People with citizenship by descent cannot automatically pass that on to their children if they, too, are born overseas. That means Ruddock\u2019s children, born in the United States, don\u2019t have New Zealand citizenship.<\/p>\n
Following an urgent inquiry, the tribunal determined application of the Citizenship Act 1977 breached the Treaty\u2019s principles of partnership and good government by \u201cprioritising birth over whakapapa\u201d and limiting citizenship by descent to one generation, \u201cforcing M\u0101ori to choose between pursuing opportunities overseas and the right of their tamariki to return to their whenua\u201d.<\/p>\n
Among its immediate recommendations were to provide Ruddock with \u201ccitizenship by grant if he wants it\u201d and \u201cextend citizenship by descent to two generations for M\u0101ori\u201d. <\/p>\n
Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden does not want to amend the Citizenship Act. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
It also called for the Act to acknowledge M\u0101ori as tangata whenua and establish a \u201ctikanga pathway to citizenship\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said she respected the findings but had \u201cno plans to review and open up the Act\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I have focused my efforts is on ensuring all applicants, no matter their race, receive more timely responses to their application.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responding in September, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon opposed any such change to New Zealand\u2019s citizenship pathways and dismissed the suggestion that the current legislation, written in 1977, needed a refresh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it should be the same rule for everyone. The issue is before the tribunal and I\u2019ll let them make their own deliberations, but what I\u2019m just saying to you is that all New Zealanders should be treated equally with regard to our citizenship,\u201d Luxon said. <\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister and Act leader David Seymour bluntly stated Castle-Hughes should \u201cstick to whale riding\u201d and the focus should be placed on increasing the pace of the current citizenship process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen some people try to say, \u2018I have different rights as a New Zealander because my ancestors got here at a different time\u2019, that\u2019s what I\u2019m opposed to,\u201d Seymour said.<\/p>\n
NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones cited the well-established M\u0101ori communities in Australia as he expressed sympathy for those \u201cwanting to come back and have their whakapapa [genealogy] and heritage recognised in New Zealand\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pressed for his view, Jones reiterated \u201cthey\u2019re always going to be M\u0101ori\u201d, before deferring to the tribunal. \u201cLet\u2019s wait and see what the Waitangi Tribunal advises the Crown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour leader Chris Hipkins acknowledged there was a flaw in the Act but wouldn\u2019t give his view on whether M\u0101ori should receive different citizenship rights. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be tens of thousands of New Zealanders born overseas who are potentially now having kids of their own, where they\u2019ll be coming and going from New Zealand, and it\u2019s clearly highlighted a flaw in our law around recognising their right to citizenship. I think that is something that we need to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be making sure that the law around citizenship caters for all New Zealanders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People with citizenship by descent cannot automatically pass that on to their children if they, too, are born…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[78681,29385,27703,27252,115,1061,22285,27083,78679,36305,18321,2082,20513,2720,111,43,139,69,78680,40182,12718,6122,3271,8690,46802,61,6847,8238,27704,80],"class_list":["post-109556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-afforded","tag-believes","tag-born","tag-breaches","tag-calls","tag-children","tag-citizens","tag-citizenship","tag-concludes","tag-extended","tag-extension","tag-for","tag-legislation","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-overseasborn","tag-refusing","tag-rights","tag-rules","tag-should","tag-te","tag-tiriti","tag-to","tag-tribunal","tag-under","tag-waitangi","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}