• Source:
A Rotorua district councillor has expressed concern about children growing up in motels next door to gang members and Australia s 501 deportees. Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait. Source: Local Democracy Reporting
By Felix Desmarais, Local Democracy Reporter
Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait made the comments at a council Strategy, Policy and Finance Committee meeting on Thursday as part of discussions surrounding a draft council plan to address community safety.
So-called 501 deportees are criminal New Zealand citizens deported from Australia.
They are named for the section of the Australian Immigration Act that allowed visas to be stripped from New Zealand residents who had disqualified themselves on character grounds.
A Rotorua district councillor has expressed concern about children growing up in motels next door to gang members and Australia s 501 deportees.
Some people in motels are in survival mode, Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait says.
Photo: LDR / Rotorua Daily Post
Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait made the comments at a council Strategy, Policy and Finance Committee meeting on Thursday as part of discussions surrounding a draft council plan to address community safety.
So-called 501 deportees are criminal New Zealand citizens deported from Australia.
They are named for the section of the Australian Immigration Act that allowed visas to be stripped from New Zealand residents who had disqualified themselves on character grounds.
Rotorua was ranked second-worst for shoplifting, fourth worst for assault and fifth worst for vehicle theft. “We do have to look at the statistics in Rotorua of the high crime victimisation rate,” said council operations group manager Jocelyn Mikaere. “We want to be the safest place to live and raise a family, we don’t think that’s impossible.” She said council has increased City Guardian patrols, introduced temporary alcohol bans in certain hotspots and extended CCTV coverage. The plan also proposes further extending CCTV coverage to Fenton St – the location for many of the motels used to house the homeless – and plans for “activities with families living in motels to enhance inclusion, participation and pro-social behaviour”.
Rotorua s homeless: Fears for children in motels growing up next to 501s, gang members nzherald.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzherald.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
TONY WALL CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF Motels in Rotorua are now filled with emergency housing clients instead of tourists.
Government agencies and social service providers deny they are shipping homeless people to Rotorua to fill motels left empty by the Covid crisis. But there is evidence that many of those in emergency housing in the tourist town are from other centres. Tony Wall investigates.
Allaneice Tautari and Temple Haimona-Young feel like refugees in their own country.
Originally from Hawke s Bay, over the past month the young couple – expecting their first child in May – have been homeless in Wellington and now Rotorua.