Anthony Albanese’s victory is being closely watched by world leaders, but especially by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who hopes the change in leadership could finally mean the end of divisive deportation laws.
Australia’s ‘501’ deportations, in which foreigners are required to maintain ‘good character’ or risk being given a one-way ticket to their home country and told never to return, have triggered some cold discussions with New Zealand.
The New Zealand Prime Minister’s first battle with Australia will be our deportation laws, which see hundreds of Kiwis sent home each year (pictured, Jacinda Ardern in Wellington).
Albanese (pictured, center, Monday with Penny Wong and Jim Chalmers), Australia’s 31st prime minister, will not completely get rid of deportation laws.
The powers, under section 501 of the Migration Act, allow the Immigration Minister to deport hundreds of people each year for “bad character”, the majority of whom are from New Zealand.
However, New Zealand has long argued that many criminals deported through Tasmania have no ties to the country, and many of them were born there but spent their entire lives in Australia.
Speaking on breakfast television on Monday morning, Ardern said she hoped her relationship with Australia would improve now Albanese was in office.
‘The prime minister-elect addresses a Quad meeting. “I’m going to the United States,” he said.
“We talked about the possibility of meeting soon so we could talk face to face about those issues.”
Jacinda Ardern and Anthony Albanese (pictured) have had a good relationship so far, with both leading centre-left governments.
First on Ms Ardern’s agenda will be to address deportation laws, which she described as a “persistent issue in our relationship”.
Albanese made some concessions about the laws in the final days of the election campaign, but admitted they would not be eliminated entirely.
“If people commit serious crimes then action must be taken in Australia’s national interests,” the new prime minister said during the election campaign.
‘Jacinda Ardern is someone I have met here in Australia and also in Wellington and Auckland. I think she is an excellent Prime Minister and I am sure we would have a very warm and cordial relationship.”
The Villawood detention center in western Sydney houses hundreds of people awaiting deportation out of Australia.
Anthony Albanese (pictured on Sunday after his historic victory) has promised to review Australia’s strict deportation laws.
Ardern said the biggest issue was the way rule 501 is applied when we have had people who had no connection to New Zealand.
“It’s been a persistent problem in our relationship,” he said Monday morning.
—That was the part you saw the elected prime minister recognize.
“In those early conversations that I had with Anthony, he certainly knows that those are the things that I feel like discussing…so look, let’s see, let’s have those discussions.”
Ms Ardern and Mr Albanese have already spoken twice since the Labor leader was declared the new prime minister.
And trans-Tasman leaders could meet face to face as early as June, when the Pacific Islands Forum is held in Fiji.
Ms Ardern gave her most damning assessment of the ‘501’ deportations in February 2020 when she criticized then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison for ‘testing friendship’.
Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in August 2019, six months before New Zealand’s prime minister criticized Australia for “testing friendship” with its deportation laws.
“They have deported more than 2,000 people, and among them there will be real Kiwis who need to know the consequences of their actions,” he said then in Sydney, alongside an uncomfortable Mr Morrison.
‘But among those 2,000 there are individuals who are too young to become criminals under our command, were too young to become patched-up gang members, too young to be organized criminals.
‘We will be owners of our people. We ask that Australia stop exporting its own.”
Ms Ardern told Mr Morrison she did not want to “have a race to the bottom” but would continue to “raise these issues frankly”.
At the weekend, New Zealand’s Prime Minister wasted no time in sending a congratulatory message to Mr Albanese.
“Anthony and I have had the opportunity to meet before and I have no doubt that we will have a strong working relationship that will be useful to both countries,” the New Zealand prime minister said in a statement.
Ms Ardern said Australia and New Zealand were at their “best” when they were “working together”.
‘When we recognize our mutual interests, our shared values, and the uniqueness of our perspectives; when we stand together as allies and whānau (family), recognizing the strength of our diversity,’ he added.
Ms Ardern (pictured with Mr Albanese) has already spoken to the new prime minister twice since her election victory on Saturday.
Section 501 of the Migration Act gives Australia’s Immigration Minister broad powers to remove people sentenced to 12 months or more in prison.
The minister can also deny entry to anyone with a “significant criminal record” or immediately cancel their visa.
Politics have long been divisive in Australia, where many deportees are taken to immigration detention centers after serving their jail sentence.
On Sunday, the day after the federal elections, The guardian reported A New Zealand woman took her own life at the Villawood detention center in western Sydney.
Detainees try to attract attention while protests against Australia’s detention laws took place in 2012.
According to the publication, the woman’s visa had been suspended under section 501 and she had been in the immigration detention center for the past six months, awaiting deportation.
The Immigration Law was modified in December 2014 and since then deportations have increased considerably.