A new poll by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union shows that almost half of respondents oppose the Cook Islands having automatic New Zealand citizenship.

Thirty percent of the 1000-person sample supported Cook Islanders retaining citizenship, 46 percent were opposed and 24 percent were unsure.

• The Cook Islands government is pursuing closer strategic ties with China, ignoring New Zealand’s wishes and not consulting with the New Zealand government. Given this, should the Cook Islands continue to enjoy automatic access to New Zealand passports, citizenship, health care and education when its government pursues a foreign policy against the wishes of the New Zealand government?
• READ MORE: Other Cook Islands reports

Taxpayers’ Union head of communications Tory Relf said the framing of the question was “fair”.

“If the Cook Islands wants to continue enjoying a close relationship with New Zealand, then, of course, we will support that,” he said.

“However, if they are looking in a different direction, then I think it is entirely fair that taxpayers can have a right to say whether they want their money sent there or not.”

But New Zealand Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a “leading question”.

‘Dead end’ assumption
“It asserts or assumes that we have hit a dead end here and that we cannot resolve the relationship issues that have unfolded between New Zealand and the Cook Islands,” Sepuloni said.

“We want a resolution. We do not want to assume or assert that it is all done and dusted and the relationship is broken.”

The two nations have been in free association since 1965.

Relf said that adding historical context of the two countries relationship would be a different question.

“We were polling on the Cook Islands current policy, asking about historic ties would introduce an emotive element that would influence the response.”

New Zealand has paused nearly $20 million in development assistance to the realm nation.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the decision was made because the Cook Islands failed to adequately inform his government about several agreements signed with Beijing in February.

‘An extreme response’
Sepuloni, who is also Labour’s Pacific Peoples spokesperson, said her party agreed with the government that the Cook Islands had acted outside of the free association agreement.

“[The aid pause is] an extreme response, however, in saying that we don’t have all of the information in front of us that the government have. I’m very mindful that in terms of pausing or stopping aid, the scenarios where I can recall that happening are scenarios like when Fiji was having their coup.”

In response to questions from Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said that, while he acknowledged the concerns raised in the recent poll, he believed it was important to place the discussion within the full context of Cook Islands’ longstanding and unique relationship with New Zealand.

“The Cook Islands and New Zealand share a deep, enduring constitutional bond underpinned by shared history, family ties, and mutual responsibility,” Brown told the Rarotonga-based newspaper.

“Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens not by privilege, but by right. A right rooted in decades of shared sacrifice, contribution, and identity.

“More than 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, contributing to its economy, culture, and communities. In return, our people have always looked to New Zealand not just as a partner but as family.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The ACT Party’s election promise of a referendum for Aotearoa New Zealand to redefine and enshrine the “principles” of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) is likely to dominate debate at this year’s Rātana and Waitangi Day events.

ACT’s coalition agreement with the National Party commits the government to supporting a Treaty Principles Bill for select committee consideration. The bill may not make it into law, but the idea is raising considerable alarm.

Leaked draft advice to Cabinet from the Ministry of Justice says the principles should be defined in legislation because “their importance requires there be certainty and clarity about their meaning”. The advice also says ACT’s proposal will:

change the nature of the principles from reflecting a relationship akin to a partnership between the Crown and Māori to reflecting the relationship the Crown has with all citizens of New Zealand. This is not supported by either the spirit of the Treaty or the text of the Treaty.

Setting aside arguments that the notion of “partnership” diminishes self-determination, the 10,000 people attending a hui at Tūrangawaewae marae near Hamilton last weekend called by King Tūheitia were motivated by the prospect of the Treaty being diminished.

Do we need Treaty principles?
The Treaty principles were developed and elaborated by parliaments, courts and the Waitangi Tribunal over more than 50 years to guide policy implementation and mediate tensions between the Māori and English texts of the document.

The Māori text, which more than 500 rangatira (chiefs) signed, conferred the right to establish government on the British Crown. The English text conferred absolute sovereignty; 39 rangatira signed this text after having it explained in Māori, a language that has no concept of sovereignty as a political and legal authority to be given away.

Because the English text wasn’t widely signed, there is a view that it holds no influential standing, and that perhaps there isn’t a tension to mediate. Former chief justice Sian Elias has said: “It can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text”.

On Saturday, Tūheitia said: “There’s no principles, the Treaty is written, that’s it.”

This view is supported by arguments that the principles are reductionist and take attention away from the substance of Te Tiriti’s articles: the Crown may establish government; Māori may retain authority over their own affairs and enjoy citizenship of the state in ways that reflect equal tikanga (cultural values).

Author and Professor of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland, Margaret Mutu, who was in attendance at the recent hui-ā-iwi at Tūrangawaewae marae, says the government is required to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.https://t.co/zSusoi5RER pic.twitter.com/dMrxjtMRan

— 95bFM News (@95bFMNews) January 26, 2024

Democratic or undemocratic?
The ACT Party says this is undemocratic because it gives Māori a privileged voice in public decision making. Of the previous government, ACT has said:

Labour is trying to make New Zealand an unequal society on purpose. It believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.

