Keisha Castle-Hughes has spoken to the tribunal. Photo \/ Rob Trathen<\/p>\n
Asked whether M\u0101ori should receive automatic citizenship, Hipkins instead said the case was highlighting an issue for \u201call New Zealanders born overseas\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very large New Zealand diaspora overseas,\u201d he said.<\/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
Hipkins said it was for the Waitangi Tribunal to consider the situation for M\u0101ori and he wouldn\u2019t tell the tribunal what to find, but said this was a \u201cbroader issue for the country\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be making sure that the law around citizenship caters for all New Zealanders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legislation empowers the Internal Affairs Minister to grant citizenship. Brooke van Velden said she wanted to be careful not to discuss a matter before the Waitangi Tribunal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really important for us to fix what actually matters here and that is the timeliness of the citizenship office because I think that underpins what people are concerned by,\u201d van Velden said.<\/p>\n
She said when she became minister, it was taking 11 months for somebody\u2019s file \u201cto even be opened within the citizenship office\u201d. That\u2019s down to two months, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where I\u2019m focusing my efforts, so everybody, no matter what ethnicity or background they are, has an ability to get good, timely access to citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Velden said she wouldn\u2019t be opening up the Citizenship Act for changes.<\/p>\n
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
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said it was an issue affecting all New Zealanders. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister and Act leader David Seymour bluntly stated Castle-Hughes should \u201cstick to whale riding\u201d and the focus should instead be placed on increasing the pace of the current citizenship process.<\/p>\n
His comment is in reference to Castle-Hughes\u2019 Oscar-nominated performance in the film Whale Rider, released in 2003 here.<\/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
He questioned whether the debate related to Jews attaining Israeli citizenship, which is open to children and grandchildren of Jews under the Law of Return.<\/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
Jones\u2019 deference to the tribunal is surprising, given his regular criticism of its decisions and his opposition to its existence, which has drawn the ire of Attorney-General Judith Collins.<\/p>\n
Asked why he felt it necessary to wait for the tribunal\u2019s decision, Jones proclaimed, \u201cI have been schooled by Judith Collins yet again\u201d, before walking away.<\/p>\n
But his leader, Winston Peters, didn\u2019t think M\u0101ori should receive automatic citizenship.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not and nor do all M\u0101ori think that either … in my view, the Waitangi Tribunal would have no authority of constitutional or legal powers to make such a decision,\u201d Peters said. <\/p>\n
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruddock was born in in Australia, meaning he received citizenship by descent. People with citizenship by descent cannot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5263,27701,9218,27703,1121,3276,27083,4527,2082,13800,8788,13480,78,27705,27700,76,5511,6721,27699,13489,2720,117,111,43,139,5006,69,3236,2687,312,27702,8229,6847,27704,24750],"class_list":["post-27910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-all","tag-automatic","tag-before","tag-born","tag-case","tag-chris","tag-citizenship","tag-doesnt","tag-for","tag-giving","tag-highlights","tag-hipkins","tag-in","tag-instead","tag-interested","tag-issue","tag-just","tag-labour","tag-labours","tag-leader","tag-mori","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-overseas","tag-saying","tag-says","tag-seem","tag-they","tag-tribunal","tag-waitangi","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27910","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=27910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}