Kiribati 'refugee' to be deported on Wednesday

Ioane Teitiota - the world's first climate change refugee stands in the the dock at the Waitakere District Court. Photo / Dean Purcell

A Kiribati man who claimed to be the world's first "climate change refugee" is set to be deported on Wednesday (September 23) after a court rejected a last-minute bid to be released from jail.

Waitakere District Court Judge Stan Thorburn granted a further one-week warrant committing Ioane Teitiota, 39, to jail until he can be deported.

Immigration NZ lawyer Terri Thompson said he was booked on a flight to Kiribati leaving Auckland at 1pm on Wednesday.

She said seats had also been booked on the same flight for his wife and for their three children who were all born in New Zealand since the couple arrived on short-term work visas in 2007.

Mr Teitiota's lawyer Dr Michael Kidd asked for Mr Teitiota to be released so that he could wait for an appeal on humanitarian grounds to Associate Immigration Minister Craig Foss and prepare documents for a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Labour MP Phil Twyford, whose electorate includes Mr Teitiota's home in Ranui, visited Mr Teitiota in Mt Eden Prison on Friday and wrote to Mr Foss asking him to exercise ministerial discretion on humanitarian grounds.

Mr Kidd told the court that the three children would be vulnerable to diseases in Kiribati because they had not developed immunity to them and because the water supply has been polluted.

"This Government is asking him to return," he said.

'This Government is allowing in 850 Syrian refugees and it is not concerned with the conditions of our own Pacific people."

He gave the judge a petition signed by 48 members of the local Kiribati community asking Prime Minister John Key and other ministers to let the Teitiota family stay.

But Judge Thorburn asked: "He is not going to go on the 23rd if I release him, is he?"

Mr Kidd replied: "No, he isn't.... I haven't taken advice but yes it's quite likely (that he would not leave) because he needs to pursue these other avenues."

Judge Thorburn said he did not have any power to stop the deportation.

"It seems to me that the only remedy possible at present to stop the process resulting in his deportation on Wednesday is for ministerial intervention. That of course is something beyond this court's power and jurisdiction," he said.

A public meeting to oppose the deportation is being held at 7pm tonight at the Tuvalu Christian Church at 17 Aetna Place, Henderson.