Liberal democracy was not the form of government Britain established in 1840. There’s even an argument that state government doesn’t concern Māori. The Crown exercises government only over “its people” – settlers and their descendants. Māori political authority is found in tino rangatiratanga and through shared decision making on matters of common interest.

Tino rangatiratanga has been defined as “the exercise of ultimate and paramount power and authority”. In practice, like all power, this is relative and relational to the power of others, and constrained by circumstances beyond human control.

But the power of others has to be fair and reasonable, and rangatiratanga requires freedom from arbitrary interference by the state. That way, authority and responsibility may be exercised, and independence upheld, in relation to Māori people’s own affairs and resources.

Assertions of rangatiratanga
Social integration — especially through intermarriage, economic interdependence and economies of scale — makes a rigid “them and us” binary an unlikely path to a better life for anybody.

However, rangatiratanga might be found in Tūheitia’s advice about the best form of protest against rewriting the Treaty principles to diminish the Treaty itself:

Be who we are, live our values, speak our reo (language), care for our mokopuna (children), our awa (rivers), our maunga (mountains), just be Māori. Māori all day, every day.

As the government introduces measures to reduce the use of te reo Māori in public life, repeal child care and protection legislation that promotes Māori leadership and responsibility, and repeal water management legislation that ensures Māori participation, Tūheitia’s words are all assertions of rangatiratanga.

Those government policies sit alongside the proposed Treaty Principles Bill to diminish Māori opportunities to be Māori in public life. For the ACT Party, this is necessary to protect democratic equality.

In effect, the proposed bill says that to be equal, Māori people can’t contribute to public decisions with reference to their own culture. As anthropologist Dr Anne Salmond has written, this means the state cannot admit there are “reasonable people who reason differently”.

Today thousands answered the Māori Kings call for unity by descending on Tūrangawaewae marae for a national hui to discuss Act’s proposal to redefine the principles of the treaty. Here’s David Seymour being grilled by @moanatribe on his questionable use of the word apartheid. pic.twitter.com/1E9pItTqLm

— Kelvin Morgan 🇳🇿 (@kelvin_morganNZ) January 20, 2024

Liberal democracy and freedom
Equality through sameness is a false equality that liberal democracy is well-equipped to contest. Liberal democracy did not emerge to suppress difference.

It is concerned with much more than counting votes to see who wins on election day.

Liberal democracy is a political system intended to manage fair and reasonable differences in an orderly way. This means it doesn’t concentrate power in one place. It’s not a select few exercising sovereignty as the absolute and indivisible power to tell everybody else what to do.

This is because one of its ultimate purposes is to protect people’s freedom — the freedom to be Māori as much as the freedom to be Pakeha. If we want it to, democracy may help all and not just some of us to protect our freedom through our different ways of reasoning.

Freedom is protected by checks and balances on power. Parliament checks the powers of government. Citizens, including Māori citizens with equality of tikanga, check the powers of Parliament.

One of the ways this happens is through the distribution of power from the centre — to local governments, school boards and non-governmental providers of public services. This includes Māori health providers whose work was intended to be supported by the Māori Health Authority, which the government also intends to disestablish.

The rights of hapū (kinship groups), as the political communities whose representatives signed Te Tiriti, mean that rangatiratanga, too, checks and balances the concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Checking and balancing the powers of government requires the contribution of all and not just some citizens. When they do so in their own ways, and according to their own modes of reasoning, citizens contribute to democratic contest — not as a divisive activity, but to protect the common good from the accumulation of power for some people’s use in the domination of others.

Te Tiriti supports this democratic process.

Dr Dominic O’Sullivan is adjunct professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and professor of political science, Charles Sturt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji got to celebrate World Oceans Day this week — a day when our conscience gets the occasional prick on matters related to the value of the ocean in sustaining life.

I like to brag about growing up surrounded by the sea and those unique moments during childhood I spent rowing across Qamea’s picturesque and mangrove-fringed Naiviivi Bay, plucking seashells from shallow tide pools and digging up vetuna (sandworm) from the sand.

Yes, the sea is a way of life for all of us.

Think of this.

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet.

It is our life source, supporting humanity’s sustenance and existence, and that of every other organism on earth.

The ocean produces much of the oxygen we breath and need to survive, it is the habitat of most of earth’s biodiversity and is the main source of meat protein for more than a billion people around the world.

40 million ’employees’
The ocean is key to our economy with an estimated 40 million people to be employed by ocean-based industries by 2030.

In Fiji, an estimated 60 percent of the 900,000 population are thought to live in coastal communities, surviving on activities linked to the ocean, and our fisheries and tourism sectors are so intrinsically connected to the health of the ocean.

