Hon Amy Adams
Minister of Justice

Hon Michael Woodhouse
Minister of Police

30 September 2015

Criminal information sharing arrangement reached with Australia

Justice Minister Amy Adams and Police Minister Michael Woodhouse today announced that an information sharing arrangement with Australia regarding trans-Tasman deportations has been signed by both countries.

The arrangement follows a commitment made in February by the New Zealand and Australian Prime Ministers to progress an arrangement covering information sharing and deportations.

The terms of the arrangement have been agreed by Ministers Adams and Woodhouse and Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton, and signed by relevant officials in both countries.

Minister Adams says, “A key issue when dealing with offenders being deported back to New Zealand has been obtaining reliable information about the individual and their current risk profile.

“This information gap has been one of the barriers to ensuring that New Zealand agencies can effectively manage the risk of offenders deported back to New Zealand. By having a fuller picture about the backgrounds of offenders who return to New Zealand, we will be in a stronger position to monitor and supervise those who pose a serious threat to the public,” Ms Adams says.

Minister Woodhouse says, “This arrangement will provide New Zealand agencies with up to six months advance notice of potential upcoming deportations, and provide for the sharing of information prior to arrival that will help New Zealand better manage the return of New Zealand citizens such as criminal conviction records, summary of offences, case history, gang connections, fingerprints and photographs.

“It’s a significant improvement on what Australia has been able to provide New Zealand and gives Police the information they need to make more informed assessments about the risks posed by deported offenders,” Mr Woodhouse says.

The information provided by Australia, combined with the register announced by Minister Adams in July, will provide New Zealand authorities with greater oversight of who exactly is arriving here, and when.

While the Prime Minister has indicated his intention to raise with Prime Minister Turnbull New Zealand’s concerns around the scope of the deportation policy, it remains critical that we have a robust system to assess the risk of those who are deported back to New Zealand and this arrangement is a core part of that.

“I’m pleased progress has been made with the signing of this arrangement. I want to acknowledge the contribution and efforts of our Australian counterparts and New Zealand Police to get this over the line,” Mr Woodhouse says.

"Now that the Trans-Tasman information sharing arrangement is in place with Australia, we are able to progress a legislative supervision regime for offenders who are returned to New Zealand after recently serving a prison sentence overseas,” Ms Adams says.

“The intention of this new regime will be to provide essentially the same sort of oversight these offenders would have faced had they served their prison sentence in New Zealand. I expect to take a paper to Cabinet to confirm these arrangements shortly.”

ENDS

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