Labor Continues Coalition’s Mass Deportations, as Yet Another Kiwi Resident to Be Turfed

The mass deportation program then immigration minister Scott Morrison launched in late 2014, which has seen over 3,000 New Zealand-born residents turfed out of this country, regardless of ties and length-of-stay, continues as well-known litigant Kate Pearson will on Thursday, 26 June 2025, be sent back to a country she left behind in 2003 and will lose the life she’s since built in Australia.

Pearson, who was convicted on a number of drug offences and property crimes in February 2019 and then sentenced to 4 years and 3 months prison, with non-parole set at 2 years, was subsequently informed via a 17 July 2019 letter from the Immigration Department that her residence visa had automatically been cancelled under section 501(3A) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the Act).

However, the long-term Australian resident, who had built a life here that included having an established graphic design business, was determined to challenge the ruling, and after an initial appeal of the decision proved fruitless, she did find success in late 2022, when the Federal Court of Australia ruled that automatic section 501 deportations didn’t apply to aggregate sentences.

The system of mass deportations that was enacted by Morrison via a 2014 bill that amended section 501 character test laws, has since seen over 7,000 noncitizens deported from this country, often over multiple minor offences, just like Pearson. But as her case resulted in a ruling that deportation should only be reserved for “the most serious offending”, the Albanese government rushed to reverse this.

So, as Australians look on in horror at the mass deportations of US residents under Trump, few are aware that both major parties locally have been running a program of mass expulsion of residents, who on failing the 501 character test are dehumanised as ‘illegal noncitizens’, because, unlike the US president, PMs Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese have been doing this on the sly.

Albanese chucks a Morrison

“It’s absolutely crazy that politicians are granted godlike powers. The minister has the power to say, ‘I am cancelling your visa.’ It’s a mental torture,” said Pearson, who is currently detained in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre prior to removal.

“It was a long time to keep fighting and giving up was never an option,” added the now 45-year-old NZ-born lesbian woman, who will be leaving behind her partner and two dogs. “All I have put up with, all that’s happened and it was all for nothing.”

Like so many long-term NZ-born residents, Pearson is being deported after failing the character test specifically under subsection 501(7)(c) of the Act, which stipulates that the person is being deported because of their “substantial criminal record”, as that “person has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more”.

However, a three justice bench of the Federal Court ruled on 22 December 2022, that the section 501(7)(c) law does not apply to aggregate sentences –  single sentences that are issued in respect of multiple crimes – and this is the case irrespective of whether indicative sentences are given for each offence, as required is required under NSW law.

Pearson had received an aggregate sentence for 11 separate offences. The court found that mandatory cancellation should only apply to the most serious cases, which doesn’t include cases involving aggregate sentences, where a sentence is come to after conviction over a series of minor offences, none of which on their own could render a person liable to mandatory visa cancellation.

Immediately following the ruling, 163 former residents, who were no longer considered illegal noncitizens, were released into the community, as they’d been slated for deportation under the same terms.

But federal Labor weren’t going to have this, and then immigration minister Andrew Giles promptly introduced the Migration Amendment (Aggregate Sentences) Bill 2023 on 7 February that year. The bill swam through both houses, being passed a week after introduction.

And the amendment legislation inserted section 5AB into the Act, which clarified that 501(7)(c) applied to one sentence that covered a single offence, as well as two or more offences. This was a retrospective law, so all those released following the Pearson court decision were promptly sent another letter stating they were being placed back in detention and were slated to be turfed out again.

In this manner the Albanese government revealed it was just as committed as the Coalition to deporting as many foreigners as possible, especially those from Aotearoa-New Zealand.

“Kate’s case is not unique. We have seen this type of treatment before. With Kate’s removal we know there will still be so many queer people in immigration detention,” said Pride in Protest’s Melissa Sukkarieh. “There has been no justice and no procedural fairness in Kate’s case. She has fought against what is one of the toughest immigration systems in the world over nonviolent crimes.”

“The immigration minister Tony Burke has the full power to reverse this decision, and he is choosing not to,” the spokesperson for the LGBTIQA+ advocacy organisation continued. “He is choosing to let this woman who has built her entire life in this country lose everything.”

Trumpian way before the US

“The whole point of the rule of law is to have everyone equal under the law. It is meant to stop bureaucrats and politicians punishing people outside the courts,” Greens Senator David Shoebridge said in relation to the process that sees Pearson facing deportation by the Australian Border Force this Thursday, 26 June.

“We have seen the major parties create a deeply unfair immigration system, centralising control in the minister’s office, and giving them ‘godlike’ power to punish and detain.”

When Morrison, under PM Abbott, implemented these laws, not long after Operation Sovereign Borders, the term Trumpian hadn’t even been coined yet. However, by mid-2015, when the alarm bells began ringing over the fact that New Zealand-born residents were being cast out by the dozens, no one sought to amend the program, revealing it was doing what it was supposed to do.

In April this year, Home Affairs figures continue to show that the largest cohort in Australian immigration detention are New Zealand born people. The number of NZ-born in immigration detention more than doubles the groups of detainees belonging to any other nationality.

Home Affairs lists the top nine nationalities in onshore immigration detention centres, with the tenth figure in the list labelled “Other”, which captures all other nationalities. Prior to Morrison’s amendments New Zealanders did not make the top nine in the list but were categorised as other. Since December 2016, New Zealanders have consistently been listed as number one.

Australia commenced treating New Zealanders in a disparaging way, long before Trump turned on Canada. Indeed, the Abbott government didn’t even inform the New Zealand government that they’d were about to start mass deporting people, who often had no ties to that country anymore, across the ditch to Aotearoa.

“Everyone should be treated fairly and equally by the law, regardless of visa status. But while citizens are punished once by our criminal legal system, migrants, like Ms Pearson, are punished three times – by prison sentences, prolonged immigration detention and then deportation,” Human Rights Law Centre associate legal director Josephine Langbien underscored.

“By relentlessly targeting people like Ms Pearson for removal, including by undermining the courts, the Australian government is seemingly more concerned with punishment than delivering fair and lawful visa decisions, even where someone has lived in Australia for decades and built a life here,” the lawyer concluded.