But the ocean we call our home is facing a variety of threats that challenges its existence and endangers humanity.

United Nations statistics say that we have depleted 90 percent of big fish populations and destroyed 50 percent of coral reefs.

“We are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished. We need to work together to create a new balance with the ocean that no longer depletes its bounty but instead restores its vibrancy and brings it new life,” the UN says.

With such dreadful reality in the backdrop, the 2023 WOD theme seemed timely and relevant — “Planet Ocean: tides are changing”.

It provides us with an opportunity to rethink what we’ve done, what we need to do and how to work together with world leaders, decision-makers, indigenous leaders, scientists, private sector executives, civil society, celebrities, and youth activist to make the health of the ocean a public agenda.

Clean up day
On Wednesday this week, The Fiji Times’ front page photo was of Josaia Waqaivolavola, a Year 2 student from Veiuto Primary School who was captured on camera participating in a beach clean up at My Suva Picnic Park along the Nasese foreshore.

His group collected 10 trash bags filled with plastics, among others.

It’s when we see the amount of rubbish along our coastlines and in the sea around us that we begin to realise that all the talk about “putting rubbish in the bin” is not working.

We talk about responsible citizenship but plastics continue to pollute our communities, roads, streets and parks, and our oceans.

Plastics have become so cheap to produce that we are producing things we don’t intend to keep for long.

In other words, we are producing plastics only to throw them away.

We are now mass producing disposable plastics at a phenomenal rate that the world’s waste management systems are finding hard to keep up.

40% of plastics disposable
It is estimated that about 40 percent of the now more than 448 million tonnes of plastics produced every year is disposable and used in products intended to be discarded virtually soon after purchase.

Just go to the beach and you’ll find them on the sand.

World statistics estimate that each day billions upon billions of plastic material find their way into our rivers, streams and eventually into our oceans.

During my childhood years on Qamea, my family’s livelihood depended on the sea.

At a time, when village canteens had no refrigerators to store meat, the sea was our main source of daily meat protein.

Many years ago, scientists and environment experts were warning us that the amount of plastics in the world’s ocean would increase 10 times by 2020.

That was three years ago.

Too polluted for fish
They further advised that by 2050, if statistical predictions remain true, we’d have so much plastics in the sea and our oceans would too polluted that fish and other delicacies would be unsafe to eat or we’d not be able to even swim anymore.

Cleaning the ocean is good but may not be good enough.

We need to nip this spiralling issue in the bud.

We need to work before the plastic reaches the ocean.

We need to work on land where they are produced before we go to the ocean.

In Fiji, the concern over disposable plastic waste is the same as the threat in other countries of the world — we are using more disposable plastics at a rate faster than we are able to effectively dispose them that our waste managing systems are struggling to contain the problem.

Recycling not effective
Our recycling initiatives are not effectively solving our disposable plastic dilemma.

During this year’s WOD celebrations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the ocean as “the foundation of life”.

That pretty much sums everything up.

If the ocean is life, then why can’t we get out act together.

The ball is in everyone’s court and the time to act is now.

Until we meet again, stay blessed, stay healthy and stay safe!

John Mitchell is a Fiji Times journalist and writes the weekly “Behind The News” column. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ABC PACIFIC BEAT: By Marian Faa, Prianka Srinivasan and Belinda Kora

Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister has stepped aside after a widespread backlash to comments he made in defence of a video his daughter posted on TikTok.

Justin Tkatchenko called critics of the video “primitive animals” during an interview with the ABC on Wednesday.

The comments have been labelled racist and insulting, and sparked protests in PNG throughout the day, as well as calls for him to resign.

In a press conference yesterday afternoon, Tkatchenko said the decision to step aside was not easy.

“I’m stepping aside as foreign minister so that our country can move forward and that I can also clear my name and also clear the doubt and the misinformation that is out there, that is causing great grief to everyone concerned,” Tkatchenko said.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape will take over as foreign minister as the nation prepares for a historic visit by US President Joe Biden and other Pacific leaders on May 22.

Tkatchenko has been closely involved in negotiating major defence and security agreements between PNG and the United States.

‘Clear the air’
He said he wanted to “clear the air” ahead of the visits.

“I do not want to disturb this event. We have done all the hard work already. Now, it’s the finalisation of the leaders arriving in the next coming days,” he said.

“For me to step aside is the right thing to do. So that we can clear the air and make sure that all these issues that arose from misinformation, finally sorted out once and for all.”

Marape thanked Tkatchenko for his decision.

“I want to commend the minister for putting the interest of the country ahead of his own,” he said.

“I will take charge of the foreign affairs ministry and ensure that all the preparations for the upcoming historical visits remain on track in the next few days.”

Opposition wants to deport Tkatchenko
Justin Tkatchenko was born in Australia but has lived in Papua New Guinea for 30 years and is a citizen.

