What a pity that in a week New Zealand and Australia are looking forward to a sporting clash of the highest order at the Rugby World Cup final, New Zealand is preparing to receive ex-prisoners deported from Australia who were born here but may have lost any connection with this country.
Justice Minister Amy Adams' announcement of legislation to enable New Zealand to impose parole-type conditions on those returning, indicates the Government holds out little hope that John Key's talks with Malcolm Turnbull a few weeks ago will result in any softening of the Australian policy.
It is most irregular to impose the equivalent of parole on people who have committed no crimes against New Zealand, but it is the right decision. As the minister said, it is likely many of these people would have been on parole in Australia if they had been allowed to remain after their release from prison. If Australia considers it necessary to keep a watch on them with all the social connections they have there, how much more necessary it will be here, where they probably have no friends, possibly no immediate family and certainly no good prospect of finding accommodation and work.
For that reason they will need help whether they are subject to a monitoring regime or not. The New Zealand prisoners' aid society, Pars, has been promised $100,000 from the Corrections Department to provide assistance when the deportees arrive. If as many as 1000 arrive as expected, the money will not go very far. Pars, which has previously been meeting about 60 deported Australian Kiwis a year, will help them open a bank account, get a benefit and register with Inland Revenue as well as find a place to stay.
Their crimes are not serious enough in most cases to put them under the public protection and extended supervision orders that existing law provides for criminals deported to New Zealand. The Justice Minister is concerned that the threshold for those orders is very high and while not many of those deported under Australia's new policy will meet it, some will pose a potential risk to New Zealand.
They will be angry at their fate and probably resentful that they are here only by accident of birth. Having been convicted of crimes carrying as little as a year's imprisonment, they have served their sentence, paying their dues as far as they are concerned to the country they consider their own. They find themselves instead in a place they left, probably as a child, long ago and may blame it for their misfortune.
While it is in our interests to provide all reasonable assistance to enable them to establish a new life here, we should not sympathise with their predicament too much. They need to be aware that every Australian Kiwi who breaks the laws of that country puts at risk the right of all New Zealanders to live and work across the Tasman.
It is a privilege open to no other nation and it is always at risk when it creates inconsistencies in Australia's immigration and welfare arrangements. Home-coming offenders have let us down and should not forget it.