Kelvin Davis
MP for Te Tai Tokerau
Corrections spokesperson

MEDIA STATEMENT

1 August 2016

National’s failing locked up Kiwis in Oz.

The National Government has to do more to help the growing number of Kiwis being locked up in Australia’s detention centres, Labour’s Correction spokesperson Kelvin Davis says.

“Now that New Zealanders are the biggest group in the immigration detention centres – the Government surely must acknowledge that they’ve underestimated the problem.

“The newly released figures show 1577 people are held in Australia’s immigration detention centres, 199 of them New Zealanders.

“National has to step up and start doing something positive for people who are being treated unfairly and often brutally and inhumanely.

“National should be standing up to Australia and calling out their hideous human rights records while fighting to protect the rights of all New Zealanders who continue to be treated horrendously.

“Australia’s character test law change has had a hugely negative impact on individuals and families but it’s even worse for those who are being shipped off to Christmas Island.

“This policy is cruel and senseless. The National Government needs to start taking the human rights of New Zealanders in Australia seriously,” Kelvin Davis says.

ends

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