Politics

Peter Dutton Has Attempted To Drag Jacinda Ardern After She Humiliated Scott Morrison

Ardern vs the government: Round 2.

by Rachael Conaghan  2 March 2020
jacinda ardern grandstanding

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As we know, Peter Dutton is a big fan of deporting people.

So it should come as no surprise that he came out swinging against New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after she publicly shamed Scott Morrison for testing our countries’ friendship with overzealous deportation policies.

In case you missed it, last week Jacinda Ardern gloriously roasted ScoMo at a press conference — while he was standing right beside her, no less — telling him, “do not deport your people and your problems”.

She was criticising Australia’s policy of deporting convicted criminals born outside Australia, regardless of how long they’ve actually lived here. This includes people who were born in New Zealand, but have lived here most of their life and have no ties to the Kiwi country.

But rather than admit that hey, maybe we could try a common sense approach to this issue, Dutton accused Ardern of grandstanding.

“New Zealand obviously is in the electoral cycle at the moment. It’s I think regrettable that she made the comments but that would have played well domestically for her and I think for Australia we act in our national interest and her job is to act in the national interests of New Zealand,” Dutton told Sky News.

“My responsibility is to keep Australians safe and we’ve now cancelled the visas of over 5000 criminals.”

Dutton also said he had no regrets about the number of visas they have cancelled.

“I sleep well at night knowing that deporting pedophiles from our shores mean that more Australian children won’t fall victim to that pedophile, and I’d want to make sure that we have a great migration system, we celebrate 99 per cent of people that come into our country, whether it’s on a tourist visa or to live here permanently and ultimately become an Australian citizen — but people who aren’t Australian citizens who come to our country, committing crimes against Australians, can expect to be deported.”

What Did Jacinda Ardern Say?

Last week Jacinda told a press conference she respected Australia’s right to deport individuals, but she took issue when those people were for all intents and purposes, Australian.

“Australia is well within its rights to deport individuals who break your laws. New Zealand does the same,” she said.

“What we’re asking for is a reciprocal arrangement. New Zealand does not deport those that we consider for all intents and purposes to have established themselves as New Zealanders. We only ask that Australia does the same.”

Under existing laws, visa holders who are sentenced to at least 12 months’ jail time are deported.

In response, Scott Morrison told the press conference we deport any non-citizen who have committed crimes in Australia, regardless of the country.