A young Kiwi who had his Australian visa cancelled after suspicions he was an associate of the Comancheros will now be allowed to stay in Australia.

Amieki Junior Unu​ is 24 and has been living in Australia on and off since 2019.

Unu was set to be sent back to Aotearoa under section 501 of the Australian Migration Act, but he successfully appealed the decision at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia.

The Tribunal overturned the cancellation of Unu’s visa after it was decided he met the character test.

“The Tribunal hopes that Mr Unu’s interactions with the criminal justice system and the migration system, most recently through the cancellation of his Visa and a subsequent period of immigration detention, coupled with his desire to remain in this country to live and raise a family with his fiancée, and to also continue to provide for his family in New Zealand, will all act as protective factors to ensure that Mr Unu makes the most of the opportunity now provided to him to remain in the Australian community.”

Unu grew up in a council flat in Auckland. He went to a boarding school where he was exposed to alcohol on the weekends and began drinking. He went on to gain a diploma in engineering before moving to Australia.

He told the Tribunal he did not apply for jobs in his field of expertise and said he had returned to school to ‘make my mum happy’.

In March 2021, Unu was involved in what a sentencing magistrate described as a “quite serious episode” of drunken street violence.

Unu and people he knew were in Canberra. They fixated their attention on a car where a man and his wife were sitting.

“What then occurred was offending, which was explosive, random, against a vulnerable person who was seated inside his own car and not committing any offences. It was brutal, it was sustained in terms of there being five or six blows from the defendant to the complainant in the head region, a vulnerable area of the body, and this occurred in company.”

Unu said he was too drunk to remember, but agreed it was cowardly, unprovoked and completely disproportionate and will regret for a long time

A few months later, Unu was involved in a short fight where he punched the victim after a game of pool.

The victim, who fell backwards and was taken to Canberra Hospital, spent about four days in intensive care.

Unu said he thought at the time he was defending his colleague, but he resolved the problem in the wrong way.

He again said he was very drunk and could not recall.

Days after being sentenced and convicted on those charges, he was drinking at home with work colleagues, who the Australian Federal Police (AFP) he was associating with Comancheros members.

In January 2022 he was then pictured at the Comancheros “National Run” in Melbourne.

He told officers he was there to “support the boys”.

Unu was referred to in AFP information reported that a confidential source had provided that alleged he was a “nom for the Como’s”.

The source was classed as “usually reliable” and the credibility of the information was “probably true”.

Unu denied the report was about him and denied he was a nominee of the Comancheros.

Unu said he eventually encouraged his friend, Zach, to leave the gang, which he eventually did. And only hung out with again once after that.

“Mr Unu said he felt that if he had not been friends with Zack in the first place he would not have been in this situation with his Visa; that is, he blamed Zack and their friendship for the police thinking he was linked to the OMCG. He could not recall exactly when this falling out occurred.”

Unu has been detained at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre since October.

He gave evidence at the tribunal hearing and told them he came to Australia with his aunt and uncle to “get away from New Zealand”.

He accepted his offending happened at a “low point” in his life where he’d turned to alcohol and drugs.

Unu was hanging around with people who had “no benefit” for him and were focused on partying and drug use.

He went on to say he was striving to be a better person and his attitude “towards everything” had changed.

“It was not until he addressed his mental health and alcohol issues and thought about what he had done, which actions did not align with how his mother had raised him, that he recognised he needed a change for himself, his family and fiancée.”

He’d been young, foolish and easily manipulated.

Eventually after counselling and rehabilitation, Unu learnt he had a problem. “He loved alcohol but it did not love him” and it was not good for him.

He acknowledges he sometimes wants to drink, but he has support system in place with his partner and brother.

Unu told the Tribunal he would not “go out drinking” unless he was with his partner, because she is the ‘biggest deterrent’ to his getting drunk and becoming violent. He wants a life with her in Australia.