“The last thing is that I’m going to destroy my beautiful home and ruin my reputation at the same time,” he said.

“I have six beautiful children, and a wife who are all Papua New Guinean and the last thing that I would call Papua New Guineans is primitive animals.”

He said the comments were directed at “cyber trolls” who attacked his daughter over a TikTok video she posted while accompanying him on a trip to the coronation of King Charles III.

The video, which was tagged #aussiesinlondon, flaunted cocktails and lavish meals at first-class airport lounges on the 4.3 million kina (NZ$2 million) taxpayer-funded trip.

“The people I made the comments to — individually — were those that were attacking my daughter on social media, putting up disgusting posts against her for doing absolutely nothing wrong,” he said.

‘Frustrated and angry’
“As a father, I was so frustrated and angry with the comments, sexual comments, violent comments, all sorts of comments that you would never want your daughter or any other woman or girl to be treated like to go through.

“To the people of Papua New Guinea, I sincerely apologise if you think that I meant bad to you … It was not intentioned at all for Papua New Guineans.”

In a statement last night, Marape said he was offended by Tkatchenko’s comments but called for forgiveness.

Tkatchenko said he was not the subject of any investigations.

PNG opposition leader Jospeh Lelang welcomed Tkatchenko’s decision to step aside.

“However, [he] will still be referred to the Citizenship Board to determine his citizenship status and be deported. We will have nothing less than that,” he told ABC.

While popular in his electorate of Moresby-South, Tkatchenko attracted controversy as the minister in charge of purchasing 40 custom-made Maserati luxury cars when PNG hosted the APEC summit in 2018, costing taxpayers 20 million kina (NZ$9.2 million).

Michael Kabuni, a former politics lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, said online media had played an unprecedented role in placing pressure on him to resign.

“Social media is beginning to shape the politics in ways we’ve never seen in past years,” he said.

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Australian government has announced a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders, ending a tension between the two countries that has lasted for more than 20 years.

Since 2001, New Zealanders in Australia have been able to reside there on a Special Category Visa. While it has allowed them to remain in Australia indefinitely, getting permanent residency and citizenship has been much more difficult.

It has meant New Zealanders have been unable to access benefits such as student loans, join the Defence Force, or even vote.

In contrast, Australians in New Zealand have had a clear pathway to citizenship after five years.

But from 1 July, New Zealanders who have been on the Special Category Visa and lived in Australia for four years will be able to get citizenship.

They will still need to meet standard criteria (such as pass a character check, a language test, and intend to stay in Australia), and attend a citizenship ceremony.

The pathway is retrospective, meaning those in Australia since 2001, when the SCV came into effect, will be able to apply for citizenship without gaining permanent residence first.

Citizens at birth
Kiwi children born in Australia will become citizens at birth, rather than waiting until they are 10 years old.

“This is a fair change for New Zealanders living in Australia, and brings their rights more in line with Australians living in New Zealand. This is consistent with our ambition to build a fairer, better managed and more inclusive migration system,” the Australian government said in a statement.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the announcement has brought the nations closer together.

“This is the biggest improvement in the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia in a generation,” he said.

“Most of us know someone who’s moved across the Tasman. They work hard, pay taxes and deserve a fair go. These changes deliver that and reverse erosions that have taken place over 20 years.”

The announcement has been deliberately timed to be close to Anzac Day, with Hipkins flying to Brisbane to mark the occasion.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Closer Economic Relations agreement between the two countries, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Trans-Tasman travel arrangement, which allowed each country’s people to live and work in the other country.

Deep friendship
“Australia and New Zealand have a deep friendship, which has been forged through our history, shared values and common outlook.

“As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, I look forward to strengthening our relationship,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The two prime ministers will celebrate the announcement with a community barbecue and citizenship ceremony in Brisbane on Sunday.

They will also visit a cemetery to attend the unveiling of plaques for previously unmarked graves of soldiers who served during World War I and World War II.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Switzerland will not allow visa-free entry for Vanuatu citizens whose passports were issued on or after May 25, 2015.

The ban will stay in place until February 3, 2023.

This follows a decision in March by the European Union’s Council to partially call off the visa waiver agreement with Vanuatu.

The EU had concerns that Vanuatu’s investor citizenship programmes, known as “Golden passports”, is a threat to the EU countries.

Switzerland’s Federal Department of Justice and Police, which works alongside the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration, stated that those with passports issued before May 25, 2015, are not affected by the decision.

Both the EU and Swiss authorities said Vanuatu has been granting passports to foreigners without proper security clearance, and this may represent a risk to public order and internal security.

In March, when the EU Council published its decision to suspend the visa-free travel agreement with Vanuatu, it highlighted that in many cases, authorities in Vanuatu had granted citizenship to applicants who were listed in Interpol databases.

