Australia ‘will stonewall visit’

Labour MP Kelvin Davis expects Australian authorities to block his attempt to meet Kiwi detainees on Christmas Island.

Speaking from the island on Sunday, Davis said he had handdelivered application forms to visit a man, Lester Hohua, after he arrived on Saturday but was not confident of getting the nod before he was due to leave on Tuesday.

‘‘It takes about 24 hours . . . we are not expecting that will be the case. We think immigration will find any excuse to stonewall us,’’ he said. He had been communicating with several detainees by phone, but ‘‘there’s nothing like seeing someone eye to eye and seeing physically how well they are and all that sort of stuff.’’

Davis said he had looked down on the detention centre from a nearby hill and it was a prison, with fences and razor wire.

‘‘We have to call a spade a spade, they are prisoners. These people are inmates, they are not detainees. It’s just semantics.’’

It had taken him 20 hours to get from Sydney to the island, which is in the Indian Ocean 2600km north-west of Perth.

He said the Australian Government argued detainees did not have to stay in the camps but could go back to New Zealand while their visa applications were considered, but that was ‘‘an easy escape clause for Australia’’. Bearing in mind these people think they are Australian more than New Zealanders.

‘‘If they go to New Zealand to wait for their application, just to get out of these hell holes . . . then Australia can just say ‘you’re denied’ and these people have no way of getting back in.’’

He said they had lives in Australia and often jobs, partners and children.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Andrew Little has called on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to keep his commitment to give individual circumstances of Kiwis in Australia facing deportation more consideration after reports a tetraplegic was dumped at Auckland Airport.

The 56-year-old, who has spent the past 36 years living across the Tasman reportedly arrived with only $200 and an accommodation voucher for one week.

The man said he had been jailed for self-medicating with controlled painkillers and has no friends or family here.

Non-citizens, including Kiwis, can be deported from Australia if they have been sentenced to at least one year in jail.

Turnbull held talks with Little and Prime Minister John Key in Auckland on Saturday but said the policy applied to all and refused to bend.

But he said more resources would be put into speeding up the appeal process for those wanting to stay in Australia.