia on Christmas Island are preparing to return to New Zealand within days to continue their appeal against deportation, Prime Minister John Key says.

"I think the message has got through that they actually can go and register their appeals from New Zealand," he told reporters in Hanoi last night.

"The number is moving around a little bit so I probably won't put a number on it, but it is certainly more than 10 is the number, I have been advised."

They will be returned on a flight chartered by the Australian Government.

"It might be bit longer than a couple of days away, "but not a lot longer," Mr Key said.

Mr Key was in text contact last night with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about the G20 in Turkey which Mr Turnbull is attending, and about catching up at Apec in Manila.

Mr Key is leaving Vietnam today for the Apec summit, where he and Mr Turnbull will discuss the issues that have put a strain on one of the closest bilateral relationships in the world.

"We will be getting together, there's no doubt about that," Mr Key said. "The form of the bilateral will be over a glass of red wine, hopefully New Zealand red wine.

"But yes, there will certainly be a sit-down and discussion about what's been happening and how things are playing out in New Zealand."

Since a law passed by Australia a year ago, any person who has served a term of imprisonment for a year of more automatically loses the right to reside in Australia. It used to be two years or more.

About 580 New Zealanders are being held in detention pending an appeal to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and many of the detainees have little or no connection to New Zealand.

New Zealand has had assurance from Mr Dutton that appeals lodged from New Zealand would suffer no disadvantage.

About 40 Kiwis are thought to be on the remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean where riots and fires just over a week ago caused about $11 million in damage.

The new law also gives the Immigration Minister the right to deport someone on character grounds. One of those being held, Ngati Kanohi Te Eke Haapu, also known as Ko, a former New Zealand soldier who guarded Mr Key in Afghanistan, has been ordered out of the country on "character" grounds even though he has committed no crime.

While New Zealand was putting pressure on Australia to hasten its procedures for appeal or repatriation the New Zealand to appeal, the delay lay partly in New Zealand's end as well, because it wanted new laws to monitor deportees, which they had no legal right to do if they had completed their sentence, and in an Australian prison to boot.

Mr Key said Parliament would today consider a bill under urgency that ensured that Corrections and Police had the ability to conduct "proper oversight" of people who came back.

"These are, as I have pointed out in the past, some quite dangerous people potentially and we have a responsibility toe ensure we protect New Zealanders as best we can and that the oversight provision are the same as if the person had been in a New Zealand Corrections facility."

Mr Key said he intended to push with Mr Turnbull the treatment of New Zealanders in Australia where they pay taxes but are denied services such as the right to belong to the national disability insurance scheme and an easy route to citizenship.

"I'm certainly continuing to reiterate the points to him that the steps Australia is taking are unpopular in New Zealand and seen as unfair," Mr Key said.

"I'm also interested in trying to push on the issue of the rights of New Zealanders in Australia. We were really starting to make progress on that issue with [former Prime Minister] Tony Abbott.

"I had a brief discussion with Malcolm Turnbull about that when we sat down a few weeks ago in New Zealand.

"At the core of all of this issue around deportation sits the fact that these are people who in many cases have no pathway to citizenship.

"I'm not suggesting we are going to resolve it over a glass of red wine in Manila, but I do think it's something I'd like to see some progress be made on."

- By Audrey Young of the New Zealand Herald, in Hanoi

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