“New Zealand has continually treated (Western) Sāmoans poorly since its invasion and annexation of the territory in 1914. Nothing much looks like changing.” — Nigel Allardyce.
The bill to restore the New Zealand citizenship rights of Sāmoans removed by a 1982 law achieves so little that it should be scrapped, writes former diplomat Nigel Allardyce.
The Citizenship (Western Samoa) (Restoration) Amendment Bill that is currently before parliament is now likely to be passed into law with the support of all parties. But it should not proceed any further because it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to resolve the grave injustice caused by the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982.
The 1982 Act is now acknowledged as having unjustly deprived more than 100,000 New Zealand citizens of Western Sāmoan ethnicity of their legitimate claim in law to New Zealand citizenship, which was upheld by the Privy Council in the Falema‘i Lesā case.
The bill currently before parliament offers the smallest possible “solution” to an egregious injustice that is so much larger than what the “solution” seeks to put right.
The bill aims to restore New Zealand citizenship rights to about 3,500 Sāmoans from whom citizenship was arbitrarily taken in 1982. These 3,500 Sāmoans are now aged between 75 and 100 years.
An unknown number of them are dead, others are incapacitated due to old age, a number likely will not want to live in New Zealand in any case, and those who might want to move to Aotearoa in the last stages of life will not qualify for National Superannuation, so they will be a financial burden on their families here. So, the actual number of Sāmoans who might come to New Zealand under the provisions of this bill is likely to be very low.
Looking at the injustice that this bill seeks to address, the proposed “solution” simply won’t work. It’s a half measure relying on some prejudiced arguments that will not resolve the grievance. It will, therefore, lead only to the continuation of legitimate protest against the 1982 legislation. Protest that will fester and surface again as it has before.
The deprivation of New Zealand citizenship from Western Sāmoans in 1982 clearly breached the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that New Zealand itself helped to draw up and voted for in 1948. Yet, in 2003, when this grievance was last formally brought to parliament by more than 90,000 petitioners, the government is said to have found that there had been no breach of human rights.
Parliament, as it did previously, is ignoring serious past breaches by successive New Zealand governments of constitutional and statutory rights. These include the deportation of New Zealand citizens to Western Sāmoa through the Dawn Raids processes of the 1970s and the early 1980s, and the locking out of New Zealand citizens from New Zealand pending the New Zealand government’s hasty passing of the 1982 legislation to deprive them of their citizenship.
Also being ignored is the New Zealand government’s interference in the New Zealand passport issuing process that would have enabled New Zealand citizens of Western Sāmoan ethnicity to protect their citizenship.
These important aspects of the grievance are being ignored in a politically expedient race to find a solution that is scarcely now worth the time, effort and expense to those who suffered the injustice of having their citizenship taken away from them.
Make no mistake. The New Zealand government deliberately deprived New Zealand citizens of Western Sāmoan ethnicity of their human rights and their rights in New Zealand law. Those rights should be fully restored, including the ability of those whose citizenship was removed to pass on their citizenship to their descendants in accordance with normal New Zealand citizenship law.
But this bill creates two classes of New Zealand citizenship by grant. The first class who can pass on citizenship by descent, and now, under this bill, a second class who cannot.
Last Wednesday, in the Committee of the Whole House, parliament indulged in a mutual back-slapping stitch-up that looks very likely to result in an outcome where parliamentarians will say they’ve done all that can be done to resolve the grievance when they have instead fallen far short of doing so. They can expect much public criticism to this effect.
As in 1982, and 2003, much obfuscation is being wheeled out to confuse the issue.
One argument is about the Treaty of Friendship that would be affected if the 1982 legislation were to be repealed. Well, that Treaty could easily be renegotiated, agreed, and amended quite quickly — as it was in 1982. It’s not a treaty that is embedded in stone and cannot be updated.
Why should anyone who has had their constitutional rights to citizenship arbitrarily and unreasonably removed from them have to apply to get their citizenship back — let alone have to pay a fee to do so? The fee is just another obstacle — even if it is refunded once the application is approved. It’s like paying a fine in case you commit an offence and then getting the fine refunded when it’s found that you didn’t.
New Zealand has continually treated (Western) Sāmoans poorly since its invasion and annexation of the territory in 1914. Nothing much looks like changing.
The bill currently before parliament should be scrapped. Or at least the opposition parties should abstain from voting for it. The solution it proposes is nowhere near an adequate or acceptable outcome when seen against the size of the grievance. That grievance is entirely of the New Zealand government’s own making. The bill cynically reeks of political expediency and should certainly not be touted as anything like a solution that matches the problem.
As the bill nears its passing into law, the substance of the grievance continues to exist. Very little is actually being achieved for very few while another opportunity to adequately resolve the grievance goes wasted.
Nigel Allardyce is a former New Zealand diplomat who worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1980 to 2003. During that time, he was assigned to five diplomatic postings overseas, including to Apia, Sāmoa, from 1987 to 1990. Nigel retired in 2018 and lives in Whanganui.
Thank you for reading E-Tangata. If you like our focus on Māori and Pasifika stories, interviews, and commentary, we need your help. Our content takes skill, long hours and hard work. But we're a small team and not-for-profit, so we need the support of our readers to keep going.
If you support our kaupapa and want to see us continue, please consider making a one-off donation or contributing $5 or $10 a month.
