“NO TWO nations could be closer,” insists Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s prime minister, of his country’s ties with New Zealand. Gary Howes is not so sure. Like many young New Zealanders, he moved to Australia with his family when he was a child. “Australia is my home,” he says. But after a brush with the law Mr Howes, now 25 years old, was locked in an immigration detention centre and then deported to New Zealand, a country he says he barely knows.
Immigration detention centres in Australia now hold almost 200 Kiwis, more than any other nationality (Australia also keeps some would-be immigrants in camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru). About 650,000 New Zealanders live in Australia, ten times the number of Australians in New Zealand. They are entitled to “special category” visas, which allow them to live and work in Australia without restriction. But they are not citizens, and so are subject to the tighter rules on the conduct of immigrants introduced by Tony Abbott, Mr Turnbull’s predecessor. In particular, any foreigners who are jailed for a year or more lose their visas automatically.
Because their visas are otherwise...Continue reading
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