Precis

Australia is detaining, cuffing and deporting more New Zealanders than any other group. Guest reporter Peter FitzSimons finds it’s riling Kiwis and straining relations across The Ditch. Is this how we treat an old mate?

For New Zealanders, it’s a bit like underarm bowling all over again. This time the affront is the torrent of Kiwis being forcibly evicted from Australia.

“I wasn’t on criminal charges… but I was still treated as a prisoner who has committed a crime” – Ko Haapu, deportee.

Australia tossed out more than 1300 Kiwis in the past three years - more than any other nationality. Meanwhile New Zealand ejected just nine Australians. Lawyers expect up to 15,000 New Zealanders could be deported in the next 10 years.

“I’m just worried, I’m scared. This is like a new world for me man,” says Shaun Wynyard, a newly arrived deportee who had to leave his family after spending 20 years in Australia.

Those numbers might pale against the 500,000-plus Kiwis living in Australia – who are mostly non-Australian citizens - but there’s real resentment in New Zealand.

Guest reporter Peter FitzSimons is an ex-Wallaby who faced the All Blacks’ fearsome haka six times. Even he is taken aback by the anger of New Zealanders – from ordinary citizens to political heavyweights – at what they see as a lopsided relationship.

“It’s a disgrace because it’s not in the ANZAC spirit, because we fought together and we died together, and we don’t do it to them” – Paula, Auckland footy fan

“We don’t think we as a country have been treated fairly. I think it’s a breach of human rights” – senior New Zealand MP

But Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says our Kiwi neighbours are getting a little over-emotional and that the facts are simple. Under changes to the Migration Act, anyone with a criminal record who isn’t an Australian citizen can now be deported. “We just need to see the evidence instead of the emotions. They’re New Zealand citizens, they’re not Australian citizens. And it’s no breach of human rights,” he says.

While career crooks are among the deportees, lesser players have been hit by tougher immigration rules allowing deportation for anyone sentenced to more than a year’s jail – even if it’s suspended.

Others are deemed to be “of bad character” and – without being charged – spend long months in jail before finally being deported. Many have grown up in Australia or spent most of their lives here.

But as FitzSimons discovers, change can bring opportunities for some of the deportees.

“Look at you. In Australia you’re in prison, you’re a drug dealer, you’re scum, we hate you and we send you back in handcuffs. Here, you’re in the sunshine employing 15 blokes, you’re making a fortune. Maybe the Australian law’s done you good!” – FitzSimons to Antony Miller, deportee and scaffolder

Peter FitzSimons tells how Australia, once the receptacle for Britain’s unwanted convicts, has itself become a player in the exile business.

Qantas plane takes off

Music

00:00

FitzSimons on plane. Super:
reporter
Peter FitzSimons

00:14

FitzSimons off plane at Auckland. Title:
Don't Call Australia Home

00:24

FitzSimons to camera

PETER FITZSIMONS: “G'day, I’m Peter Fitzsimons. Two hundred and a bitty years ago Great Britain got rid of huge chunks of its great unwashed by sending them to the great southern land.  Those poor bastards were transported for big crimes, little crimes, even such putrid political crimes as espousing republicanism. These days Australia itself has become a major playing in casting people off into exile.

00:36

I’ve come across the ditch to meet some of these modern-day exiles, sent from Australia, some of them in chains, some of them transported for life – all of them told by the Turnbull government, don’t call Australia home.  As a matter of fact, don’t even call us again”.

01:05

Auckland airport

Auckland is where most exiles trickle in, and for those sent back here against their will,

01:22

Wynyard arrives Auckland airport

it’s strictly a backdoor arrival.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “I’m nervous, I’m a little bit scared about starting a new life here after 20 years”.

01:29

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Shaun Wynyard’s one of more than 1300 Kiwis deported in the last three years since Australia’s laws have changed.  He’s certainly no innocent.  Shaun hit his partner badly enough to put her in hospital and him in prison with a 12 month sentence.  Now he’s free.  But this moment, after eight months in gaol and detention centres in Australia, is one he’s been dreading.

01:39

Wynyard

SHAUN WYNYARD: “I mean I haven’t got words for it.  I’m just worried, mate I’m scared, you know?  This is like a new world to me now. I haven’t seen my kids or family for eight months and they’ve basically just sent me home”.

