DARCY LAWREY (HE/HIM)
It’s 1982, and Falema'i Lesa, a Samoan woman living in Aotearoa, has just won her case with the privy council. Facing deportation as a victim of the dawn raids, she took the government to task. Born in Western Samoa in 1946, when the nation was a trust territory of New Zealand, she successfully argued that this granted her, and many other Samoans born at the time, citizenship in Aotearoa. The courts agreed.
The Muldoon government, however, did not agree, and rushed to pass a bill reversing the decision, leaving many Samoans feeling betrayed. “Every person to whom this Act applies shall be deemed never to have been a New Zealand citizen” the Act declared.
Despite a petition in 2003 with over 90,000 signatures calling for a reversal, legislation reversing the Act has never been introduced. Until now.
A private member’s bill before the select committee is seeking to restore citizenship to the over 3000 Samoans affected by the 1982 Act.
Green party MP Teanau Tuiono, who introduced the bill, says, “[s]omeone had to do something to draw a line under the problem”, which has caused “inter-generational hurt and trauma”.
While Tuiono recognises the unpredictability of politics, he is hopeful that his bill has a future. Garnering support from both the Act party and New Zealand First, the bill successfully passed its first reading.
Which poses the question: where’s the other head of the taniwha? Underwater, it would seem.
Chris Penk, National’s Associate Minister of Immigration, claims the party “greatly [values] our relationships with our Pacific neighbours”, but did not comment on the state of relations between Aotearoa and Samoa, nor the Treaty of Friendship between the two countries. Penk’s reasoning for the party not supporting the bill was equally vague, citing “concerns around the impact this will have on current citizenship settings”.
Penk also neglected to comment on whether reversing the 1982 decision was an example of systemic racism.
Tuiono highlights the importance of treating Samoa as an equal. Alongside moves like his bill, he says we must foster “people-to-people links between the two countries” particularly when it comes to climate change, trade, and culture.
He also cautions against taking the relationship for granted, and says that New Zealand would be “sorely mistaken” to think it can “wedge out China’s influence” in the Pacific by dictating foreign policy to countries like Samoa.
The bill has drawn a passionate response from the public and officials alike in select committee, garnering around 24,500 submissions. Former Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi told the committee that, for his people, it is easier to “get to hell” than to New Zealand. He described progress on the matter as historically getting worse and worse.
Opportunities to restore citizenship have been missed in the past. Tuiono points out that the Labour government should have put action behind their 2021 apology for the dawn raids, saying “we needed to do more than just say sorry.”
While political will for action has been lacking over the last four decades, Tuiono’s bill is now poised to right this wrong and make an important step towards a strengthened relationship between Aotearoa and Samoa.