Editorial: Packer is fortunate to remain

League player Russell Packer gets to stay in Australia. Why? Photo / Simon Bullard

League player Russell Packer gets to stay in Australia. Why?

Packer risked being sent back to New Zealand after Australian Federal Immigration minister Peter Dutton suggested he could be deported.

Any Kiwi-born criminal who has served more than a year in an Australian prison can be sent "home". However, he has been told he can stay.

Packer is a former Kiwi who is currently contracted to St George-Illawarra Dragons.

Last January, he was jailed for two years after being found guilty of "assault occasioning actual bodily harm". Packer had punched a man outside a Sydney bar - a judge labelled the assault "cowardly".

Packer served half of the sentence and was released in January this year.

His legal team had argued for him to stay in Australia - the successful grounds of their arguments were unclear at edition time. Packer had also had the support of an online petition signed by players such as Benji Marshall and Manu Vatuvei.

What makes Packer any different to detainees at Christmas Island awaiting deportation?

Other than his high profile mates.

Packer has fallen from grace and deserves a change to continue his fresh start.

But he has been spared the sacrifice of his career, that deportation would have forced upon him.

And yet other criminals will be sent home, and forced to start from scratch, without the safety net of a club, their mates and a job.

Packer is a lucky man.

And in the absence of an explanation, it is hard not to conclude that this is another example of a high profile sportsperson receiving preferential treatment different to the average man in the street.