Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Another common-sense move from Erica Stanford

Okay, once again - not for the first time on this show and probably not the last - thank goodness for Erica Stanford.

Normally, she’s righting wrongs in education but today it’s her other portfolio: immigration.

She has just introduced legislation to Parliament that would make it possible for New Zealand to say no to asylum seekers if they have committed a serious offence in this country. It might blow your mind to learn that this isn’t currently the case.

Right now, if someone comes to New Zealand and says, “I need to be a refugee” and then goes on to commit a serious offence before their refugee status has been decided - so no decision has been taken at the time - the officials making that decision are not allowed to take into account the fact that the person has committed a crime in New Zealand.

That is bonkers, isn’t it?

And it’s not theoretical. It has happened and it is happening. There are 14 asylum seekers in New Zealand awaiting a decision who have been convicted of serious offences: murder, serious sexual offences, serious drug offences and arson.

Under this change, those crimes will now be considered - and I hope to God in every one of those cases it’s a big, fat no. We do not need murderers in this country.

Apparently, though, we are a soft touch globally. What’s happening here is actually not unusual. Around the world, it’s standard practice to take into account crimes committed in country before granting refugee status.

The EU has rules that allow refugee status to be stripped for criminal offending. Australia goes even further — it has passed laws allowing refugee status to be revoked altogether, even after someone has already been declared a refugee.

So prepare yourselves for the usual hand-wringing from the usual suspects. But this is yet another example of Erica Stanford doing something that’s just plain common sense.

Yes, absolutely, we have a duty to protect people from persecution if they would come to harm by returning to their home country. But our first duty is to protect our own people.

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