Deported criminals’ location to be secret

AUCKLAND: The Government is refusing to reveal where New Zealand criminals deported from Australia will be housed for isolation amid concerns the highsecurity facility will be a ‘‘magnet for attention’’.

A total of 30 New Zealanders will be deported from Australia this week, in a resumption of the controversial practice that had been on hold due to the Covid19 lockdown in both countries.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins told Newstalk ZB yesterday that New Zealanders being deported from Australia due to their criminal convictions would be housed in their own special, secure facility.

Where that facility is would remain under wraps.

‘‘They’ll be staying at a dedicated hotel. It will have extra security attached to it,’’ Mr Hipkins said.

‘‘We’re doing this because we have to, not because we want to.

‘‘This is Australia exporting their problems to New Zealand and we have long disagreed with their policy of deporting these people.’’

When asked why the Government was being so tightlipped, Mr Hipkins replied ‘‘for a variety of reasons’’.

‘‘We don’t want it to become a magnet for attention.

‘‘Ultimately, these people have done their time.

‘‘They’ve been deported from Australia but there are actually no grounds to detain them.

‘‘We couldn’t put them in prison for example. That wouldn’t be justified.’’

When asked if they would be put in a military base, Hipkins said they would be housed ‘‘somewhere where they will be secure for the period of their isolation’’.

‘‘They are being deported from Australia . . . We have to find a way to ensure that these people can reenter New Zealand safely and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.’’

He said the Government was still ‘‘a week or two’’ away from revealing how much it will charge New Zealanders for their twoweek isolation stint in hotels.

Mr Hipkins said talks were yet to reach Cabinet as there were still ‘‘a variety of issues in how we work through that’’.

There were ‘‘some legitimate things’’ that the Government still needed to iron out and he wanted any charge to be fair. — The New Zealand Herald