An advocate hopes Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will "properly and fully" address the issue of 501 deportees as she prepares to raise the topic with her Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
Ardern is meeting with Albanese, Australia's new prime minister, later today. She has said she will raise the issue with him and hopes to make progress.
Filipa Payne, a support advocate for 501s, says New Zealand expects deportees to be grateful. (Source: Breakfast)
"We're clear with the incoming prime minister that these issues remain for us. Regardless of who's in office, we want to make progress. That doesn't mean them having no deportation policy, because we have one, but we do want to see if we can make progress on some of those really difficult examples that New Zealand's come up against."
READ MORE: Ardern to raise issue of 501s in first meeting with Albanese
Deportee support advocate Filipa Payne told Breakfast she "absolutely" hopes there will be a change to Australia's controversial 501 laws.
"We talk about deportation a lot, but it's time to actually sit down at the table and talk about the horrific abuses that are happening in detention centres," she said.
Under the policy, visas can be revoked on character grounds if someone is sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment or if they're convicted of sexual crimes involving a child.
The policy disproportionately affects New Zealanders, many of who have lived in Australia for most of their lives and haven't applied for formal citizenship because of the visa arrangement.
In the past seven years, more than 2500 Kiwis have been deported to New Zealand due to the laws.
Payne described 501s as being "persecuted" by Australia for being New Zealand citizens. After being placed in detention centres, they are treated with "disregard" and if they're "irrelevant".
She said being detained and then deported sees "families diminished" and "ripped apart".
But Payne also said New Zealand has a lot to answer for too.
"They land on our shores and we have this big expectation that they should be grateful for being here. They have been persecuted in Australia for being a New Zealand citizen, they have been beaten in detention centres for being a New Zealand citizen, they've been taken away from their families for being a New Zealand citizen. Then they land here and we expect them to be grateful," she said.
"Why, when they're worried about their families in Australia, they're worried about their mother that's just about to die.
"We need to stop putting expectations on these deportees and we need to start taking responsibility for the environment that they're coming into."
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Payne feels New Zealand isn't doing enough to reintegrate 501s back into the community.
"What we're doing here is alienating people that are vulnerable and who need us to embrace them," she said.
"This is a mourning, this is an ongoing death every single day."
Deportee Shayne Forrester said "it's a struggle every day" being in New Zealand after calling Australia home for 23 years.
He was sent to a detention centre on Christmas Island after serving time in prison for selling methamphetamine.
Forrester described getting into drugs as his "downward spiral".
During his time on Christmas Island he was in pain and going to the toilet a lot. He said his pleas for medical treatment were ignored. He agreed to be deported to New Zealand in an effort to get care.
It was here he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
"He was denied medical treatment that he was already on, where he was denied access to specialist services, and where he was denied the opportunity to fight for his life and the right to be in this world," Payne said.
"One trip to a urologist I would have been alright. Instead I got a death sentence," Forrester remarked.
During Ardern's last visit to Sydney in 2019, she confronted former Prime Minister Scott Morrison over the policy.
"Do not deport your people and your problems," Ardern told Morrison in reference to criminals being deported from Australia who have no family or long-term connections to New Zealand.
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