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It could be one of the oddest claims lodged at the Waitangi Tribunal but Rosina Hauiti wants her Tongan husband recognised as a taonga under the treaty to stop a pending expulsion.
Ms Hauiti, 49, and Mofuike Fonua are set to celebrate one year of marriage this Sunday but his threatened departure has cast a damper on the occasion.
Mr Fonua's work permit expired last November and he hasn't been granted residence status. He has lived in the country since May 2005 but has until next week to leave on his own, before a removal order is issued.
Former Immigration Minister Tuariki Delamere is representing the Tauranga couple.
In his submission for an urgent hearing to tribunal Judge Carrie Wainwright he argues that spouses within the "sanctity of marriage" are taonga, and therefore Maori are guaranteed "the right to retain their taonga" under article two of the treaty which protects assets.
Judge Wainwright has yet to issue a decision on whether she will hear the case, but has noted there is no precedent in law for regarding a person as a "taonga" as it was used in the treaty.
But Mr Delamere said it was not such a strange notion.
"If your husband or children are not considered taonga, then I don't bloody know what is."
He said the Immigration Service had decided the marriage was not legitimate but that was not an area it should be poking its nose into.
"The state has no business in trying to determine what goes on behind closed doors."
He said the issue was a human rights, not a Maori issue but after a year of trying to get "some sense" from Immigration the tribunal was the last option left to the couple.
Immigration officer Leon Finn, who has been dealing with the case, last night directed inquiries to media officers.
Ms Hauiti said since Mr Fonua's work permit expired the couple had tried to work with the service to sort out his immigration status.
But she said that in August it offered Mr Fonua a limited-purposes visa provided he left the country after surgery for a rugby injury had been done.
But she said their lives were in New Zealand, not in Tonga, and the offer amounted to "blackmail".
She said the nearly 20 years between the pair and their past domestic violence issues could be why Immigration did not believe the marriage was legitimate.
