Parmjeet Parmar: No expiry date for serious crime

New Zealand’s promise to new arrivals is straightforward: contribute, obey our laws, and you can build a wonderful life here. But that promise carries an equally clear expectation – the privilege of residency cannot be abused. For those who are not citizens, this is a social contract, and it must be upheld.

The Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill, currently before Parliament, would strengthen New Zealand’s deportation settings in a number of meaningful ways. Most notably, it extends the period during which a resident can be deported for serious criminal offending – from 10 years to 20 years. The bill also broadens deportation liability at lower tiers of offending, recognising that the current settings have allowed some serious cases to fall through the gaps.

Under the existing framework in section 161 of the Immigration Act, deportation liability for residence class visa holders is graduated according to both the seriousness of the offending and how long the person has held residence. For offending committed within the first two years of residence, a person can be liable for deportation for an offence carrying a possible prison term of three months or more. Within the first five years, the threshold rises to offences carrying a possible prison term of two years or more. Within the first ten years, a person can be liable if sentenced to five years’ imprisonment or more.

The bill would extend each of those timeframes. The three-month threshold would apply for five years instead of two, the two-year threshold for ten years instead of five, and the five-year sentence threshold for fifteen years instead of ten. It would also add a new twenty-year timeframe for residence class visa holders sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment or more.

This is a welcome step. But it raises a fundamental question: if twenty years is justified for the most serious offenders, why stop there? Why should deportation liability expire at all for a resident who commits a serious crime?

A violent or predatory crime doesn’t become less serious with time. Setting an expiry date on deportation liability implies that an offence somehow becomes less offensive over the years – an idea that would be insulting to any victim. The harm is permanent; the consequences should reflect that.

This also leads to a commonsense question. If someone has lived in New Zealand for two decades, why haven’t they become a citizen?

For anyone truly committed to this country, citizenship is the natural final step. It is the point at which a person formally becomes part of New Zealand’s national family, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. The pathway is clear and the requirements are well-understood.

So if a long-term resident hasn’t taken that step, we have to ask why.

Perhaps they simply aren’t that committed to being a New Zealander. If so, it is hard to argue that New Zealand owes them a permanent, unconditional right to remain if they go on to betray our country’s hospitality by committing a serious crime.

But there is a more serious possibility. What if they are committed, and have tried to become a citizen, but were rejected? The most likely reason for that is failing the character requirements that every aspiring citizen must meet.

The character test is our basic safeguard. It exists to ensure that those granted the full rights of a New Zealander share our fundamental values, including respect for the law. If a person has been formally assessed as not meeting that standard, then allowing them to remain indefinitely – even after committing a serious crime – makes a mockery of the process. It puts the rights of a convicted criminal ahead of the safety of the community.

The distinction between a resident and a citizen must mean something. For law-abiding residents, it is simply a step on a journey. But for a serious criminal, that distinction must be our safeguard. The principle is simple: if you are not a citizen and you commit a serious crime, you forfeit the privilege of living here. Time should be no defence.

Parmjeet Parmar is a current ACT MP with a PhD in Biological Sciences, she has worked as as scientist, businesswoman and broadcaster.