Humans Rights Commissioner concerned as Australia looks to expand New Zealand deportation policy even further

Despite recent tough talk from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the Australian government is quietly looking to expand its powers to deport people born in New Zealand. 

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow told Jack Tame on TVNZ1's Q+A he's concerned about the move, saying the laws are "already very strict" and shouldn't be extended further.

The controversial Australian policy already allows the government to deport people who have been sentenced to more than 12 months in prison, regardless of how long they've lived in Australia. 

But Scott Morrison's government now wants to expand that so that anyone convicted of a crime with a potential sentence of two years or more can also be deported. 

That includes children. 

"You could have a range of people, not just adults but younger people as well, who could be deported," Mr Santow says.

"Right now in our immigration centres, New Zealand makes up the second-largest group."

And he's concerned about how people are being treated in those detention centres.

On average, people are being held there for more than a year - around 496 days.

In contrast, Mr Santow says the average in Canada is just over 12 days.

"That is a huge, huge period. It’s many orders of magnitude greater than any other comparable country of the world," he says.

"The second problem is that the longer that you spend in an immigration detention facility, the harder it is to maintain good health, good mental health and general well-being."

There needs to be a "sense of proportion" in the deporations, Mr Santow says.

"Now it’s not even necessary that someone has committed an offence; the government might form the view that someone is at risk of committing crime in Australia or might have some association with an criminal organisation. And that would be enough to remove them from Australia.

"There are people who are not dangerous criminals who are being removed from Australia, and that can have a terrible, devastating impact – not just on them as individuals but also on their families."

During a joint press conference with Mr Morrison last month, Ms Ardern put pressure on the Australian Prime Minister over the policy, calling him out for deporting "your people and your problems".