New Zealand, Once Welcoming of Refugees, Now Follows Australia

Jakarta Globe, Kate Davidson, February 13, 2014

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, left, and his Australia counterpart Tony Abbott,
right, speak at a press conference in Sydney on February 7, 2014. (AFP Photo/
William West)

When Australia’s then-prime minister, John Howard, made the refugees on the MV Tampa boat a political issue before federal elections in 2001, his New Zealand counterpart, Helen Clark, decided to welcome 150 of those seeking refuge, allowing them to resettle in New Zealand and eventually bring over their families.

Some went on to buy homes, paying off the mortgages in record time, often working long hours to get their families ahead. Others became engineers, lawyers, accountants — a highly qualified and motivated population that knows the cost of finding security in a peaceful nation.

When New Zealand took the Tampa refugees, it did so as part of its quota of 750 people a year, set by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The quotas are determined by the host country’s population size, and New Zealand’s figure has not changed in 27 years, despite population growth.

While the country has an excellent resettlement support program connecting refugees with their new communities and has welcomed those seeking refuge from around the world in its short history, critics say the country is not doing enough and is increasingly aping Australia’s policies when it comes to recent immigration legislation dealing with asylum seekers.

Murdoch Stephens, coordinator of Doing Our Bit, a campaign to double New Zealand’s UNHCR quota, said New Zealand was lagging behind other signatories to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and was not living up to its responsibility in the international community.

“If all refugees of concern to the UNHCR are measured, New Zealand is not pulling its weight. Our company in terms of accommodating refugees is Hungary, Tajikistan, Poland and Malawi. The world average is 3.4 times, per capita, more than New Zealand takes,” Stephens said.

“In June the government passed a law to mandatorily detain legal asylum seekers coming into New Zealand. When Australia passed detention legislation [in 2012] they doubled their UNHCR resettlement quota.”

New Zealand’s current prime minister, John Key, was criticized by media and NGOs for “cozying up” to Australia instead of playing a positive role internationally when he said the country would take 150 “boat people” a year within their 750 quota from Australia and send any potential boat people coming to New Zealand to Australia’s offshore detention centers, thus supporting Australia’s stance. But when Tony Abbott came to power, a stop was put to this and Key flip-flopped. Fairfax media reported Abbott saying former prime minister Julia Gillard’s agreement with Key made Australia look like a soft touch. Abbott said he talked to Key about New Zealand’s commitment to help Australia by taking the 150 asylum seekers and “if and when it becomes necessary, obviously we’ll call on it, but our determination is to stop the boats and one of the ways that we stop the boats is by making it absolutely crystal clear that if you come to Australia illegally by boat, you go not to New Zealand, but to Nauru or Manus and you never ever come to Australia and people ought not think that New Zealand is some kind of a consolation prize if they can’t come to Australia.”

Key has said he believed boats will eventually reach New Zealand and has stressed the need for both a regional solution and working closer with Australia to deal with the issue as Australia provided a lot of support for New Zealand, a key beneficiary of Australia’s border protection and intelligence.

Last year New Zealand also passed into law an immigration amendment bill to deal with potential boat arrivals, despite there being little evidence for the potential of a mass arrival of asylum seekers, and no boat ever reaching the country’s shores.

Following Australia’s example, the law states that if a group of 30 or more asylum seekers reach the country’s shores they will be put in detention. The law also limits family reunification and introduces reassessments of a person’s refugee status after three years, but before they can apply for permanent residence.

Commentator Brian Rudman said in the New Zealand Herald that politicians were scaremongering.

Amnesty International, other NGOs and commentators have criticized the New Zealand government for violating human rights and reneging on its obligations to those seeking asylum, which is a legal act. Columnist Tracey Barnett said the government was blindly following Australia’s policy with little supporting evidence. She wrote in the New Zealand Herald: “Unfortunately, research shows it just doesn’t work. Arrivals flee to save their lives. Studies show many have little or no idea of the detention that awaits them. Research confirms it is regional war and conflict that push these numbers, not punitive domestic policy.”

Both Australia and New Zealand say they are committed to a regional solution.

But Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told ABC that Australia’s policy of turning back asylum-seeker boats mid-ocean was putting pressure on the already strained relationship between the two countries.

‘’This kind of policy of transferring people from one boat to another and then directing them back to Indonesia is not really helpful,’’ Marty said.

A press release from the Indonesian Foreign Ministry last year said Marty had reminded his Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop, that the issue of asylum seekers should be dealt with through existing regional cooperation arrangements. The statement says unilateral measures taken by Australia would potentially risk the close cooperation and trust between the countries.