The ex-gang member who is the Kiwi father of star AFL footballer Dustin Martin has been deported back to New Zealand again after his unexpected arrival in Australia.
Shane Martin was first deported to New Zealand in April 2016 under Australia's Immigration Act on the grounds of bad character, as the country launched a fresh crackdown on bikie gangs.
Martin, 52, was a top-ranking member of Australia's Rebels motorcycle gang and had lived in New South Wales since he was 20, after moving from Huntly in 1989.
On Sunday night, he quietly tried to slip back into Australia with a lawyer in tow — reportedly claiming he has a grandmother in Tasmania with indigenous heritage, Daily Mail Australia reports.
This should have allowed his re-entry into the country as last week the Australian government passed a law which forbids any Aboriginal person from being deported.
However, Martin was turned away at the border by Border Force officials and sent back to New Zealand on the first Qantas flight on Monday morning.
Shane Martin, who was extradited from Australia to New Zealand due to his criminal record and affiliations with The Rebels Motorcycle gang. Photo / Doug Sherring
At no stage has he provided any evidence of his indigenous heritage, officials said.
The High Court accepts biological descent, self-identification and whether or not a person has been accepted by an indigenous community in Australia as proof of indigenous status.
In a previous interview in 2019, Martin told the Herald on Sunday that his initial years of depression in New Zealand have cleared somewhat, but he still desperately misses his three grown sons and two young step-daughters living in Australia.
"I was depressed and angry for a while and took it out on my wife a bit. It wasn't her fault but she stood strong. Now we're living together. We'd just got married, two weeks after that I got deported, separated for nearly three years."
Martin said he is even thinking of settling in New Zealand, and has come to "love" the country of his birth, but still yearns for the ability to return to Australia to see his kids and watch Dustin play footy.
"I thought oh I've gone backwards, because it's so slow. I've since then had to eat my words about New Zealand," he said.
"It's the most amazing country in the world - beautiful, untouched, and the people are so hearty and kind. You don't notice it until you've been elsewhere.
"My wife loves it, and my kids love coming here. But I still want the freedom to come back to Australia."
Martin had his visa cancelled under section 501 of the Australian Immigration Act, which states people can be deported if they have a "substantial" criminal record.
The cover of A Rebel In Exile - The extraordinary story of Shane Kiwi Martin and his battle to return to his home and family. Image / Supplied
Martin's rap sheet stretches back in 1990, and includes a charge in 2004 of aiding and abetting in ecstasy trafficking and drug possession.
But he claims, in Rebel In Exile, that police sent a couple of undercover officers to the club he was working at as a bouncer - before he was a member of the gang - "to try to trick me into selling them some pills". He pointed toward the dance floor and the police found a man who sold them some pills.
They then raided his house and found two ecstasy tablets in a bag inside a jacket pocket which he'd picked up off a club floor.
Martin said he no longer is part of the Rebels and doesn't talk to his old friends affiliated to the group in Australia.
