Deterrent needed against 'real risk' of boat people reaching NZ – Guy
While no asylum boats have ever reached New Zealand, Immigration Minister Nathan Guy says “the risk is real” and our law needs to be changed.
The government is about to pass the Immigration Amendment Bill. That will allow mass arrivals of asylum-seekers – defined as 10 or more people – to be detained for up to six months.
Entertainers like Michele A’Court, Dave Dobbyn and Oscar Kightley have spoken out against it the law change in a YouTube campaign.
But the government is pressing ahead. Mr Guy told TVNZ's Q+A programme yesterday a deterrent is needed or New Zealand will be seen as a soft touch.
Six vessels wanting to come to New Zealand have been stopped by foreign authorities in the past decade.
The closest they have got is Australia. The rough Tasman Sea has acted as a deterrent, but a legislative deterrent is also needed, Mr Guy says.
Australia’s return to offshore processing “could lift the level of risk” and send more asylum seekers our way. “That could mean that they [asylum seekers in boats] look down into New Zealand and say, ‘Actually, New Zealand’s not that far away”.
New Zealand already accepts around a third of about 300 asylum seekers who apply each year, Mr Guy says.
The government has to be prepared to handle the arrival of a boat of 500 people.
The minister says while the low-level security Mangere Refugee Centre could accommodate asylum seekers, the arrival of boat people would pose a security problem.
"High-risk individuals could be detained in somewhere like a correctional facility," Mr Guys says.
"Those in a medium-capability risk could utilise something like a Defence Force an army base.
"And then, of course, you have a situation where you have mum and the kids, and that’s where we’d look to put them into somewhere like the Mangere centre in Auckland, and we’ve got a detailed business case being worked through on the future of that."
The Mangere centre is "is hardly lock-up", Mr Guy says.
"It’s very open, and so that’s where mum and kids would go and potentially dad in the first instance.
"Then we’d work through the process of their identity, then they’d get a temporary visa, then after three years we’d review them, then potentially they’d go into a permanent residence situation.
"If it is just a father, then they can look to bring their immediate family in, but not their extended family."
Watch the full interview here.
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Comments and questions31
Want a deterrent? Let the first one that gets into trouble sink; and don't go looking for survivors...
The criminals that organize these boat trips rely on bleeding heart governments to help out these unseaworthy vessels when they get to sea...
If you want an effective deterrant make New Zealand equal or less inviting a place to live as their homeland...A governmemt bent on keeping me out wouldnt deter me from escaping a war torn country, or somewhere where basic necessities are scarce.
Sink dnt wnt them here
None of this is about aslylum seekers or anything like it. It's about duping the electorate by the Nats whipping up fear-mongering about phantom boats that will never make it across the turbulent Tasman. Harsh laws and treatment (including many drownings) as the heartless comment above refers to has deterred a single one in Australia. The deterrence argument doesn't hold water, but there's political capital gain to be maid at the expense of hapless people.
Do we want them here ,NO all they do is rape the systems ,and cost us tax payers millions,
What is this 'real' risk that this Guy is speaking about? How many asylum seekers have got beyond the northwestern corner of Australia, much less to anywhere remotely civilised in Australia? And what is so wrong with asylum seekers anyway? We treated the Jewish refugees, who were forced to buy and bribe their way out of Nazi Germany, the same way, but would they have made good citizens if they had come here, and would their children and grandchildren have been productive members of our society? Mr Guy should check his paranoia with our Prime Minister first before exposing himself.
if you think about it we are all eco refuges wanting a better life than where we lived before & even our so called indegenis folk where fleeing from something to a better life thats what peaple do
These guys circumvent the system,at the expense of honest migrants,
If the bleeding hearts want them.. let them pay their
onward passage to Australia,OH,, and please leave with them. cheers
I read somewhere that 79% of boat people that have entered Australia in the last five years are still bludging of working Aussies, anybody know what the NZ stats are???
None, because no boat people have entered New Zealand. L2R.
Never mind the boat people. Fix the Treaty industry. At least the boat people want to work, not just collect rent. As a problem they are insignificant in comparison.
Why would they? from a third World country to a third world economy?
How can you call this a third world economy? You don't know how lucky we are!
Your comment shows a decided lack of real world experience. Have you ever been outside NZ, or Australasia? Go travel, and you'll find NZ is quite a wealthy country in comparative world terms.
Gotta agree with Alan Wilkinson there ////
Mr Wilkinson, you are wrong. There is a difference between genuine assylum seekers who come through the front door on a plane, airfare $1500. The illegal boat people pay $10,000 to get on a boat. Once on shore they get immediate welfare, education and medical and access to the legal system. If turned down they immediately appeal, using the court system, bogging it down, appeals go on for years. The onshore people smugglers go around once a week and collect $10 off every illegal in the system, which pays for the next boatload. If processed offshore they go into the UNHCR queue which can take up to 10 years, with no certainty which country will take them.
Anyone who can pay $10k to get on a boat has got the ability to earn substantial money. And you obviously contradict yourself since that money is going to pay for the boat without collecting $10 from anyone else.
The rest of your comments reflect on the immigration system, not on the immigrants.
No contradiction.
That wasnt $10k OR $10 per person per week
It's $10k AND $10 per person per week
The $10 per week is collected from illegal boat people who have got through the system into Australia and collecting welfare, and the $10 per week is collected, aggregated and sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to fund the $10k per person for the next shipment of boat people. The Australian welfare system is being rorted to fund a self-perpetuating ponzi scheme.