02:08

Driving shots

Music

02:20

Shaun in car

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Shaun left New Zealand with his parents as a 24-year-old. His family is in Queensland.  He’s back here at 44, broke, alone and trying to recognise a city he left two decades ago.

02:31

Shaun walks around Auckland city

Music

02:48

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Well, I decided to go for a walk down Queen Street just to see what it was like and I got asked four times for change by homeless people and they were just camped out on the footpath as people were just walking by them.

02:55

Shaun

It’s crazy.  You know it was never like that 20 years ago when I left”.

03:09

Shaun arrives at motel

PETER FITZSIMONS: Shaun relies on a helping hand from Australia’s Home Affairs and New Zealand Social Services to pay for temporary accommodation – and he’s given $250 in cash.  But he’s shocked when the motel wants a $150

03:13

as a deposit.

SHAUN WYNYARD: [to receptionist] “A $150 you reckon?”

RECEPTIONIST: “Yes that’ll be fine, yes”.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “So I get that back when I leave?”

RECEPTIONIST: “When you’re checking out sir”.

03:31

Shaun in lift and then into room

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Then he’s on his own.  If he’d taken out Australian citizenship he wouldn’t be in this fix. 

03:39

Under the new laws, any non-citizen sentenced to a year or more in gaol, or judged to be of bad character, can be deported.  If Shaun was an Australian living in New Zealand, he’d be treated very differently.  Allowed to stay after doing his time.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “You know I’ve been working pretty much the whole time I’ve been there.  I thought I’d be right,

03:51

Shaun makes coffee

but then once I actually went to gaol, I got my papers to say that I was getting deported”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: Instead of being released from gaol, he was sent to a Perth detention centre. He wasn’t the only Kiwi there.  There were scores of others. In fact New Zealanders now make up the largest nationality group locked up in Australia’s immigration detention centres.

04:13

Shaun unpacks clothes

SHAUN WYNYARD: “I’ve only got five days here in this motel and after that I’ve got to find some place or I get a little bit of help to find it, but still it’s pretty hectic, you know and it’s pretty crazy when you’ve only got a short amount of time, everything’s going on in your head you know, you’re trying to adjust to a new country that you haven’t been to for so long and just thinking about everything. You know, your family”.

04:38

Shaun looking out window/Auckland wharf.

05:02

FitzSimons and Shaun talk at wharf

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So you married an Australian woman, you’re a father of Australian kids, your parents are living in Australia, your sister’s living in Australia – everybody’s Australian except you because Australia said you can get the hell out”.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Yep”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “That’s tough”.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “It’s harsh, it is very harsh. Yeah it is really, it’s the real deal man”.

05:11

PETER FITZSIMONS: “I mean there’ll be people that watch this and say hang on, hang on he’s bashed his missus, he’s on ice, we don’t want this bloke in our country”.

05:30

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Yeah well, that’s what they’re saying.  We were high on drugs and we were fighting regularly, regularly, all the time you know and it came to a heated point where we got into a scuffle and I, and I backhanded her, you know, and I wish I hadn’t of. Worse thing I’ve done in my bloody life, mate”.

05:38

PETER FITZSIMONS: “It was a bad enough backhand that she had to go to hospital”.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Yeah it was, yeah”.

05:54

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So while you were living in Australia you could have taken out citizenship papers, you married an Australian woman, you’re the father of Australian children, you’ve got the credentials to be an Australian”.

05:58

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Yes”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Do you feel Australian or Kiwi?”

06:08

SHAUN WYNYARD: “I feel Australian, yeah, because I’ve spent most of my adult life there ,you know?  So I had a business there”.

06:11

PETER FITZSIMONS: “What was the business?”

SHAUN WYNYARD: “A take away shop, café”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Making good money?”

SHAUN WYNYARD: “Yeah good money, yep”.

06:19

Shaun shows FitzSimons photos of kids

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Shaun’s appealing his deportation. He’s reconciled with his partner and hopes she’ll bring their children, aged ten and fourteen, to visit.

06:23

“I tell you what, looking at those kids and looking at you, we’ve got to reckon their mother must be a very beautiful woman”.

SHAUN WYNYARD: “She is.  Yeah, they’re not bad, eh?  And I miss them heaps mate you know?”

06:34

Wellington GVs

Music

06:48

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Since 2014, more than 3,000 non-citizens have been expelled from Australia and Kiwis are the biggest group.

