Repeat offender being deported to NZ

A man with 47 convictions, including a string of violent assaults, is being deported to New Zealand from Australia.

After three times being given a reprieve from deportation for his criminal offending, the 45-yearold failed in his most recent bid to stay in Australia when he faced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia earlier this month.

He will leave six children – two whom are minors – and two grandchildren behind in Australia.

His long list of criminal offences includes a number of violent assaults, as well as dozens of driving and property offences.

The man arrived in Australia for the first time in 1997, then left, before returning in 2007. He immediately began offending.

But his most recent jail sentence, for which he is facing deportation, came in 2020. The tribunal heard that he was given 20 months after he pleaded guilty to attacking a man who had stopped to offer him a helping hand while he was shopping.

The man jumped into the victim’s car, held a knife to him and told him he could kill him, then hit the man in the head, splitting it open. He then punched the victim twice and told him to turn off the car, but the victim jumped from the car and ran, the tribunal heard.

The man also punched a stranger in the head in 2008 after he mistook him for someone else. In 2010, he attacked both his partner and a bar manager who tried to intervene.

In his appeal, the man said both he and his family – two minor dependent children and four adult children – would suffer if he was deported to New Zealand.

He also noted that he was on the waiting list for a full replacement of his left hip.

But the tribunal’s presiding member, Chris Puplick, said the man’s history of repeat offending was too much to overlook.

‘‘He has demonstrated, on more than one occasion, a contempt for the law and an unwillingness to change his offending behaviour,’’ Puplick wrote in his decision.

Puplick also noted that while the man had suffered from drug dependency and mental health problems, there was no evidence that he had ever sought to address those.

The man also has a record of offending in New Zealand, where he has at least 35 offences to his name, starting in 1994.