The council also claimed applications were quickly processed without security checks, and those who obtained Vanuatu golden passports were not obliged to be physically present in Vanuatu.

The EU has also urged its member states operating golden passports to stop the practice, calling the schemes “objectionable ethically, legally and economically”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In Vanuatu, one key party in the government says it will boycott tomorrow’s planned session of Parliament.

That session is due to consider several constitutional amendments and the leader of the Reunification of Movements for Change party, former Prime Minister Charlot Salwai, said there had been no consultation with civil society.

He said it was the people’s constitution and they had the right to have their say before approval by Parliament.

The planned changes include:

• extending the parliamentary term from four to five years,
• allowing cabinet to have 17 members — up from the current 13,
• involving mayors in the selection process for the head of state, and
• amendments that will allow a broader definition of who qualifies for citizenship.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Three Citizenships

The concept of ‘citizenship’ has both general and specific meanings.

The most specific and familiar I call passport citizenship. A passport citizen of a country is a person holding a passport for that country, or with unambiguous entitlement to hold such a passport. More than anything a passport is a travel document, so passport citizenship largely defines a person’s travel rights.

A child can be a passport citizen. And it is possible for a person to hold multiple passport citizenships.

The second concept is political citizenship, which is essentially suffrage, the right to vote. Thus, political citizenship is a democratic concept. A ‘dependent child’ cannot be a political citizen, though the definition of ‘dependent child’ may differ in different countries. (For this discussion, a child is a non-adult; a person can only be an adult or a dependent child.) It is possible for a person to hold multiple political citizenship, even if a person holds just one passport citizenship. For example, an Australian-born adult resident in New Zealand – as a ‘permanent resident’ of New Zealand – is a political citizen of both Australia and New Zealand; many such people only carry Australian passports.

An ordinary adult resident of a non-democratic country is a passport citizen, but not a political citizen. In New Zealand, a person in prison for more than three years is not a current political citizen, but is a passport citizen (albeit with highly constrained travel rights!). Political citizenship confers political rights.

The third concept is economic citizenship. At present, while economic citizenship has no formal definition, it is a very important concept. In summary, economic citizenship confers economic rights; and an adult person without economic rights is either a slave or an Orwellian unperson. Economic citizenship is not a new phrase; the term was used, for example, during the later years (1933 to 1935) of the Great Depression in New Zealand. (Refer, Malcolm McKinnon, The Broken Decade, p.291.)

As with political rights, economic rights are held by adults. In New Zealand at present, different economic rights come at different ages: 16 the right to own property and to marry; 18 the right to a normal benefit and to drink alcoholic beverages; 20 the right to inherit property; 24 the right to a student allowance. 18 is probably the most important age determining adulthood, because that’s when a parent ceases to be able to claim Family Tax Credits, Child Support, or Sole Parent Support. While, for sometime in the future I am comfortable with 16 being the age that defines adulthood, overall 18 would appear to be the age that in New Zealand best defines adulthood at present. In particular, the age of adulthood represents the commencement of both political and economic rights, and personal responsibility.

The appropriate definition of economic citizenship is firstly that an economic citizen is an adult. Secondly, every adult in the world is by definition a current economic citizen of one and only one country.

Thus, once a person is determined to be an adult, the only matter of interest to a country’s bureaucracy is which country that person is an economic citizen of. Thus, an adult born in Paraguay but living in New Zealand would have either ‘Paraguay’ or ‘New Zealand’ listed in their economic citizenship box; not ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Economic Citizenship

The concept of economic citizenship works best when all countries are on the same page. Thus, all adults in the world would have defined economic rights associated with the country of their economic citizenship. Of course, in a transitional world where the concept is new, it is inevitable that some countries will develop their economic rights ahead of other countries, just as some countries lagged in granting political rights. For example, Switzerland only granted women political citizenship in the 1970s.

Any adult living and working in New Zealand and only paying taxes in New Zealand clearly qualifies as an economic citizen of New Zealand. And they can only cease to be an economic citizen of New Zealand when they become an economic citizen of another country; thus, they do not cease to be economic citizens if they become unemployed. Further, adults who come to reside in New Zealand because their partners or ‘adult children’ are New Zealand economic residents become economic residents of New Zealand when they relinquish economic rights in their country of origin.

This means that many people who are passport citizens or political citizens of other countries are nevertheless economic citizens of New Zealand. And these people continue to be economic citizens of New Zealand, even when they visit their country of origin or any other country. Further, all economic citizens of New Zealand should have an equal and unqualified right to enter New Zealand. Any denial of the right of an economic citizen to be in New Zealand is the equivalent of deportation. (And we note that nobody should ever be deported to a country which is experiencing war, pestilence, or famine.) Any adult who has an agreed time limit on their economic citizenship – eg a term or condition on their visa – reverts to being an economic citizen of their country of origin, but only so long as they are able to re-acquire economic rights in their country of origin. (Inability to transfer economic rights could be a lack of transportation to that country, or pestilence in that country.)

Where a working visa expires and there is disagreement – eg a New Zealand economic citizen is stranded overseas, or where economic citizens in New Zealand are unable to undertake economic citizenship elsewhere – then they continue to be New Zealand economic citizens.

Where a person runs a business in another country but has residential rights in New Zealand (indeed may have a family resident in New Zealand), that person would normally be an economic citizen of the other country. That person’s partner, however, may be an economic citizen of New Zealand. A person can only be an economic citizen of one country at a time. Further, all dependent children of New Zealand economic citizens have the same residential rights as their parent(s).

There is a special case of ‘swallows’, or seasonal workers who regularly work in one country for a part of each year, and live in another country for the other part. Such people – and there are many Pacific-born people in New Zealand who are swallows – should be able to arrange seasonal transfers of economic citizenship. Thus, Tongan-born seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand should be classed as New Zealand economic citizens until they are able to resume Tongan economic citizenship.

The key principle of economic citizenship is that a person can only cease to be an economic citizen of one country if they can practically become an economic citizen of another country.

Economic citizenship gives a person economic rights in one country. Thus, in a civilised world, no adult human being can have no economic rights. (The economic rights of dependent children are implicit, through their parents’ duty of care to their children.) Economic rights can be transferred, but not extinguished.

Denizens

We may note that any person who is an economic citizen of the country they live in, but is not a political citizen, is thus a denizen. For example, most New Zealand born economic residents of Australia are denizens of Australia, and political citizens of New Zealand. While they pay taxes in Australia, they vote for parliamentarians in New Zealand.

Economic Rights – Duty of Care

The essential economic right is ‘duty of care’, including the right to a return on shared equity. I will formalise the latter right as the conceptual right to an economic dividend as a public property right. Economic citizens hold collective ownership of a country’s collective economic resources, including a share of their country’s share of global collective resources.

Thus, the most important economic right is one that no country has yet granted in a formal sense, but most countries do in an informal sense. This is the right to an economic dividend.

The most practical way to think through this is to note that all countries currently pay their economic citizens a formal weekly dividend of $0.00. Thus, we create the concept of a formal dividend as a conceptual placeholder. Next, we can think about how different countries exercise their duty of care towards their citizens and denizens.

On this, I will note the concept of ‘social security’ as synonymous with ‘duty of care’. There is an accepted understanding that all people who belong in a community have a right to some share of that community’s benefits. We may extend the word ‘community’ to society, where ‘society’ can be understood as a national community. We expect that an unemployed person in Norway has a higher material standard of living than an unemployed person in Ukraine, even though neither has a job. And we expect that a minimum wage worker in Norway has a higher standard of living than a minimum wage worker in Ukraine, despite the fact that both may be doing much the same job. In both cases, the Norwegians are receiving higher social dividends than the Ukrainians; even if in neither case their dividends are called ‘dividends’.

What happens is that unemployed Norwegians receive bigger welfare ‘transfers’ than unemployed Ukrainians. And Norwegian Workers receive higher wages (and income tax concessions that come with their wages) than do Ukrainian workers. Part of each Norwegian’s wage is in reality a payment that reflects productivity rather than effort. The main source of higher productivity in Norway is more capital – public capital and private capital – per person resident in Norway. Part of the wage of the Norwegian worker and the benefit of the Norwegian beneficiary is in reality a ‘public equity dividend’, reflecting the public capital contribution to productivity. Likewise, the Ukrainian worker and the Ukrainian beneficiary; it’s just that the Ukrainian dividend is much less than the Norwegian dividend.

In each country there may be people who miss out on these implicit dividends, because they have ‘fallen through the cracks’. A formal non-zero public equity dividend means that no economic citizen falls through the cracks. It’s mainly an accounting matter to formalise the public equity dividend, noting that for most people they already receive it as a part of something else. The reform process may be called ‘account and fill’ – properly accounting for those who do get it, and filling in the cracks for those who don’t.

Presently – in New Zealand and elsewhere – the formal weekly dividend is $0.00. Following an ‘account and fill’ reform, the formal weekly dividend will rise above $0.00. Once that is done, the important discussion about how big or small the dividend should be can then take place. I have suggested elsewhere that the most practical starting level in New Zealand is $175 per week, payable as an economic right to all economic citizens of New Zealand. (Refer to my Universal Income Flat Tax: the Mechanism that Makes the Necessary Possible.)

Addendum: Foreign Lives Matter

In modern political discourse, the biggest taboo of all is to discriminate against people based on the colour of their skin, or any other identity attribute. That is, so long as the person is a political or passport citizen of a country.

But it is open season to discriminate against economic citizens based on their immigration status. Governing attitudes make it a requirement to think of people who are not political citizens as foreigners, and that foreign lives are inconsequential. There is an ugly new nationalism building around the world, and I sadly note that New Zealand’s political leadership is contributing to that new nationalism. The message going out to economic citizens of New Zealand who are political citizens of South American nations is that they should ‘go home’ to countries that are currently the continental epicentre of a hugely consequential pandemic. (It is no better than the President of a foreign country a few years ago telling political citizens of African descent that they could ‘go back to where they came from’.)

New Zealand – like any other country – has a duty towards its economic citizens. It is not appropriate to narrow the definition of those to whom New Zealand has a duty of care towards, cynically allowing people to fall through the cracks. The cost of abstaining from that duty is much greater than the cost of meeting it. The cost is not in money; after all, money is a social technology. The cost is in lost care, in lost employment opportunities, in lives adrift. So long as New Zealand has access to food and labour, New Zealanders do not give up anything of substance in order to provide for all of those economic citizens ‘who are us’.

Further, New Zealand can provide support to others that might not be us, but who are close to us. What are we doing for our Pacific neighbours? Samoan lives matter. Fijian Lives matter. Tongan lives matter.

While New Zealand has no special obligation towards other countries – other than neighbours such as these – New Zealanders should not be asked to not care about foreign lives.

The federal government has lodged an appeal to overturn a Federal Court decision recognising the Australian citizenship of a man born in pre-independence Papua New Guinea.

Troyzone Zen Lee won a four-year battle with the federal government last month after being told in 2016 he was not an Australian citizen.

Lee, who has lived in Brisbane since the early 1980s, was born in May 1975 in Port Moresby in the Australian external territory of Papua – four months before PNG became an independent country.

In his April judgment, Federal Court judge Darryl Rangiah ruled that at the time PNG became independent, Lee fell within s65(4)(a) of the PNG Constitution “as a person who had the right to permanent residence in Australia and that therefore did not make him a PNG citizen”.

“I make the declaration that the applicant is an ‘Australian citizen’.”

Court documents filed on Friday show the Department of Home Affairs is appealing on the grounds that Justice Rangiah erred in finding Lee was not an “immigrant” under the then Australian Migration Act after PNG independence in September 1975.

Story partially republished by permission of SBS News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Dan McGarry in Port Vila

The Chinese Embassy has for a second time failed to respond to a request for comment concerning its role in the arrest, detention and planned deportation of six Chinese nationals on Vanuatu soil.

The Vanuatu Daily Post originally contacted the embassy by telephone last week, but were instructed to send a written request for comment instead. The newspaper complied.

Another request was sent yesterday shortly before lunch. No reply had been received by the time the article went to press.

READ MORE: Chinese scammers arrested in Vanuatu

The presence of Chinese law enforcement officials on Vanuatu soil, their official status, and their role in the arrest and detention of the six arrested people has raised numerous questions about due process and the rule of law.

The Office of the Prime Minister, which oversees the Citizenship Office, shared further information yesterday concerning the six Chinese nationals currently in detention, pending their expected deportation.

Four of the six individuals had applied for Vanuatu citizenship under the Development Support Programme (DSP). They had their citizenship granted in mid-May this year. Two others were not citizens.

The four citizenship applications approvals were made on the same day in mid-May, a PMO spokesman said.

Standard security check
At that time, they had been subjected to the standard security and background check, which included a query against the Interpol database. Vanuatu joined Interpol in November last year.

In late June this year, Chinese authorities informed the government of Vanuatu that six individuals were involved in what they characterised as a “pyramid” scheme, aimed at victims in China.

These activities were allegedly based in a commercial property in the Seaside neighbourhood.

The Daily Post was shown a letter, evidently from Chinese police, stamped and dated from June 2019, which alleged that a Chen Bo had forged his criminal record check form. Commonly called a police clearance, it is a required document for any residence or citizenship application.

The letter described Chen as a fugitive from the law.

The Daily Post asked if all of the six were the subject of similar correspondence. The PMO spokesman said yes, they were.

The identities of the other five detainees are not known.

Woman in hiding
A woman named Liana Chen is also reportedly wanted by Chinese authorities. The Daily Post has been told that she was currently in hiding in Vanuatu.

Sources informed the Daily Post that six Chinese law enforcement officials were later joined by five more. These individuals have been occupying the same property as the detainees, but it is not clear what their role in regarding the six people.

It is known that Vanuatu Police are providing a security detail to ensure the six remain on the premises.

Sources with direct knowledge of their circumstances told the Daily Post that the six were or are being held on a property owned by the China Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC), in the Prima neighbourhood.

The Daily Post contacted CCECC to ask about their collaboration on this matter, but did not receive a reply by the time the article went to press.

The PMO also clarified that the DSP was mandated to supply up to 600 citizens via its investment opportunity. The total cash value of this offering would be VT 10.74 billion (US$93 million). That number has yet to be reached.

