A father of three who has never met one of his children as a free man, has become possibly the first deportee to New Zealand to win his visa back under Australia's toughened immigration laws.
Photo: AAP
Adam Taylor said he cried when he opened an email yesterday from Australian authorities saying he had won the right to go back to his family in Perth from what had been an indefinite exile in Auckland.
But he still believed Prime Minister John Key was wrong last November to say deportees had as good a prospect of appealing from New Zealand as they did if they stayed in detention in Australia.
He said he had friends here who had been waiting longer than him for a ruling on their appeals - though they were taking hope from his win.
Mr Taylor served a jail sentence for unlawful wounding and chose to be deported to Auckland last August rather than be sent to Christmas Island.
His youngest daughter was born while he was in prison, and a son was only three months old when he began his sentence.