A 56-year-old who was born in New Zealand has been denied Australian citizenship due to his lengthy criminal record, despite having lived in Australia since he was a teen and having a parent who is an Australian citizen. 

Deportation to New Zealand is likely the next step for Joseph Alfred Smith, who was transferred to a detention centre in Western Australia after completing a prison sentence for trafficking in dangerous drugs in 2020. 

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal, considered one of Australia's last chances for those who have been denied citizenship or ordered deported under the nation's 501 immigration policy, rejected Smith's application in a judgment released last week. 

Smith had applied for citizenship by descent, which is open to anyone born overseas whose parent was an Australian citizen at the time of birth. 

"The applicant has repeatedly and seriously disrespected the laws of Australia," said tribunal deputy president Stephen Boyle, who authored the decision. "The enduring moral quality demonstrated by the applicant for about the whole of his time in Australia has been a contempt for the law and the Australian community." 

Smith's application for citizenship, which came after Australia took steps to expel him as a 501 deportee, was initially rejected by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs last June. Even with a parent who is a citizen, an applicant who was born overseas must meet a "good character" standard to receive citizenship in Australia themselves. 

While many of Smith's prior offences were property- and drug-related, immigration lawyer Jennifer Samuta acknowledged in the appeal that her client had a long criminal history dating back to 1985, the year he first arrived in Australia. 

"It is conceded that some of these offences were violent offences, but on the whole our client's criminal offending has not included any of [the] offences listed as serious in [the citizenship procedural instructions issued by the Department of Immigration] ... including murder, sexual assault, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or crimes against children," she noted. 

"It is submitted that the underlying causes of our client's offending behaviour is caused by a relapse into drug use caused by depression." 

In reaching its decision, the tribunal listed 23 convictions for Smith dating back to 1991, culminating in the 2019 drug trafficking conviction in Queensland that resulted in a sentence of two-and-a-half years' prison. Smith's testimony about his drug offending during the tribunal hearing was characterised in the judgment as "evasive and unconvincing". 

Several offences, including assaults in 2005 and 2018, showed "a history of using violence and criminal behaviour to address issues in his life", the tribunal noted. 

In December 2018, Smith broke into the home of two people known to him and kicked open the bedroom door while holding a metal bar, threatening to "smash [their] heads in". A woman was pushed against the bedroom wall, while a man fled the room and called police. 

In 2020, while in an immigration detention centre following his drug trafficking sentence, prosecutors pursued a 15-year-old assault charge. Crown prosecutor Tiffany Lawrence told local newspaper the Townsville Bulletin at the time that it wasn't known why the case had lingered so long at Rockhampton District Court. 

Smith pleaded guilty to the charge, which involved punching a houseguest in the face - resulting in stitches - after confronting the man about stealing from him. When confronted, the man offered Smith a watch as compensation, apparently not realising that the watch already belonged to Smith, having been a gift from his son, authorities said. 

Judge Jeff Clarke described the attack as an overreaction, the Bulletin reported. 

Smith's immigration lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment today. 

But barrister Jordan Ahlstrand, who represented Smith on the historic houseguest attack charge, previously told the Bulletin his client wanted to return to Queensland, where his four children live. His mother and four siblings live in New Zealand. 

Ahlstrand said his client left school at 16 and got a job as a steel fixer after arriving in Brisbane. His "excellent" employment history included work in demolition, house removal and construction, but he started using methamphetamine in 2014 after a workplace accident while building a bridge, he told the court. 

Smith's appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal included character references and certificates of participation in betterment programmes, including a letter of support from a counsellor at the Lives Lived Well residential drug rehabilitation centre in Rockhampton. But many of the letters of support seemed to be recycled from Smith's response to the effort to have him deported as a 501, the tribunal noted. 

"On any criterion, the applicant's criminal record is extensive and serious. That appears not to be disputed by the applicant, nor could it be," the tribunal stated in its decision 

"The refusal to grant citizenship is not a second form of punishment, which is the domain of the Criminal Courts," the tribunal reasoned, citing an immigration case from 2000 that has set a precedent for bad character citizenship rejections. "It is simply the right of the Australian community to decide whom they wish to have included as fellow citizens, which is a function of State." 

- by Craig Kapitan, NZ Herald