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Prime minister Jacinda Ardern sits under a fine mat as part of the official dawn raids apology, August 2021 (Photo: Justin Latif)
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern sits under a fine mat as part of the official dawn raids apology, August 2021 (Photo: Justin Latif)

The BulletinMay 3, 2023

The unwelcome return of dawn raid tactics

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern sits under a fine mat as part of the official dawn raids apology, August 2021 (Photo: Justin Latif)
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern sits under a fine mat as part of the official dawn raids apology, August 2021 (Photo: Justin Latif)

Immigration NZ has been put on notice over early-morning raids on the homes of overstayers, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

In 2023, an echo of the inhumane dawn raids of the 1970s

In the early hours of the morning, police came to the door of a Tongan man living in South Auckland who had overstayed his visa. According to his lawyer, the family were still asleep, and the children downstairs were the first to hear people banging on the door. “They were terrified … and crying and very, very upset and scared” as their father was taken into custody, Soane Foliaki told RNZ’s Morning Report. The incident sounds very much like one of the infamous dawn raids of the 1970s, but it happened just last week. Foliaki first spoke about the case on Tagata Pasifika on Saturday; in the days since Immigration NZ has admitted the early morning raid was not a one-off – “18 or 19″ interactions with “customers” between July 2022 and April 2023 have occurred “outside of hours”, equivalent to around 3% of all interactions. “Early morning visits are paid when Immigration does not believe the person will be home during the day,” RNZ reports, but Foliaki says the tactics are straight from the dawn raids playbook. “This raid was no different from any other raid in the ’70s.”

An apology that some say now rings hollow

The news comes nearly two years after former prime minister Jacinda Ardern made an official public apology for the dawn raids. “Residents in those homes were woken abruptly, physically removed from their beds and forced into police vans to be taken for questioning,” she said in her speech, expressing the government’s “sorrow, remorse, and regret” for the policy. Asked about it yesterday, immigration minister Michael Wood said the government apology applied to a “massive systemic approach of dawn raids across the whole community”, while he expected the current use of out-of-hours deportations was “only in those small number of extreme cases where there is no other option”. Alison McDonald, who heads Immigration NZ, says “any visits outside of standard hours” will have to be personally authorised by her from now on. Prime minister Chris Hipkins says he found the news of the pre-dawn arrests concerning. “Those aren’t the sorts of tactics that I would expect us to be using in New Zealand.”

Calls for an overstayer amnesty

In light of the latest events, the Green Party is renewing its calls for the government to grant amnesty to the roughly 14,000 people estimated to have overstayed their visas. Pacific leaders have also petitioned the government for an amnesty policy, and many had hoped the 2021 apology would provide the momentum their campaign needed. It’s not the first time the issue has come up. In 2000 the government granted amnesty to NZ’s then 7,000 overstayers. At the time, immigration minister Lianne Dalziel said: “You have to ask whether people who are well-settled, tax-paying, law-abiding people with strong family and community connections should in fact be sent ‘home’ when ‘home’ is really New Zealand.” Wood says he will make a decision on current overstayers “quite soon”. On The Spinoff this morning, Madeleine Chapman writes that “whatever his decision, the practice of arresting overstayers in their homes at dawn will continue to be a source of trauma for Pacific people, no matter how nicely worded the ‘visits’ are or how often the prime minister of the time apologises”.

Seasonal workers among those affected

A significant proportion of overstayers are likely to have arrived in the country on the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme, which has been criticised for allowing worker abuse through lax oversight and a lack of regulation. In December, a damning Human Rights Commission report found that some workers were living in conditions that amounted to modern-day slavery. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is conducting a full review of the policy, with its recommendations scheduled to go before cabinet in June.

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The BulletinMay 2, 2023

Hipkins off to UK in first major overseas jaunt

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He’s in London for the coronation, and to put some friendly pressure on PM Rishi Sunak over our free trade agreement, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Off to see the King, and his fellow PM

It can be hard to believe it’s already been more than seven months since the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, until you remember that Jacinda Ardern – still months away from announcing her resignation as prime minister – was New Zealand’s representative at Westminster Abbey. Now it’s Chris Hipkins who is on his way to the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, accompanied by a delegation including opposition leader Christopher Luxon. Speaking to media before his departure last night, Hipkins said he would be pledging his allegiance to the King despite his personal view that New Zealand should separate itself from the monarchy. “I’m on record as being a republican… But I’ve also indicated it’s not a priority for me. It’s not something I intend to push.” While in London, Hipkins will meet with British prime minister Rishi Sunak, with a focus on speeding up the legal commencement date for the New Zealand-UK free trade agreement (FTA) signed last year. Under the FTA, the UK will eliminate all tariffs on New Zealand exports, and give duty-free quota access for NZ beef, lamb, butter and cheese.

Increased NZ support for Ukraine’s defence on the cards

As part of his UK trip, Hipkins will visit New Zealand Defence Force personnel who are giving infantry training to new members of the Ukrainian military, most of whom are civilian volunteers. Hipkins plans to make an announcement there about further support for the Ukrainian defence effort, having spoken with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky last night. Political scientist Robert Patman tells RNZ it’s “absolutely critical” that New Zealand steps up its support for Ukraine. “If you contrast New Zealand’s contribution with that of Australia and Canada… even taking into account we’re a much smaller country than either, [ours] is still much smaller than they’ve contributed.” The NZ announcement will come at a critical moment for the Ukraine war effort. “After blunting a Russian push over the winter, the Ukrainian military is on the cusp of launching a counteroffensive against occupying forces,” Time magazine reports, in a story on the race to arm Ukraine with the weapons it needs.

Will Chris meet Joe in PNG?

One international meeting Hipkins could not confirm yesterday was with Joe Biden. The US president will be in Papua New Guinea on May 22, and PNG’s Post Courier newspaper has claimed Hipkins will be one of 18 Pacific Island Forum leaders to meet with him in Port Moresby. Hipkins says that is still speculation. “That event has not yet been confirmed and therefore no invitation has been received,” he told reporters yesterday. However, should an invitation be issued, he said he’d accept it if it fitted with his schedule. Biden’s visit to PNG is a sign of the “heightened geo-strategic competition between Washington and Beijing” across the Asia-Pacific region, writes the NZ Herald. “While the US has repeatedly insisted its renewed interest is driven by a desire to help Pacific Island nations tackle serious threats such as climate change and illegal fishing, the reality is the jockeying with China is an underlying driving force.”

In the high court, another royal saga plays out

As Charles prepares for his coronation this Saturday, his son is preparing for battle. Prince Harry has launched legal proceedings against Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, publisher of the Sun and the Times, alleging “the company targeted him with widespread illegal activity for much of his life, including hacking his voicemails and illegally obtaining personal information in the name of journalism”, the Guardian reports. Many of Harry’s allegations relate to claims of illegal behaviour at the Sun, which News UK has always said was not involved in the phone hacking scandal that forced the closure of its News of the World paper in 2011. Before the trial can proceed, a judge must decide whether Harry can bring the case at all – News UK’s lawyers claim he waited too long to launch proceedings. That hearing is scheduled for later today.