The Australian government has defended the controversial removal of a 15-year-old child to New Zealand, with officials telling a parliamentary committee “the juvenile requested removal”.
The Australian Greens senator, Nick McKim, questioned officials on Monday regarding the latest flashpoint in cross-Tasman relations and cast doubt on the claim the action was voluntary “particularly if that child has been coerced by being in some form of detention”.
Australia’s secretive deportation of a 15-year-old boy, alone, to a country he barely knows, has attracted anger in New Zealand. The NZ children’s commissioner, judge Andrew Becroft, has said, based on a briefing, that it appeared Australia breached its international legal obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child.
The secretary of Australia’s home affairs department, Michael Pezzullo, said he could only assume Becroft had received a briefing from his own staff.
“With all due respect, I don’t think he’s an expert on Australia’s compliance with its own international obligations,” Pezzullo told the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee on Monday. “We would respectfully disagree with his honour.”
While the precise circumstances remain unclear, Australian government officials offered the most detailed defence of their handling of the minor’s case at the Canberra hearing.
Asked whether the department had weighed up the best interests of the 15-year-old, Pezzullo said: “We would say that the determination was made lawfully.”
Pip de Veau, the general counsel of the Department of Home Affairs, said it was “a mandatory [visa] cancellation triggered by the conviction” as a matter of law.
“Secondly, the juvenile requested removal,” de Veau told the Senate committee.
“Obviously a great deal of negotiation was then entered into in relation to family members in various countries and the like. I don’t want to go into too much more detail, but it’s probably useful to know, because that request aspect distinguishes it from a standard … deportation case.
“There was a [visa] cancellation under law and then the removal or return to New Zealand at this point in time involved the request of the young person.”
The young person was represented by NSW Legal Aid, de Veau said.
Asked if the child was in immigration detention before being deported, de Veau confirmed the teenager was placed in an alternative place of detention “for a very short period of time”.
McKim suggested that a child would not be capable of making an informed request “to be sent to another country, particularly if that child has been coerced by being in some form of detention”.
He asked: “Did you seek legal advice on whether there was a coercive element that risked this apparent request being made under duress?”
De Veau replied: “Absolutely, not only was legal advice sought but advice not of a legal nature but as to the capacity of the child was obtained and arrangements were made in relation to New Zealand guardianship.”
McKim was unconvinced. He told the Senate committee: “Any reasonable person would look at this case and make a decision that the child was actually coerced by the fact that they were in immigration detention and previously in a custodial detention regime and in fact they were not capable of making an informed decision as a minor to be deported.”
Pezzullo said he rejected McKim’s inference that the 15-year-old may have felt coerced or compelled. Australia, he said, “would have done everything within our power to ensure they were appropriately represented and fully informed”.
McKim asked whether the department would “consider this child to be trash” – a reference to recent comments by the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, about Australia’s program of removals of non-citizens with criminal convictions.
“The department wouldn’t consider any human being to be trash, but it’s a rhetorical question,” Pezzullo replied.
Some 1,029 people were forcibly removed from Australia in the past financial year, the second-highest number on record.
The number of deportations under the notorious section 501 of Australia’s Migration Act has increased nearly tenfold in under a decade. In 2012-13, just 139 people were removed. In 2013-14, that figure was just 76.
A spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Greg Barns SC, said last week the child’s removal could not be cast as “voluntary”, even if he had agreed to go, because “it’s a vulnerable 15-year-old kid, up against a government that was holding him”.