06:54

FitzSimons to camera

“More than a 1,000 Kiwis who’ve got into trouble, even minor trouble, have been sent back here and that number may grow by as much as 15 times over the next ten years.  Not surprisingly, our Kiwi brothers and sisters in arms are up in arms”.

07:03

Andrew Little

ANDREW LITTLE: [NZ Justice Minister] “We don’t think we as a country are being treated fairly”.

07:21

Jacinda Ardern

JACINDA ARDERN: [Prime Minister] “We’ve had individuals who have been deported to NZ who have never ever stepped foot in New Zealand, ever”.

07:24

Winston Peters

WINSTON PETERS: [Foreign Minister] “It’s demonstrably unfair.  It’s not the Australian way of doing things”.

07:31

FitzSimons driving to Gisborne

Music

07:35

PETER FITZSIMONS: [driving] “Maori culture runs deep throughout New Zealand but nowhere deeper than right here, the easternmost part of the country, Gisborne.  I’ve come here to meet a long time Australian resident, recently sent packing – not because he was charged with any Australian crime, simply because he was judged to be of ‘bad character’.  So they sent him back to the land where he came from, the land of the whale rider”.

07:55

Gisborne GVs

Music

08:20

FitzSimons with Ko

PETER FITZSIMONS: [meeting Ko] “When you were a little boy, when you were a teenager, when you are a young man, this is where you grew up and grew to manhood?”

KO HAAPU: “Yeah me and my first cousins always were brought here”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: Ko Haapu is home.  After six years in Australia that ended disastrously

08:36

Into wharenui

he’s reconnecting with his culture.

“And this building here?”

KO HAAPU: “This is the wharenui [Maori communal house]”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Can we go inside?”

KO HAAPU: “Yes”.

08:53

Inside wharenui

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Wowee.  It’s extraordinary, beautiful. So I’ve had the honour of facing the All Blacks haka six times. When you were a little boy, were you taught that haka?”

KO HAAPU: “Yeah”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Yeah, and so does it go roughly?”

09:00

FitzSimons performs haka

[together reciting] “Ah ka mate, ka mate, kora, kora. Ka mate, ka mate kora, kora.  Tenei te tangata pu’ru-huru na’a nei tiki mai whaka-whiti te.  Ra! Upane! Ka upane! A upane! Ka upane. A upane! Ka upane. Hi!

PETER FITZSIMONS: “It used to scare the bejesus out of me”.

09:17

The warrior in Ko Haapu

09:42

Stills. Ko Haapu in army in uniform

came to the fore in 2010 when he was a young lance corporal fighting for the New Zealand Army in Afghanistan against the Taliban. 

09:45

Gisborne Anzac Day dawn service

[Bugle]

09:55

PETER FITZSIMONS: Now, Ko Haapu’s fighting another much more personal war against Australia’s Home Affairs department.  It’s a battle he’s losing.

10:10

Stills. Ko Haapu in Rebels tee-shirt

After the army he went to Perth. He worked as a scaffolder and joined the Rebels motorcycle gang with fellow workers, many of them Kiwis. 

10:24

Rebels motor cyclist on road

10:36

Still. Ko Haapu and Theresa

He got engaged to an Australian woman, Theresa, and became stepfather to her daughter.

10:39

Wharf

“So you were set up well in Perth, you’re earning a good dollar,

10:44

Ko Haapu and FitzSimons talk on wharf

you’ve got a fine family to go home to, why did you join the Rebels?”

KO HAAPU: “That camaraderie, I guess from coming from the military.  I felt personally that I was on my own and they welcomed me with open arms as a family”.

10:49

PETER FITZSIMONS: “And a lot of people will say, what, he’s a member of the Rebels, get him out of here, good riddance, we don’t need him in Australia. 

11:06

Do you regret joining the Rebels?”

KO HAAPU: “Never, not one day”.

11:14

GFX Rebels

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Under the changes to the Migration Act, just being a member of a bikie gang, an organisation suspected of criminal behaviour, was enough to get Ko Haapu deported on bad character grounds, even though it’s not illegal in WA to belong to one.

11:17

Ko Haapu and FitzSimons talk on wharf

“So you were in prison for five months, in a poxy cell, never put on a charge and never told what the crimes you committed were?”

KO HAAPU: “Yeah.

