New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Luxon has declared the issue of deportations - once the thorniest issue in trans-Tasman relations - to be resolved.
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On the eve of his first formal overseas engagement, a one-day visit to Sydney to meet with Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Mr Luxon said the issue no longer troubled Wellington.
"We've got a government under Anthony Albanese that's actually done New Zealand a real solid," he said.
"They have actually made sure they've gone to a much more common sense approach to deportees.
"The issue has been resolved."
For much of the last decade, New Zealand has petitioned Australian governments to deport fewer criminals across the Tasman.
Kiwi leaders took particular issue with criminals who held New Zealand passports who had spent the majority of their lives in Australia and held no real links to New Zealand.
On arrival, many joined gangs and contributed to a growing gang population and gang-related crime.
However, a breakthrough was brokered between Mr Albanese and former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern last year, when the Australian leader pledged to apply "a common sense lens".
Mr Albanese said Australia retained "the capacity to cancel visas and remove people who pose a risk to the community" but would "bear in mind what a person's ties are to Australia when assessing these cases".
"There's a big distinction between someone who comes to Australia either as a teen or an adult and commits offences and someone who has zero connection back in New Zealand and might have come here as an infant," he said.
The New Zealand government believes Australia deported 2916 people to New Zealand between 2015 and March this year.
Figures released by Australia's Home Affairs department show the number of cancelled subclass 444 visas fell from 466 in 2020-21, to 244 in 2021-22, to 129 in 2022-23.
NZ police data also show incoming deportees roughly halved from the middle of 2022.
In the eight months up to July 2022, an average of 39 people were deported from Australia to New Zealand each month, and in the following eight months, it was 19.
University of Otago international relations professor Robert Patman said Mr Luxon inherited a trans-Tasman relationship "stronger than it's been for a long time" for one key reason.
"Mainly because the departure of Scott Morrison," he said.
"It was no secret that Jacinda Ardern's government and I think the opposition as well were very frustrated by Scott Morrison's populist style of leadership."
On Tuesday, Mr Luxon also praised Mr Albanese's government for its embrace of Kiwis living in Australia and increased accessibility to Australian citizenship.
"They've also done an excellent job in terms of making sure there's a pathway to citizenship for Kiwis," he said.
Up to 400,000 Kiwis that previously were unable to take up citizenship despite living long-term in Australia were able to do so after the policy tweak.
Mr Albanese and Mr Luxon will discuss security ties, easing trans-Tasman business and more in Sydney, before a joint press conference and private lunch.
"Australia and New Zealand are not just friends, we are family," Mr Albanese said.
Mr Luxon will travel to Sydney on a New Zealand Defence Force Boeing 757 after it was repaired in the nick of time.
The 757s have a record of breaking down at inopportune times, stranding Kiwi delegations in such locations as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and India.
Ms Ardern twice flew back to New Zealand on commercial aircraft after the 757s broke down in Melbourne and Washington DC.
The former Air New Zealand chief executive said the constant unreliability of the aircraft was "incredibly embarrassing".
"We're not sending people to the moon, we're just trying to get them to Australia in 2023," he said.
Australian Associated Press
