Meth dealer sent back to NZ fears for mental health

A 40-year-old who has lived in Australia since he was a teenager has been booted back to New Zealand for trafficking drugs.

Phillip Smith is among a growing number of Kiwis known as the ‘501s’ – people who have had their Australian visas revoked on character grounds.

Smith’s case was outlined in a recently released decision from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia.

It heard he moved to Australia in 1999 when he was 17. Over the next 15 years, he racked up 40 traffic infringements, including 20 for speeding and one for drug-driving.

He started using methamphetamine sometime between 1999 and 2004 and said it became a problem in early 2015.

‘‘His drug use escalated and he ‘pretty much straightaway’ started selling drugs to live and to support his dependency,’’ the tribunal’s decision said.

Over the next three years, Smith was convicted of a number of drug-related offences, including multiple counts of possessing dangerous drugs and drug paraphernalia.

In 2018, he was arrested and convicted of trafficking meth and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

At his sentencing in the Supreme Court of Queensland, the judge said Smith had been caught on the Gold Coast following a police investigation which included covert surveillance and phone-tapping.

The investigation revealed he trafficked meth over a period of nearly 11 months and had at least 10 regular customers.

‘‘You supplied to both drug sellers as well as recreational drug users and you knew that several of those customers were on-supplying to other people. So extending the misery in the community,’’ the judge told him.

The court also heard Smith had trafficked drugs while on bail and probation for earlier offending.

Smith’s visa was cancelled due to his offending and he was removed to New Zealand, at his request, while he appealed that move. He said he was ‘‘very embarrassed and ashamed of his offending’’, according to the decision.

Smith said his mental health would ‘‘decline rapidly’’ if he had to remain in New Zealand permanently, as his contact with his family in Australia, which includes a 21-year-old daughter, had been ‘‘extremely limited’’.

The tribunal accepted Smith was remorseful and his family would suffer if he never returned to Australia, but he had ‘‘demonstrated a mentality, over many years, that it is all right to break certain laws’’.

The decision means Smith cannot return to Australia.