Australia is keeping many New Zealanders (by name only) in detention centres.

OPINION: Mean. Hostile. Unforgiving. Harsh. A breach of the most basic of human rights. But legal all at the same time.

That's how I would describe the Australian Government's approach to the almost 200 so-called New Zealanders currently being held in the most inhospitable of conditions at the Serco run detention centres.

But who cares, right? These are former criminals.

Australia looks like the Guantanamo of the South Pacific.

It's certainly not something we would do on this side of Tasman. We would not even consider it. We don't have to.

We've sent just two Australians home since January of this year. Australia has deported 151 Kiwis over the same period. Now another 200 wait with uncertain futures.

They have families, partners, children, wives and husbands whose lives depend on some certainty.

They have done bad things. We get that. They have served time in jail for serious offences. We get that, too. To serve time in jail you need to have done something stupid, silly and potentially nasty.

But these people have been held for months without charge or legal representation. They have done the crime and served the time.

Now they are being punished again by a slightly paranoid Australian Government playing heavy and hard to a domestic audience that loves a good immigration crack-down.

So much for the Aussies being our closest friends.

This shows we are just another foreign country. Only Iran has more detainees in those centres.

I was in the Parliamentary Press Gallery when former Australian PM, Julia Gillard, described us as family. It was an impressive speech and it gave everyone the warm fuzzies.

But it clearly meant nothing. It was mere spin and marketing.

These New Zealanders on "detention row" are barely Kiwis, if at all. If they'd applied for Aussie citizenship after four years they would be Australia's problem.

They have tenuous links to New Zealand at best. Many have been in Australia for decades. They are products of Australia. Home is Australia.

Sending them back to New Zealand is like sending them offshore. They have few family members here, if any at all.

And the truth is Australia doesn't want them any more than New Zealand wants them back. They are Pacific refugees in many ways. Are they really New Zealand's problem? I would argue, no.

But I'm critical of the New Zealand Government in all this, too.

Where on earth have our officials in Canberra been? And what have they been up to?

It's all very well sipping cocktails and hobnobbing (which MFAT does well) but they've clearly not been doing their job.

The minister in charge of all this sent a text to get to the bottom of it. How bloody insulting to all concerned. We look like lap-dogs. And we are.

This Government looks asleep.

Only now has Justice Minister Amy Adams raised concerns. Too little. Too late.

Yes Australia look mean-spirited and nasty, but no one should be surprised.

Australia is much, much closer to the immigration action and boat people regularly threaten Australia's borders.

Hence the need for the immigration crack-down. I get that.

But lumping in the so-called Kiwis with everyone else leaves me cold towards our neighbours.

We aren't special. We are not even close. The Aussies are tougher and more brash than us. We are far too nice and accepting.

Indeed we didn't even get sent the memo.

Our law-abiding citizens get a raw deal in Australia, we should not be surprised about this, one bit.

I suggest Prime Minister John Key use some of that political capital that he clearly has with the new Aussie PM, Malcolm Turnbull.

He needs to talk to him as a matter of priority. This needs to be elevated. Hundreds of people's lives rest on a solution.

Put the flaky panda and flag vanity projects on hold.

I know these people aren't angels. But that doesn't mean human rights and decency go totally out the window.