New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.

Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.

The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.

Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.

Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.

Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.

Deportation policies
However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.

In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.

The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.

When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.

“The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.

“I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.

“So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”

Pacific nation difficulties
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.

In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.

These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.

New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.

Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.

“I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.

“I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”

This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand government is considering more action to crack down on violent gang behaviour but has dismissed the idea of a ban on wearing gang patches in public.

There have been a number of shootings and arson attacks in Auckland and Northland in recent weeks linked to escalating tensions between the Killer Beez and Tribesmen.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Morning Report the government had asked police what other tools they wanted.

She said she expected to receive further advice soon.

She said changes had been made to widen the criteria for asset seizures and firearm prevention orders legislation was currently before select committee.

It was clear that the current outbreak of violence centred on escalating tensions between two gangs and the clear advice from experts was about the need “to come down hard on that behaviour”.

The police had taken such action with multiple arrests, multiple search warrants executed and 600 rounds of ammunition seized.

‘More tools needed?’
“We’ve asked them [police] to tell us in that environment are there more tools that you need,” she said.

The government had met them again last week and she was expecting more advice from them soon.

“We are moving as fast as we can where the police identify issues we can support them on.”

New policy would not go before cabinet later today — changes did not happen in a day or a week but the government was seeking to have the work expedited.

Asked if it would include increased stop and search powers and banning gang patches in public as suggested by opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon on Saturday, she said the police were in the best position to identify what would work best.

“This idea of gang patch bans — it’s been tried in other countries. It’s often a reactionary response you can see from politicians and when they’ve gone back and looked at whether it’s made a difference, review after review in different parts, for instance in Australia, has proved it hasn’t.

“Why don’t we put our energy into things that are going to make a difference.”

She invited National to bring forward other ideas on what would help solve violence from gangs.

“We will be engaging in the ones that the police tell us will make the biggest difference.”

Asked about changes affecting Māori in particular, she said any proposed legislation always went through a Bill of Rights process.

“But what we also always factor in are New Zealanders’ rights and their sense of safety and at present we see an escalation in tensions between gangs. Their behaviour includes examples of blatant lawlessness and that needs to be addressed.”

Reception from new Australian government pleasing
Ardern has hailed her visit to Sydney as a “reset” of a trans-Tasman relationship which had soured in recent years — primarily over Australia’s intransigent stance on its “501” deportation policy.

Following talks with new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, after which he said he had “listened” to New Zealand’s concern, Ardern said it was a significant improvement on any feedback she had received from Canberra previously.

She agreed Australia has stated its clear intention to continue to deport people which was exactly the same as New Zealand’s approach.

It was those “at the extreme end” of the spectrum who were in effect Australians with no connections to Aotearoa that the government was most concerned about being sent here, she said.

It had secured from Albanese a commitment to look at that aspect.

“We’ve not received a reception like that to these issues for a number of years.”

With a ministerial meeting due to be held in three weeks Ardern said she will be looking for signs of progress but it was too soon to expect a timeframe for action.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz