The Waitangi Tribunal recently has ruled that the government should change the law for New Zealand citizenship, notably that citizenship by decent rules should be broadened. Importantly and controversially, the Tribunal ruled that this broadening of rules should apply to Māori only.
This whole situation got me thinking on two points. The first is whether having Māori whakapapa (genealogy) and citizenship are necessarily the same thing. The second is around whether New Zealand needs the Waitangi Tribunal.
The brief context to all of this are two sets of people with Māori ancestry and whose children are not New Zealand citizens. In both cases, these people – including actress Keisha Castle Hughes – were born overseas to New Zealand parents and they themselves were granted citizenship. That is, their parent(s) were New Zealand citizens and so descent was able to be passed down one generation, as per the Citizenship Act 1977. What Keisha and a gentleman called John want is to be able to pass their citizenship by descent onto their children also born outside New Zealand. This is outside the current rules and generally not practiced by overseas jurisdictions either.
We can debate the merits or otherwise of expanding the descent rules to a second generation who were born outside of New Zealand, but the kicker was that the Waitangi Tribunal called for any expansion to only apply to those with Māori ancestry or whakapapa.
Most commentators have challenged this based on an equal rights argument, that if there were to be a change on descent rules then it should apply to everyone.
My own reflection was that there appears to be confusion (deliberate or otherwise) around whakapapa and citizenship. The two are not the same. One can have Māori heritage and not be a citizen, or be a citizen and not Māori. You can of course be Māori and a citizen as well. Not being a citizen of New Zealand does not take away, in any shape or form, one’s ancestry, whatever that is.
Put another way, Keisha and John’s respective families are no less Māori due to their citizenship status. One’s heritage is a moral fact or reality, whereas citizenship is a legal right. The two do not need to be confused. They can still whakapapa Māori, they can still celebrate their heritage and ancestors, they can visit and explore this country. Citizenship instead is imparted by the Crown to all who reside here or have, as the law currently stands, a one generational connection.
Not everyone is equally Māori, but everyone is equally a citizen.
The Waitangi Tribunal appears to overlook this and instead came up with a rather conflated and unworkable solution – to broaden the descent rules for one group of citizens only. Why the Tribunal stopped at only second generational descent is not obvious either for, if they believe whakapapa to be a key determinant, then no generational limits should apply.
Finally, the decision of the Waitangi Tribunal as well of others of late, does raise the question of whether we need the Tribunal at all. For me the Tribunal is irrelevant by the mere fact that the Tribunal only ever rules in one direction. We all knew the outcome of this case even before it was heard and in the same way New Zealanders can anticipate the results of 99.9% of any of the cases heard. Why the taxpayer expends tens of millions on the process is unclear, other than providing theatrical legitimacy. Surely it would be cheaper (including for claimants) and more efficient to just have lodged claims accepted and presented to government without the Tribunal acting as an expensive intermediary.
Absolutely well overdue to remove the Waitangi Tribunal which was always meant to be temporary but is still here costing multi millions for always predictable responses. We could have built new hospitals and schools across the whole of NZ with the tax payer money that has funded the Tribunal. Its day is over, the ‘use by’ date expired 30 years ago.
The whakapapa argument has some similarities to the Zionist concept of Israel as a home to all Jews, but in this case "Aotearoa" is to be the ever-lasting home of all Maori DNA now and forever. Could this move be seen as the beginning of a new ethno-nationalist religion? One in which race is the single defining point of acceptance?
I suspect the 85% of the NZ population who do not have Maori DNA may not be excited about this idea.