11:36

I wasn’t there on criminal charges, I was there on immigration which is two different things but was still treated as a prisoner who has committed a crime”.

11:45

PETER FITZSIMONS: “And the charge was that you were a man of bad character?”

KO HAAPU: “Yeah”.

11:54

PETER FITZSIMONS: “You’ve got a tattoo just on your neck here, FTP.  What does that mean?”

11:59

KO HAAPU: “Fuck the police”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “That’s a bit strong”.

KO HAAPU: “It is.  It was a statement put on my neck so they could see it every day. 

12:04

I don't like them in uniform and they didn’t like me in my uniform”.

12:12

Peter Dutton

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Do you accept that there are innocent people in motorcycle gangs who just like motorbikes?”

12:14

Super: Peter Dutton
Home Affairs Minister

PETER DUTTON: [Home Affairs Minister] “I look at the facts in relation to these individuals, the intelligence that’s available, the information that’s available to me to make a decision and we make a decision based on that information”.

12:20

PETER FITZSIMONS: “In the case of Ko Haapu, former New Zealand soldier living in Perth, he was held with no charge, no crime committed”.

12:29

PETER DUTTON: “Peter, he was a member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang. We know a lot about that gang and we know that they are part of a syndicate which is the biggest distributor of drugs in our country. In fact, this passed through the parliament with bipartisan support.  If you’re a member of that gang, you face deportation”.

12:37

PETER FITZSIMONS: “In essence though, is it not that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done…”

12:57

PETER DUTTON: “Yes”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “You imply a raft of strong allegations, accusations against the fellow that we can’t see”.

13:02

PETER DUTTON: “Well Peter, that happens every day.  I mean there’s intelligence that’s gathered that’s not released for a variety of reasons”.

13:08

Montage

PROTEST: “Border force! Waste our taxes.  Border force!  Waste our taxes”.

SCOTT MORRISON: “If you’re a gangster, if you’re a bikie gang member, if you’ve engaged in physical assault or murder…”.

13:15

AFP OFFICER: “… we don’t want you here.  The broader community doesn’t want you here…”.

13:29

NZ Parliament building

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So here’s the thing.  That throng of Kiwis who’ve been banished from that garden of Eden that we know as Australia, may not be angels,

13:32

FitzSimons to camera outside NZ Parliament

and it’s way too easy to say good riddance to bad rubbish and we don’t care about what happens to those Kiwis, but make no mistake, this may boomerang on the rest of us, too”.

13:42

FitzSimons into NZ Parliament building

I’ve come to the New Zealand parliament, the famed Beehive, to seek the views of the Justice Minister, Andrew Little.

“When you have a man imprisoned

13:53

Andrew Little

for five months with no charge, is that a classic example of a suspension of habeas corpus, and is it dangerous?”

14:06

ANDREW LITTLE: “Detention for that length of time without charge,

14:15

Andrew Little
NZ Justice Minister

I can’t think of another country where you know a liberal, democratic country like New Zealand, like Australia, like you know, many other western countries in the world where that would be tolerated”.

14:18

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Australia and New Zealand, we’re brothers and sisters in arms for a long time.  Is this going to affect our friendship?”

14:29

ANDREW LITTLE: “I think a lot of Kiwis look at what Australia is doing with Kiwis, many of whom have lived there since infancy and who, for whatever their circumstances they’ve later got themselves into, are now being sent back and are saying this doesn’t look like our best friend, our nearest neighbour and the spirit with which we’ve grown up with each other.  People who identify as Australian residents, because that’s where they’ve done their living, and saying, they’re your problem now.  I think that is a problem and I think it’s a breach of human rights”.

14:36

Peter Dutton

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Your policy is a breach of human rights.  It’s quite an indictment from New Zealand Justice Minister”.

PETER DUTTON: “Well we just need to see the evidence instead of the emotions. 

15:09

They’re New Zealand citizens, they’re not Australian citizens and it’s no breach of human rights. In fact, it’s a breach of civil rights of Australians who fall victims to these criminals and Australia won’t tolerate it. It doesn’t matter who we’re talking about, the criteria for us is whether or not you’ve committed an offence against Australian citizens and that’s the test that we apply”.

15:17

Auckland wharf

Music

15:39

PETER FITZSIMONS: Auckland’s construction boom and labour shortage have been a boon for deportees, nicknamed 501s and 116s after the new laws.

