Nine years after the then respective Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and John Key signed the deal, the first group of refugees from Nauru and Manus Island have arrived in New Zealand.

The federal government confirmed recently that the first group of refugees to be resettled in New Zealand, from Australia’s offshore processing centres, has landed in Auckland.

Under the refugee resettlement deal, New Zealand agreed to take a total of 450 refugees in detention.

“The Australian and New Zealand governments continue to work together to resettle annually 150 refugees from Australia’s existing regional processing cohort,” a statement from Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said.  

Reports says 92 refugees remain on Nauru and a similar number in Papua and New Guinea where Australia’s offshore processing centre was found to be illegal and forced to close. 

The Coalition government, elected shortly after the deal was struck in 2013, was reluctant to follow through with the agreement over concerns it could mean refugees who go to New Zealand try and travel back to Australia and settle permanently here.

The deal applied only to refugees already in detention, and not to future asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

Four Rohingya men from Myanmar, one from Sudan and one from Cameroon, each of whom had been held on Nauru for more than eight years, flew to Auckland.

In 2019 Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie revealed she struck a deal with the Morrison government in 2019 that involved accepting New Zealand’s offer in return for her support for the dumping of so-called medivac laws.

A spokesperson for New Zealand’s immigration minister confirmed a flight left Nauru destined for New Zealand with an initial six refugees on board.

A separate direct deal between PNG and New Zealand will allow for refugees previously held within Australia’s offshore centre on Manus Island to be resettled in New Zealand.

That scheme has already seen one Iranian man, his Papua New Guinean wife and their child resettled in New Zealand.