The Kiwis kucked back over the dutch

ABC approved Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will conduct his first foreign foray this weekend, visiting our Kiwi cousins across the Tasman.

ABC approved Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will conduct his first foreign foray this weekend, visiting our Kiwi cousins across the Tasman.

Labor’s legendary prime minister Gough Whitlam also chose New Zealand as his first overseas port of call in 1973, ­before then going global and filling his diplomatic passport with an interesting assortment of multicoloured visas. Turnbull will undoubtedly be questioned about Australia’s determination to repatriate New Zealand criminals once they have served their sentences in Australian jails. The usual gaggle of ratbag civil rights lawyers have been given the opportunity to voice their strident opposition to this long-established policy of ­returning criminals to their countries of origin. They have protested against the practise of holding the soon-to-be-deported in immigration detention on Christmas Island, Villawood, and elsewhere. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has made it patently clear we have a Memorandum of Understanding with New Zealand, that he has had personal discussions on the policy with the NZ High Commissioner, the NZ Justice Minister, and that the Australian police are also working with their NZ counterparts to facilitate the returns. As Dutton pointed out recently: “Obviously, though, people have appeal rights and so anybody can return to New Zealand tomorrow if they want, but in some cases they will be here for a prolonged ­period because they are ­appealing the cancellation through the courts. “That is their right, obviously and they can pursue that.” He noted that we accept people back to our country, Australian citizens who have committed crimes in New Zealand or the US or in parts of Europe, anywhere in the world and that Australian citizens who travel overseas, if they commit sex offences against children, if they’re involved in armed robbery, those sort of ­offences, they are deported back to Australia and “the Australian public would expect us to do the same to citizens from other countries in our country who commit these acts.” The issue is not a new one, though some of those currently hyperventilating seem to have forgotten their history. One of the more famous exchanges over the question of returning New Zealand offenders to the Land of the Wrong White Crowd took place when former New Zealand prime minister Robert “Piggy” Muldoon was confronted by his countrymen ­angered that a notorious Australian criminal was imprisoned in a New Zealand jail for a lengthy period befitting the serious nature of his crimes and was costing the Kiwis a motza to maintain. The send-him-home mob wanted the offender repatriated before he had served his full term so the cost of his ­incarceration would be borne by Australian taxpayers. As premier of the nearest Australian state, the question was put to then NSW premier Neville Wran as to whether he would accept NSW taxpayers footing the bill for the remainder of the felon’s term. Wran, who foreshadowed Paul Keating’s use of crude but effective terms of phrase, said: “F ... me. If Piggy wants to send this p ... back, I’ll have to charter the f...... Ark Royal to empty Long Bay of all its Kiwi crims.” The Ark Royal was a long-serving British aircraft carrier and the fourth Royal Navy vessel to bear the name was commissioned in 1955 and decommissioned in 1979. The last Ark Royal was launched in 1981 and decommissioned in 2011. Notwithstanding this diplomatic kerfuffle, Wran and Muldoon hit it off when they met during a four-day trade mission Wran led to New Zealand in 1980. Wran protested he had to work “from five in the morning to 11 at night,” as TV crews needed to film early enough to get their film on to flights to Sydney to make the evening news, and he protested that the trip wasn’t comfortable as seats on the NZ VIP flight faced to rearward. “It’s no junket, flying backwards and working long hours, or using upside down telephones,” he told reporters. In most of New Zealand, the numbers on telephone dials read clockwise, instead of anticlockwise as in Australia. A New Zealand foreign affairs official sniffed at an Australian premier conducting trade talks and told reporters that Wran’s knowledge of international affairs was not as “wide as the New Zealand government expected”. “It’s evident that Mr Wran wasn’t fully briefed by Canberra,” he said snidely. “That is probably because he’s a Labor Premier.” Unbeknown to Muldoon, a member of Wran’s staff bought a large pink piggy bank which bore Muldoon’s face and carried it back with him to Sydney where it was displayed in the premier’s suite. Members of the NSW Parliamentary Press Gallery distinguished themselves when, not recognising Muldoon as he waited at the door of his home for Wran’s arrival, commented quite loudly “Where’s Piggy?”, thus revealing their expertise in international affairs. Muldoon did what he normally did with the media and ignored them. Turnbull would appreciate Muldoon’s observation that the Australian Senate and State Government system was “thoroughly bad and inevitably inefficient”. He might even agree with his former business partner, Wran, who praised the New Zealand system as “the most logical, sensible and democratic in the world”.