15:45

Miller on scaffold

In the two years since the Australian Government forced Antony Miller to return here, he’s gone from down and out to up, up and away.  He owns his own scaffolding business and employs dozens of 501s.

15:55

Miller with FitzSimons on building site

ANTONY MILLER: “Okay, welcome to the scaffold game”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Nice to be here.  I’ve done it before. When I was a young man I did it”.

16:11

Miler working on scaffold

Antony left New Zealand for Queensland with his parents when he was just 15.  Seventeen years on, he was deported here after a history of criminal offences and time served for drug trafficking. He can never legally set foot in Australia again.

ANTONY MILLER: “Sort of found myself in trouble when I was 25.

16:16

Miller with FitzSimons

I just got caught up in a little bit of a drug scene, yeah.  Just a bit of Eckies [Ecstasy] and stuff yeah with the boys and then it just turned into something, yeah, I just sort of got caught up with the, with an undercover police officer sort of thing so yeah”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “And what happened then?”

16:40

ANTONY MILLER: “Oh I got sent to prison”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “For how long?”

ANTONY MILLER: “I got sentenced to eight years and had to serve three”.

16:54

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So eight years, we’re talking, that must have been a serious amount of drugs.  Half a shipload?  Half a glove box, half a what?”

16:59

ANTONY MILLER: “I was caught with there was a 1,000 ecstasy tablets there that was what was probably there.  That’d be why, yeah”.

17:07

PETER FITZSIMONS:  When Antony was arrested, he claims he was working in the mines and paying $300 a week in tax.

17:13

“So at that point, your parents are living in Australia, your brother is living in Australia, your life is in Australia, you’re living with an Australian woman in an Australian house with an Australian dog”.

ANTONY MILLER: “Hm-hmm, yep”.

17:21

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So then you go to the big house and the day before you come out, three years on good probation, what do they say to you?”

ANTONY MILLER: “Your visa’s been cancelled.  I didn’t even know I had a visa and you’re going to sit in detention until you work out what you want to do.  If you want to go back and fight it from New Zealand or you can fight it from the detention centre”.

17:31

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Seven months in detention was his tipping point.

17:49

ANTONY MILLER: “Oh mate there’s people setting themselves on fire.  There was a guy who tied a noose around his neck and he was up on the roof.  People sewing their lips shut.  It was pretty terrible. These are like the, not so much the Kiwis, like the Iranian fellas and stuff like that.  I went there and just said mate, I’ll get out of here, eh”.

17:55

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So look at you. In Australia you were in prison, you were a drug dealer, you’re scum, you’re in the detention centre, we hate you and we send you back in handcuffs and here, you’re in the sunshine, you’re employing 15 blokes, you’re making a fortune. Maybe the law, Australian law’s done you good”.

18:13

ANTONY MILLER: “It’s actually done me pretty well, yeah.  Not too bad, but I wouldn’t mind being back in Australia as well but this is home now, so”.

18:30

Driving sequence

Music

18:38

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So I’m driving now to the far north of New Zealand to talk turkey with a man who’s got the reputation for talking straight, Foreign Minister, Winston Peters”.

18:47

Music

18:57

FitzSimons meets with Winston Peters

“Foreign Minister thank you very much for making time for us. Every Anzac Day we embrace each other and say we’re brothers and sisters in arms, you’re our closest friends across the ditch, do you feel let down by the famous mate, Australia?”

19:05

Super:
Winston Peters
NZ Foreign Minister

WINSTON PETERS: “No.  What I’m trying to do and trying to get to Australians in the form of a message, is that there has never been a time since 1945 that our two countries haven’t needed each other more and I really mean it.  We’ve got security of all the Pacific to look at and we are senior nations with a chance to shape the Pacific and its security and its wealth.  We better be mindful of our relationship between ourselves”.

19:19

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So you’re underwhelmed by the move?”

19:44

WINSTON PETERS: “The reality is we want New Zealanders to get the same treatment an Aussie would get if they were being changed with an offence. That is a trial before you’re booted off shore, and more importantly, not being told that you can appeal from offshore back to Australia.  I mean who can afford that?  Look at the legal costs and everything that’s involved.  We just want a bit more fairness and we want the Aussies to behave the way we think Aussies ordinarily do behave”.

