LABOR has criticised the Federal Government for leaving a Melbourne man stateless after deporting him from Australia, despite having lived here for 36 years...
LABOR has criticised the Federal Government for leaving a Melbourne man stateless after deporting him from Australia, despite having lived here for 36 years. Robert Jovicic was deported to Serbia last year on character grounds because of his long criminal record involving burglaries to support his heroin habit. But the 38-year-old, who arrived in Australia when he was two from France with his Serbian-born parents, is now stateless and destitute because Serbia has refused to recognise him as a citizen. Labor's immigration spokesman Tony Burke has criticised Mr Jovicic's deportation, saying it was too harsh a punishment for the crimes he had committed.
"Nobody should ever be rendered stateless," he told ABC TV's Lateline program, which tonight broadcast details of Mr Jovicic's desperate plight to return to Australia.
"We've got a problem now of a punishment that appears to be going on in his life that is way out of whack, completely disproportionate to the crimes that's reported that he's been convicted of.
