Ardern, Peters differ on refugees again

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says fears of asylum-seekers and refugees using New Zealand as a back door to Australia can be dealt with through a law change, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says that’s not on the cards.

Australia has used that concern as a reason why it will not take up New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 refugees from Nauru and Manus islands.

“If the issue was that that was their concern, that by letting them come to New Zealand they will gain rights to Australia, we can fix that up,” Peters said in Nauru yesterday.

Peters suggested laws could be changed so that people resettled in New Zealand were not able to travel to the country they had originally planned on going to.

“If that was the greatest concern, and you really had a sense of humanity and that was the barrier — and I don’t believe it is — we could accommodate it.”

Ardern, who arrives in Nauru today, said any law changes were an issue for Australia, and New Zealand was not considering any legislation to allay Australian concerns over back-door entry fears.

“That is a matter for them, it is a matter for their law, and has no effect on our offer,” she told reporters.

Peters also had a subtle dig at New Zealand First’s government coalition partner Labour over conflicting comments on increasing the refugee quota in New Zealand. Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Immigration Minister Iain LeesGalloway have all been clear that Labour was working towards increasing the quota from 1000 to 1500, but Peters has poured cold water on that, saying his party had never agreed to it.

Yesterday he said any discussion about taking the 150 refugees from Nauru and Manus would be a shared discussion.

“We have sign off as a proper process that goes through Cabinet where everybody knows exactly what the standards and criteria would be. [We can’t have speculation] on the basis of individual party policy which has not been through the process . . . and therefore not official.”