brought by John Ruddock<\/a> (Ng\u0101puhi), who was born in Australia and became a New Zealand citizen by descent through his M\u0101ori mother. But his children are not New Zealand citizens under the Act despite their whakapapa, as they were born in the United States.<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4K2GUE2_Media_3_jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nJohn Bryers Ruddock pictured with his children, who are 8, 9 and 12.
\nPhoto: John Bryers Ruddock \/ Supplied\n<\/p>\n
A range of others have been affected and some gave evidence, including actress Keisha Castle-Hughes (Ng\u0101ti Porou, Tainui, Ng\u0101puhi), who was born in Australia and whose daughter was born in the United States and is therefore not eligible for citizenship by descent.<\/p>\n
Judge Alana Thomas said the claim addresses far wider issues facing an increasing number of M\u0101ori born overseas to parents themselves born outside New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The Tribunal found that the Crown has breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in a number of ways, including by:<\/p>\n
designing an application process in which a Government official is empowered to determine the legitimacy of someone’s whakapapa, which breached the principles of active protection and rangatiratanga.
\nprioritising location of birth over whakapapa during the citizenship application process, which breached the principle of good government.<\/p>\n
Judge Thomas said the Tribunal’s position is that the Citizenship Act is outdated and requires amendment.<\/p>\n
“This is not a situation where the Tribunal has been asked to inquire as to whether a current te Tiriti clause in legislation is Treaty compliant, or whether an acknowledgement of M\u0101ori as tangata whenua goes far enough – there is simply nothing in the Citizenship Act 1977 of that nature.<\/p>\n
“The wording of the legislation is void of any recognition of M\u0101ori as tangata whenua, and of any recognition of te Tiriti as our founding document. We have seen that this silence has become problematic for M\u0101ori who seek citizenship and permanent residency within their t\u016brangawaewae.”<\/p>\n
Judge Thomas said New Zealand as a whole would benefit from a review and amendment of the Act.<\/p>\n
The Tribunals Recommendations<\/p>\n
The Tribunal recommends the Crown enter into consultation with M\u0101ori to provide for co-design of, or full reflection of M\u0101ori views in, amendments to the Citizenship Act 1977:<\/p>\n
to include an acknowledgement of the status of M\u0101ori as tangata whenua
\nto include a provision requiring the Act to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles
\nto establish a tikanga pathway to citizenship that allows for hap\u016b and iwi to assess whakapapa evidence<\/p>\n
The Tribunal also made three further recommendations for the Crown to act on immediately while the consultation outlined above is taking place:<\/p>\n
[L1] amend section 8(2)(e) of the Citizenship Act 1977 to include ‘or te reo M\u0101ori’<\/p>\n
[L2] provide Ruddock with citizenship by grant if he wants it<\/p>\n
[L3] extend citizenship by descent to two generations for M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended a M\u0101ori man seeking citizenship for his children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-109932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109932","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=109932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}