A Parliamentary Committee was recently informed that over 4000 applications have been approved. Therefore, PRG ImmiMart Ltd, which operates the rival Vanuatu Contribution Programme, is responsible for more than 3600 citizenship approvals so far.

Under scrutiny
PMO officials stressed that PRG had not processed the six applications currently under scrutiny.

The Daily Post was unable to discover any local legal professionals working to represent or defend the detainees.

Internal Affairs Minister Andrew Napuat earlier told the newspaper that these people would not be going to court in Vanuatu, as they were not accused of committing any crime in Vanuatu.

But the question of their right to appeal their extradition remains unanswered.

Also, Vanuatu authorities are empowered to summarily remove a person’s passport under certain circumstances, but a person’s right to appeal the loss of citizenship remains.

• NOTE: After this article appeared in the Vanuatu Daily Post, A PMO spokesman told the newspaper that in fact only four of the six Chinese nationals arrested had applied for citizenship. The newspaper originally reported that all six had applied, but that only four had been granted citizenship, with two applications still pending. This article has been updated to reflect the clarification.
  
• The Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report has a content sharing arrangement with the Vanuatu Daily Post.
• More Vanuatu stories

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Until late 2018, New Zealand’s immigration statistics have been woefully inadequate. While it has always been possible to keep taps on the total number of people in the country – through births, deaths, and net international passenger movements – ‘official’ net immigration numbers have long been calculated by stated intentions (as on arrival and departure cards) rather than by actual outcomes.

For statistical purposes, immigrants are people who arrive in New Zealand, and stay for at least 12 months without leaving the country.

For recent history, actual outcomes have been ascertained by matching arrivals and departures (through passports, not self-declared passenger data). For 2018 new arrivals, the numbers of people expected to stay in New Zealand for more than a year have been estimated using information associated with their visa. For 2018 recurrent arrivals, their likelihood of staying at least 12 months is estimated from a travel history of at least 16‑months.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/assets/Reports/Defining-migrants-using-travel-histories-and-the-12-16-month-rule/defining-migrants-using-travel-histories-and-12-16-month-rule.pdf

Immigration statistics have been recalculated from 2015, using this new method. The chart shows 2015‑17 annual average long‑term arrivals (total blue), 2015‑17 annual average long‑term departures (light blue), with annual average 2015‑17 net migration in dark blue.

The equivalent 2018 data is shown in red.

The data in the chart is categorised by nationality (country of citizenship), and excludes New Zealand citizens. (For New Zealand citizens net immigration is negative. This is partly because some immigrants acquire New Zealand citizenship, and later depart as New Zealand citizens. It is also because New Zealand has always been a country of emigration as well as a country of immigration.)

The most important feature of the chart is that, while gross immigration has changed little (though with increases from Europe, the Americas, and Africa), departures of immigrants have increased markedly. The result is a significant overall fall in the net immigration of foreign citizens.

The places with the least return migration are Philippines, Pacific countries, and Africa (especially South Africa). These are the most obvious cases of economic migration, where immigrants are largely content with life in New Zealand. These are also the countries from which most immigrants seek New Zealand citizenship; so when they leave they are more likely to leave as New Zealand citizens.

In the middle are countries with high numbers of international students – China, India, South (including Southeast) Asia –  reflecting the ambivalent immigration status of international students. These are also countries whose middle-class residents have aspired to hold alternative national residencies while never quite leaving their countries of origin. Tellingly, however, China is showing substantially more return migration than previously. It is coming to look more like the richer countries of Asia (North-East Asia) and the English‑speaking developed countries, with the highest levels of return migration.

For these economically‑advanced countries, a major driver of return migration will be dissatisfaction – much of that due to inflated initial expectations of life in New Zealand. There will also be a considerable amount of churn associated with a rich anglo middle‑class who see themselves more as citizens of the world than as citizens of a particular country. These are heavily globalised people, for whom traditional concepts of international migration do not apply. Their migration patterns are driven as much by the ever‑cheaper price of air travel, facilitating a transience (eg home‑ownership in multiple countries) and consumerism that imposes a high environmental footprint on the world.

Finally, there is an increasing category of lifestyle refugees – suggested from European and American data. These are people – mainly social liberals – driven by fears of environmental disaster and of political populism; and probably in part unspoken concerns about how immigration in their home countries has changed many of their cities. Europe (excluding the United Kingdom) has bucked the overall trend,  showing easily the biggest increase in net immigration. This is especially true of Germany and France, which showed a near‑doubling of gross immigration in 2018. Time will tell whether these people stay.

It is great to see Statistics New Zealand finally creating some worthwhile immigration statistics; statistics that show high levels of migrant departure as well as of arrivals. What we need also is reliable information about internal migration – changes in the distribution of population within New Zealand. My sense is that Auckland has experienced a disproportionately large amount of departures, to other parts of New Zealand and other parts of the world. Many people have cashed up their capital gains in residential property.