Subj : Bill removing anti-Pasifika law passes first reading
To   : All
From : News
Date : Thu Apr 11 2024 12:13 pm

A bill striking down a Muldoon-era anti-Pasifika law has reached a
significant milestone after it passed its first reading in the House this
evening - in a shock splintering of the coalition Government.

Western Samoans had their right to New Zealand citizenship stripped by then
New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon's government in 1982.

Earlier that year, the Privy Council found that Western Samoans were treated
by New Zealand law as 'natural-born British subjects'.

Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono's Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship
(Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill would restore a pathway to citizenship for
people from Western Samoa who were born between 1924 and 1949.

It passed its first reading 74 to 49 after ACT and New Zealand First threw
their support behind the bill.

National was the sole party to oppose it.

Tuiono, the Greens' Pacific People's spokesperson, said: "Fairness is at the
heart of this bill.

"We had a group of New Zealand citizens who had their citizenship recognised
and then had their citizenship removed by statute. That is unfair.

"There are people alive today who were New Zealand citizens and had this
right arbitrarily and egregiously removed through a shameful act.

"It is well past time to remove this law and put things right, and I'm
honoured to have taken a step towards that today."

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