Turnbull dismisses Ardern call to stop deporting Kiwi criminals

Malcolm Turnbull will not reconsider deporting Kiwi criminals who have only ever lived in Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Kirribilli House yesterday. Picture: AFP

Malcolm Turnbull has dismissed New Zealand Prime Minister ­Jacinda Ardern’s call for Australia to reconsider deporting Kiwi criminals who have only ever lived in Australia.

Standing next to Ms Ardern after the pair met at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Mr Turnbull said the deportation policy was both moral and covered by a “fair and just” appeals process.

“It’s our fundamental right ... and we enforce our laws to assert our sovereignty and ensure that people who are not Australian citizens who commit serious offences, are deported. It does not just apply to New Zealanders, it ­applies to all non-citizens, full stop,” Mr Turnbull said.

Ms Ardern said she had raised the issue with elements of the ­deportation policy.

“Where, for instance, someone who has never stepped foot in New Zealand, it’s something we have been keen to make sure the Australian government is aware of our perspective on that and our strength of feeling around it,” she said.

Ms Ardern conceded “that the Australian government is well within their rights to exercise their deportation policy as they have”.

Earlier, Mr Turnbull appeared to have left open the slim possibility of Australia accepting New Zealand’s offer to resettle asylum-seekers detained on Nauru and Manus Island — but only after “completion” of a deal with the US to accept 1250 of them.

Ms Ardern repeated her government’s offer to accept asylum-seekers from the two detention centres yesterday during talks held on her second official visit.

Mr Turnbull said the deal with the US, negotiated with the Obama administration and ­accepted after some hesitation by President Donald Trump, was under way, with almost 200 ­people settled and the program ongoing.

Despite the firm objections of senior ministers, Mr Turnbull did not rule out the option of sending asylum-seekers to New Zealand.

“We thank the New Zealand Prime Minister for restating the offer that was made many years ago, in fact from John Key to Julia Gillard,” he said.

“But we are focused on completing the much larger arrangements with the US. So we’ll do that — we’ll take that process through to its completion and then we can consider other ­options.”

The Turnbull government has previously rebuffed New Zealand’s offer to take asylum-seekers redirected to Nauru and Manus. “The offer remains and it’s essentially the status quo in that regard,’’ Ms Ardern said.

The government has some ­urgency in wanting to move ­asylum-seekers from Manus because of the commitment to close the centre there by October 31.