Samoans are rallying to support a bill that would see a decades-old law reversed. Photo / Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni
Samoans are rallying to support a bill that would see a decades-old law reversed. Photo / Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni
Members of the Samoan community are rallying to get more submissions to help support a bill that would result in a group of elderly Samoans being granted an entitlement to New Zealand citizenship.
A crowd of supporters is expected at downtown Auckland’s Aotea Square this morning, where a peaceful march has been organised to help drum up support and raise awareness of the bill - submissions for which close at 11.59pm on Friday.
The Restoring Citizenship Removed by Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 bill is in the name of Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono and reached the select committee process after it passed its first reading last month.
Today’s event has been organised by the Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni 2024 group, which has ramped up efforts to spread the word via community events around the country in the last few weeks.
The group’s main organisers - including former politicians Anae Arthur Anae and Aupito William Sio - also travelled to Samoa to raise awareness in the motherland this week.
Speaking from Samoa yesterday, deputy co-chair Tofilau Nina Kirifi-Alai said the trip was a last-minute decision that had proven to be well-worthy; particularly for locals.
“We thought the select committee was bound to ask: ‘So have you consulted Samoa? Especially because a lot of the people affected reside in Samoa’.
“The bill is in front of the House now and our role as a committee is to support the bill. Our elders are dying every day and here we are waiting for this decision,” Tofilau said, becoming emotional.
The Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni group was given a chance to speak at this year’s annual Congregational Christian Church of Samoa fonotele (general assembly) held at the prestigious Malua Theological College.
Church leaders and members from all around the world - including New Zealand, Samoa, Australia and the US - gather each year there and Tofilau says they spoke to about 800 people for half an hour. They also held a public fono (meeting) that attracted about 400 people.
Samoans are rallying to support a bill that would see a decades-old law reversed. Photo / Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni
If successful, Tuiono’s bill would reverse a decades-old law that was quickly passed in 1982 by the then Muldoon Government that effectively overruled a Privy Council decision.
That decision deemed Samoans born between 1924 and 1948 were British subjects at the time and therefore they and their descendants had also become NZ citizens when NZ citizenship was established on January 1, 1949.
Before then Western Samoa became an independent country in 1962, the island nation had been under New Zealand administration.
Tuiono’s bill would create a direct pathway to NZ citizenship for a group of Samoan mātua (elderly) born between 1924 and 1948. It would not flow to their descendants, however.
It is thought about 5000 people are affected - the youngest of them now aged 75 years old.
Tofilau Nina Kirifi-Alai (with red hat) pictured at one of this month's rally events encouraging Samoans to make a submission. Photo / Mau a Samoa i le Sitiseni
“We need to remove that racist law,” Tofilau said.
“All those Samoans were denied a wonderful future. In 1982, those people were 30 to 40 years old - the prime of their life. They could’ve earned a living and did something different for their descendants.”
Youth urged to help elderly parents access online services
Tofilau called on young Samoans to “tula’i mai” - stand up - at this time to not only make their own submissions, but to help their parents and elderly grandparents make submissions that are being called for online.
She said they would be returning from Samoa with hundreds of submission forms that had been printed, handed out and collected as many people do not have access to digital devices let alone the internet.
“The system is to go online and do your submission. I’m sorry, but even me - I’m struggling with data here. Most people don’t have laptops or things to do their submissions from.”
Tofilau said the public in Samoa had also called for the select committee that will consider the submissions - made up of a group of MPs from different parties - to travel to the motherland to hear from people first-hand.
Tofilau said now was the time for all Samoans to help get the bill across the line.
“Who else will do it, if not us? Samoa mo Samoa - Samoans for Samoa.”
Vaimoana Mase is the Pasifika editor for the Herald’s Talanoa section, sharing stories from the Pacific community. She won junior reporter of the year at the then Qantas Media Awards in 2010 and won the best opinion writing award at the 2023 Voyager Media Awards.