I don't believe you. Anyone who has got through the system as a legal immigrant has no need to fund blackmailers. They can simply go to the police.
There is a lot of ignorance being expressed here. There are more than 1000+ Kiwi economic refugees leaving for Australia each week. They are not genuine refugees seeking asylum from torture/war/persecution. The Aussies should put them into detention camps, eh? Oh that's different isn't it? Aotearoa NZ has coped with mass boat arrivals since Cook including plenty of your ancestors. No one is advocating to open the flood gates. Only 300 asylum seekers arrive each year and more than 60% get deported. NZ is NO soft touch. Only a few are found real refugees each year. All that is being asked is to process properly them under the UN Convention we signed up to. John Key's mother, by the way was a refugee from Austria.
Nobodys been able to tell me how the boat folk who try to get to Aus via a few leaky tubs actually get to Indonesia. Do these people prefer One world or star alliance and what happens to any frequent flyer points they might have earnt?
IN the UK the asylum seekers milk the benefits system .... want to change our way of life....(not for the best) and if NZ seems a soft touch they will end up with a population of 65 million people like the UK. Anyway how many countries do they pass to get to NZ/Aussie from Iqaq and Afghanistan etc ? I hear the sea is rough and lots of sharks.
Sinking the first boat that heads our way will send the right message.
That would be far more humane than the Australian Labor solution which has lured hundreds to their deaths.
Want a real deterrent to stop people coming to NZ? Show them the NBR website and the views of the Troglodytes who regularly comment thereon.
Couldnt believe the bias of the Q&A program yesterday. Nathan Guy was rudely interrupted on several occasions when attempting to answer questions from Boyed who's political colours were clearly evident. OK, we have yet to have a boat make it this far, but what's the problem with being prepared? The main thing is to show the would- be backdoor immigrants that we are not a soft touch. Bias showed through again with the viewer feedback allowed on-screen. Only 1 supporting the Govt on the proposed legislation. Cant believe that was a fair selection of correspondence. Common TVNZ, balance please and I look forward to having Paul Holmes back running the Q&A show.
Guy is copying Bennett and Collins:
Step 1: Identify a group that never votes for you and that has no natural champion.
Step 2: Demonise the group without any supporting facts or with highly speculative scenarios
Step 3: Make some of your supporters fearful or bothered about this group. Help is always available from a malleable media hungry for shock stories.
Step 4: Say you are "going to fix the problem". Put on a serious face, frown a lot (tips from Collins).
Step 5: Table useless Legislation that keeps everyone distracted.
Step 6: Celebrated that no one is focusing on the incompetence of the National Party in Economic matters. Continue with ignoring the massive increase in Unemployment and the damage to people and society that ensues
That's quite funny but are you sure you are talking about the National Party Adam? It almost looks like a Labour Party manifesto? (if you swap illegal immigrants with with people who work hard for an above average wage...)
Soon enough asylum seekers will find, buy or build a boat solid enough to get here or strike favourable weather conditions. Anything is always possible and nz is very much a soft touch. Who would have though columbian drug criminals would have outsmarted much of the time by the USCG and Navy by building increasingly sophisticated submarines and submersibles.
The arguments that we have an obligation to these people is laughable, they have little in common with us and are usually ideologically incompatible, religiously incompatible and probably to a degree genetically incompatabile. Close the refugee centres and withdraw from the UN development agency.
I think navies like those of China,Japan and India patrolling off Somalia have shown they are those most likely to open fire against Somali pirates.And sooner or later I believe the RAN or Aussie coastguard will open fire with lethal force against these illegal immigrants. The Italians determined to stop illegal immigration from North Africa will do the same.And there will be harder line Republican administration in the US than Bush or McCain that will find it perfectly easy to build a effective fence on the frontier and through many of the illegals over it. There isn't any other way to stop undesirable immigration as putting them in detention camps or processing centres indicates they have a good chance. Possibly Argentina indicates their are limits to the extent and type of melting pot you want.
My point about the Columbian drug subs is that uneducated criminals have created submarines and submersibles of increasingly real sophistication,which place a daunting threat to even the most sophisticated militaries on earth.Submersibles created at small cost and highly seaworthy. To get money and the freedom it brings, they have created seacraft of genuis which are a massive threat and trojan horse .to the safety,happiness and security of the west. Ruthlessness is the only answer.
Those who vigoroulsy advocate the rights of these boat people are usually communists like Helen Kelly.Kelly stands for the dictatorship by ordinary men ,unionists and Islamists. Those like Fran O'Sullivan who express support for Kelly as an enlightened political leader and contempt for Condi Rice as O'Sullivan did as well as slavering with delight over Hillary Clinton who is pro Palestine and Islamic Brotherhood rule in Syria and Egypt ,are hardly on the side of the West.
Yeah I'll start worrying about this when the first boat actually gets within 200 nautical miles of NZ. Which isn't going to happen as it's vastly (as in 50 times) easier to reach Australia. People smugglers aren't idiots - that's left for politicians. They can deliver people to Australia faster and cheaper and in greater safety than to this part of the world. Faster = quicker turnaround = greater profit. Not rocket science is it.
Straight to the point and well written! Why can't everyone else be like this?