There are no grounds though for claiming, as some have done, that New Zealanders are being treated more harshly than others. All non-Australian criminals who serve more than one year in jail there are subject to the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act that became law almost a year ago, and that law is apparently being put to good use.
Until November last year, non-Australians who were sentenced to two years or more in prison could have their visas cancelled by the Minister of Immigration. Now their visas are automatically cancelled after one year, although the Minister can overrule that. If he or she does not do that, the decision can still be reviewed. Those who appeal for clemency will be held in some form of custody until a decision is made. How long that will normally take isn't clear, but assuming that Australia's bureaucracy is no more nimble than anyone else's it could be some time.
It is tough, no doubt, on New Zealanders especially who are effectively Australians in that they have lived most of their lives there, having arrived at an age when they were too young to make the decision for themselves. That was the situation behind last month's suicide, in jail, of a New Zealander who was in deportation limbo, and had unsuccessfully appealed on the grounds that he had lived in Australia since the age of 4, and for him New Zealand was effectively a foreign country.
Unfair? Perhaps. But Australians have clearly lost patience with those who avail themselves of the opportunity to live there and seriously break the law. Who can blame them? We are in exactly the same boat, not so much in terms of criminal Australians, although there are some of those in our prisons, but immigrants from countries that have more recently begun contributing to our much vaunted ethnic diversity and who have been convicted of serious criminal offending.
We have seen some very disturbing cases of major criminality on the part of immigrants in recent years. Some of those people will no doubt be deported at some point, but there should be no exceptions. It is unacceptable for people who come to this country, invariably seeking a better life for themselves and often for their dependents, to indulge in criminal behaviour that would not be tolerated in whatever country they came from, and isn't tolerated here.
Immigration, at least on the scale that we are currently seeing here, is no solution for a wobbly economy, and indeed has clear economic disadvantages, but importing criminals should be totally out of the question. We are entitled to ask how some people get into this country in the first place, assuming they haven't led totally blameless lives until they got here and suddenly went berserk, but at the very least we should be able to rely on our government to get rid of those who do harm to our society.
Mind you, if you listen to Justice Minister Amy Adams, perhaps we should be importing criminals, or at least welcoming our own home from Australia. According to Ms Adams we are running out of the home-grown variety, so unless we want to see redundancies in the police force we should perhaps be casting our net a little wider. Last week Ms Adams trumpeted the news that the government's "relentless focus on reducing crime" was delivering "outstanding" results, with the number of people appearing in court continuing to fall. The year ending June had seen a 5 per cent decline in the number of adults appearing in courts, a total reduction of 36 per cent since the peak in 2009/10, and the lowest number since records began in 1980/81. There had also been an "impressive" 61 per cent decline in the number of children and young people who appeared since the peak in 2007/08. The fall last year alone amounted to 13 per cent.
Ms Adams attributed those statistics to policies aimed at driving down crime and making communities safer. "These figures represent real people and lives changed," she said. "Fewer people in court is clear evidence of less crime on our streets and a less congested court system. It's saving taxpayer money, improving the long-term outcomes for vulnerable New Zealanders and keeping our communities safer."
That is an insult to our intelligence. The decline in defendants has everything to do with changes in terms of what offences will get someone into the dock, and the more recent advent of releasing offenders with pre-charge warnings. Almost 30 per cent of Northland offenders reportedly avoid court these days. This country is demonstrably not a safer place than it was 34 years ago.
The Far North certainly isn't. Whatever the statistics say, violence has escalated to a degree that would have been unimaginable 34 years ago, while burglars are running rampant, presumably to feed drug habits that didn't exist in 1980.
The writer doesn't have statistics with which to contradict Ms Adams. but suggests that she listen to those who are trying to stem the tide of family violence who were quoted last week as saying that the brutality of attacks on women by their male partners is worsening. They talked of body parts being bitten off, women being maimed by burns and having their heads stomped on hard enough to leave footprints.
New Zealand, Ms Adams, reportedly has the highest rate of reported 'intimate family violence' in the developed world. Still believe we're safer than we used to be, Minister? Why is it that 1500 women in Auckland, and goodness knows how many elsewhere, have need for 24/7 monitored safety alarms?
The number of people appearing in court must be the most meaningless of the plethora of meaningless statistics that politicians try to sell us. Life beyond the Beehive tells us something very different.
Keeping people out of court might be unclogging the justice system and saving money, but it does not equate to safer communities, fewer victims or falling crime rates, although every June we hear that they have fallen yet again. They might start falling in Australia now that they're deporting criminals though, and that's an example we should follow if we are serious about making this country a safer place.
