Deportations from NZ to Tonga's Ha'apai slammed

Transcript

There are fresh calls for New Zealand to stop deporting Tongan overstayers back to the islands of Ha'apai devastated by Cyclone Ian in January.

As Karen Mangnall reports a New Zealand lawyer who's just visited Ha'apai says conditions are worse than expected with many families still in tents, failed crops, a water shortage and high rates of depression and illness.

Cyclone Ian destroyed or seriously damaged three-quarters of the houses in the Ha'apai group.

 Lawyer Richard Small has just visited the three main islands to assess conditions for clients who are facing deportation. He says there's still huge devastation.

RICHARD SMALL: That was not unexpected but the lack of progress with the rebuild took us by surprise. Many people are living in tents and those that are not living in tents are living half or completely under canvas.

About 500 houses were destroyed and 141 of them are in the urgent queue for cyclone houses funded by the World Bank. But Richard Small says building has only started on 40 and, at that rate, it will take five years to finish.

RICHARD SMALL: And that doesn't include houses that have been half-wrecked and damage to gardens, damage to fishing nets, lost boats - a community of 7000 plus people effectively forgotten, they feel, and clearly in distress.

Salese Tu'akoi was deported to Tonga in October last year and was staying with relatives on one of Ha'apai's outlying islands when the cyclone hit. His wife Taufa is still in New Zealand. She says he can't find a job and is deeply depressed.

SALESE TU'AKOI: The only thing he do is just help out with going to the plantation and getting food for the family. So there is nothing for him to do financially to get something he can live on, no.

Crops on the islands were destroyed by the cyclone and there's now a water shortage after a long drought.
Taufa Tu'akoi says families there are barely managing and deporting anyone to Ha'apai will make things worse.

TAUFA TU'AKOI: They are struggling to eat, find something to eat and drink, how can they feed these people if the Government sends them back? If we send more, it will be a disaster.

Richard Small has more than half a dozen appeals before the associate Minister of Immigration, Craig Foss, to halt deportation for clients originally from the Ha'apai group.

RICHARD SMALL: It would be completely unconscionable to send people back to that situation but also families in Ha'apai, the community is crying out for people to send money back. They have got plenty of hands to do reconstruction, they don't need extra mouths.

Community leaders in Ha'apai have proposed New Zealand allocate them an extra 100 places for horticultural workers under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme. The president of Auckland's Tongan Advisory Council, Melino Maka, supports the idea.

MELINO MAKA: People live in desperation at the moment and I think this is the time when New Zealand should open up opportunities for those from Ha'apai. They can actually come here and work here and also money will actually go directly to assist the rebuild of family homes because at the moment there is nothing there from the Tongan government.

Melino Maka says with so many families still in tents relatives in NZ can only prey that Ha'apai doesn't get another cyclone this season.