19:46

Interview with Dutton

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Australia and New Zealand, brothers and sisters in arms for a century. We’ve allowed each other to live in each other’s countries without the need to get citizenship. Can you understand why New Zealand feels betrayed by this policy?”

PETER DUTTON: “Well I think New Zealand understands

20:13

the sovereign right of Australia to say that if somebody commits an offence against our citizens, regardless of who it is, that we’ll deport that person. Every nation in the world exerts their sovereign right to deport criminals back to their country of origin.  New Zealand would do it with an Iraqi or a Brit who committed an offence in New Zealand, in the same way that they would with an Australian citizen. They would deport that person if that person had been in contravention or in breach of the New Zealand law”.

20:28

FitzSimons at football

20:56

To camera

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Now as a one-time Wallaby who was actually once sent off against the All Blacks for violence, I perhaps know more than most just how intense the rivalry between our two nations can be.  But I also appreciate how, traditionally, when the chips are down we stick together. So I’m wondering just how much the legislation brought in by big brother, has affected little brother across the ditch. Do they still love us or are they bitterly disappointed in their one time mates?”

21:03

Players run on to field

Music

21:31

Match in progress

PETER FITZSIMONS:  I put the question at a classic grudge match, Auckland Warriors trying to reverse their fortunes against our own West Tigers.

21:42

Vox Pops with rugby supporters

“So you think Australia’s doing the wrong thing?”

MALE NZ RUGBY SUPPORTER: “A bit of both actually to be honest.  Yes, I agree with some things, why they’re sending those people back and then other times not really. I mean if they grew up there, they should be staying there, not back here”.

21:53

FEMALE NZ RUGBY SUPPORTER: “That’s a disgrace because it’s not in the Anzac spirit”.

22:07

MALE NZ RUGBY SUPPORTER: “They come over with, I guess, behaviours they’ve learnt from Australia, be it drugs or gangs or whatever, what are they going to do when they come over here? Fall into that default setting which is, gangs, drugs, violence”.

22:10

FEMALE NZ RUGBY SUPPORTER: “Depending on what they’ve done and what the crime is and why they’re sending them, but if they’ve done their time over there, don’t need to deport them”.

22:23

Game in progress

22:29

FitzSimons with Antony Miller at football

PETER FITZSIMMONS:  I’m catching up again with deported scaffolder, Antony Miller.

“So how long have you been out of gaol now?”

ANTONY MILLER: “Two years.  On the 19^th, two years”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So if you’re making a good coin every week, you’re doing well. Are you saving it or are you blowing it up your nose?”

22:33

ANTONY MILLER: “No.  I save it all mate.  I’m putting it towards a… I’ve got a couple of businesses you know I’m trying to grow”.

22:47

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Do you mix with a lot of deportees? Do you think the New Zealand police are going to have their hands full in a year or two?”

22:58

ANTONY MILLER: “They’ve got their hands full already.  Eighty per cent of my mates that have come back, they're in gaol already”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Really?”

ANTONY MILLER: “Yep”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “What, because they’re druggies, because they’re violent, because they’re crims, they’re what?”

ANTONY MILLER: “Because they come back here and they don’t have anything. Like their family’s over there and they just don’t have anything.  They’ve got no support networks, you know?  In Australia, you know, you get out of gaol you can go to your auntie’s or cousin’s house.  Over here they just send them back to a country they don’t know.  So it’s like, fuck this.  I want to go fucking run amok, you know?”

23:04

Football match

23:29

PETER FITZSIMONS: For the record, after a thumping performance, the Kiwis took the Aussies down this night, 26 to 4.  And what does the deportation scoreboard look like between our two countries?  Well it’s a remarkably uneven contest.  In the last three years, Australia’s deported more than 1300 Kiwis back here.  New Zealand’s deported nine Aussies.  Yep you heard right, nine.

23:39

Winston Peters

“Is there any move within your government to say to Australia, well if you do that to our Kiwis over there, we will do that to your Australians here or are there no Australians offending?”

24:07

WINSTON PETERS: “Oh no we’ve made it very clear, we’re not going to behave like that.  Just because another country may behave in a way which we don’t accept, it’s no reason for us to accept what we think is in a legal sense, unacceptable behaviour”.

24:16

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Is that because Australians over here are impeccably behaved?”

WINSTON PETERS: “Take a wild guess.

