17 June 2004
Passport bill undermines New Zealanders' citizenship rights

Green MP Keith Locke says the Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill, tabled in Parliament today, undermines precious citizenship rights.

"The greatest threat to New Zealanders in this Bill is the power given to a Minister to take away our passport on national security grounds," said Mr Locke, the Green Party's Foreign Affairs Spokesperson.

"The present citizenship and passport arrangements are not broke, so why do we need to 'fix' them by making them so much more restrictive?

"If a New Zealander really is conspiring to be a terrorist, then charge him or her with that offence, but don't give a Minister with a political agenda the right to stop us leaving the country. We have a basic right as New Zealand citizens to travel abroad.

"The new measures appear to be driven from overseas, as part of the so-called 'war against terrorism' without any practical reasoning behind them. Some of the changes are just silly. Why require new citizens to take oaths at public ceremonies? Are we turning into Americans, who have to put their hand on their heart and publicly salute a flag?

"There is no adequate reason for the Government to make it harder for the spouses of New Zealanders to get citizenship, or to push the qualifying period out from three to five years, or to reduce the life of passports from ten years to five.

"The Bill also puts an unnecessary barrier in the way of hard-working migrants using their time on work permits to count towards their citizenship qualification period," said Mr Locke.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>