On April 19 this year, a Tongan man in South Auckland was apprehended in a dawn raid by six immigration officers, who later told King’s Counsel Mike Heron it "did not have the hallmarks of a Dawn Raid", according to Newsroom.
The Immigration New Zealand employees also, gobsmackingly, informed Mr Heron, the author of an independent review for the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment on the practice, that no advice had been given to compliance officers to stop using such methods, despite the formal apology almost two years earlier.
This suggests a department working in isolation and blissful ignorance of the government of the day. It also makes the prime minister’s apology appear nothing more than a sham.
No wonder many in the Pasifika community say Ms Ardern’s words ring hollow, when Dawn Raid-style operations remained legal. How can there be such a gaping disconnect between the Beehive and the bureaucracy? Mr Heron’s report, released earlier this week, concluded the Government needed to look at banning, or further restricting, "out-of-hours" operations, as they are now euphemistically called.
He said no changes had been made to immigration law or Immigration NZ policy since the 2021 apology. Neither had immigration ministers, the agency or MBIE, in which it sits, altered practice as a consequence. This seems incredible, given Mr Heron points out that Immigration NZ officials actually attended the apology ceremony.
"It is perhaps unusual that no thought seems to have been given to out-of-hours activity by the relevant minister or senior officials," Mr Heron said.
"It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that INZ gets this right," Mr Heron said.
It certainly is. Yet how much confidence can we place in the Government to do that, given it is only three months to the election and the windy corridors of Wellington are moving into a state of suspended animation?
Little, isolated, protected New Zealand has always been suspicious of outsiders and immigrants, even when they have been desperately needed to fill jobs and keep the economy moving. It is one of our least endearing national characteristics.
The Dawn Raids began on the watch of Norman Kirk’s Labour government in 1974, at a time when the economy was tanking and unemployment was rising, due to the oil shock and the United Kingdom joining the European Economic Community. Overstayers became a convenient target for frustration. Dawn Raids were also carried out with zest by Robert Muldoon’s National government, before even he baulked at the brutality of the method and how morally and legally dodgy it was, and brought it to an end in 1976.
Early morning is when most people are feeling most susceptible, and deliberately carrying them out at that time of day maximised their cruelty and shamefulness.
Immigration Minister Andrew Little’s comments on Mr Heron’s report do not give much room for reassurance, although he did tell Newsroom he would take some recommendations to Cabinet soon: "I wouldn’t want to remove the ability for immigration officers to take action out-of-hours when it is an absolute last resort and appropriate to do so."
New Zealanders need to be informed, or reminded, just what such instances might be. Regardless of their necessity, for a country which both prides itself on its concern for human rights and lectures other nations about their failings, it remains a very bad look indeed to resort to cover of darkness to detain people.
