Refugees put case for different rules

Refugees and their representatives want the Government to make a distinction between displaced people and migrants when considering new laws to tighten citizenship.

"When New Zealand accepts a refugee it has a responsibility to make it as easy as possible for them to become citizens," refugee worker Penny Bond told a select committee hearing at Parliamentyesterday.

The committee was hearing submissions on the Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill under which people seeking citizenship will have to reside in New Zealand for five years, a two-year increase on the current period.

Concerns that immigrants close to completing their three years would have to wait another five years have been allayed through a supplementary order paper issued on September 8. The amendment will also give citizenship to children who would otherwise be stateless.

The bill will amend the Passport Act to make passports valid for five years instead of the current 10 years and gives the Minister of Internal Affairs power to cancel or refuse to issue travel documents.

Somali refugee Adam Awad said the Government needed to review its policy of issuing non-citizens travel documents because they were inadequate.

"I have used a travel document and been arrested in every country I visited, including Australia."

He said refugees could not visit family dispersed around the globe or make pilgrimages to holy sites because most countries did not recognise the documents as legal until they had verification from a New Zealand high commission.

The legislation needed to exclude refugees who had fled their homelands in fear of violence and intimidation.

The bill will also restrict citizenship by birth in New Zealand to the children of citizens and residents in an attempt to stop people coming into the country on temporary permits so their children born here become New Zealand citizens.

A spokeswoman for the Catholic agency Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, Lisa Beech, said removing citizenship rights from children breached the spirit and intention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The select committee, chaired by Labour MP Dianne Yates, has to report back to Parliament by November 8.

- NZPA