24:28

That would be totally out of character for the Aussies to be impeccably behaved, but the fact is, if we think it’s wrong, we don’t want to compound the wrong by duplicating that law in our country”.

24:36

Busker at market

24:45

Shaun at market

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Shaun Wynyard’s full of regrets and wondering how he’ll cope. He used to be one of more than half a million Kiwis who call Australia home, but like two-thirds of them, he didn’t become a citizen and has few rights. 

25:00

FitzSimons with Shaun at market

It’s a big call for him to start afresh, especially when he’s on one side of the Tasman and his family is on the other.

25:16

SHAUN WYNYARD: “I think that I should be allowed back on to Australian land because I’ve been there for 20 years, my whole family are there. I’ve got two young kids there.  I’ve pretty much worked the whole time I’ve been there. I’m a decent human being and I think I deserve a chance”.

25:26

FitzSimons and Shaun listen to busker

Music

25:44

Drone shot over wharf

25:52

Ko Haapu and FitzSimons talk on wharf

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Ko Haapu’s getting his life back on track. He works up to 84 hours week managing wharf workers loading timber bound for Asia.  But his relationship with Theresa has not withstood his deportation and he grieves the separation from his step daughter.

25:59

“What are the realistic chances that you will ever fly back to Australia and resume your life back there?”

26:15

KO HAAPU: “Probably zero.  I’ve been trying through different avenues to get this appealed”.

26:21

Drone shots over coast

Singing

26:27

Ko doing hongi

PETER FITZSIMONS: It’s back in Whangara that he finds support from his extended family.

26:37

Ani

“You’ve known Ko since he was in nappies”.

ANI LEACH: “Yes, since he was born.  The day he was born”.

26:46

PETER FITZSIMONS: “What do you think of Australia holding its nose, saying you, Ko, get the hell out of our country”.

ANI LEACH: “Disgusted.  Disgusted with their treatment of him.  I can’t understand why, why he was treated so badly. He didn’t deserve that”.

26:50

PETER FITZSIMONS: “Do you think that he must have done something terribly, terribly wrong?”

ANI LEACH: “No, I can’t understand where he could have.  He may have been mischief, he may have gone off the track while he was over there, but I can’t see it”.

27:10

Senior Constable Richard Reeves with Ko

PETER FITZSIMONS:  Senior Constable Richard Reeves is a childhood friend.

27:21

Reeves and FitzSimons

“And I’m judging by your blue uniform, you turned into the good boy, did he turn into the bad boy or not?”

RICHARD REEVES: “Not in my opinion, yeah, not from what I know, no. 

27:25

Reeves doing hongi with Ko

I go up and give him a hongi and shake his hand and ask him how things are because I haven’t seen him for a few years”.

27:35

Reeves and FitzSimons

PETER FITZSIMONS: “You’re not troubled by his FTP, ‘Fuck the Police’ under his chin?”

RICHARD REEVES: “No, to me that’s obviously history he’s got with whoever he’s dealt with. I work on a sort of a, I think like people might look at the uniform and they just see the police, but there’s actually a person behind that so if that FTP is aimed at me I might take offence but I don’t think it is talking to him”.

27:41

FitzSimons outside church with Ko

PETER FITZSIMONS: “You’ve hardly been sent to purgatory though.  I mean this is an extraordinary community”.

KO HAAPU: “Yeah, it’s real tight knit here. Everyone knows each other and pretty much walk into each other’s house and just go straight to the fridge”.

PETER FITZSIMONS: “So you’ve been welcomed back”.

KO HAAPU: “Yeah. I’ve never been shunned from this community”.

28:00

Ko and others surfing

28:21

PETER FITZSIMONS: Like all the deportees, Ko Haapu’s life didn’t turn out the way he planned.  Now he has no option but to make the most of what he has.

28:30

KO HAAPU: “I’m just concentrating on what I need to be doing today instead of worrying about tomorrow and what’s coming.  Once we’re out there we’re just free of everything.  No one can contact me unless you swim out there and start surfing with us.

28:41

Well home’s home – can’t deport me from here”.

28:53

Surfing and scenery

Music

28:56

Credit start

Reporter - Peter FitzSimons

Producer - Anne Maria Nicholson

Camera - Chris Taylor

Editor - Andrew Barnes

Executive Producer - Marianne Leitch

29:04

Outpoint after credits

29:31