Hipkins disputes suggestion his party has done nothing on Sāmoan citizenship bill

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has disputed questions that his party "didn't do anything" during its periods in power to repeal legislation that stripped certain Sāmoans of their entitlement to citizenship.

Green MP Teanau Tuiono’s member’s bill aims to restore the right to NZ citizenship for Sāmoans which was taken away by the Citizenship (Western Sāmoa) Act 1982.

The bill most recently finished going through the Select Committee process receiving almost 25,000 submissions, almost half of them from Sāmoa.

Since 1982, there have been three Labour-led governments from 1984-1990, 1999-2008 and most recently under Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins from 2017-2023. Given these periods in power, William Terite on Pacific Mornings asked Hipkins if he was embarrassed Labour "didn’t do anything with this restoring citizenship bill.”

But Hipkins disputed this suggestion.

“I don’t think that, you know, its fair to say we did nothing during that time.

“We did a lot of things during that time. But, you know, these things often have a long history under Labour and National governments.

“I hope that this bill will progress now. I think it's well and truly time.”

Along with his hopes for the Resorting Citizenship Bill to pass, Hipkins attacked the coalition government for passing the “discriminatory” Māori Wards Bill.

The Wards Bill, which passed its third reading in the House yesterday, means that local councils will have to hold a referendum to establish a Māori ward.

Hipkins accused the government of targeting Māori.

“They could remove the ability for people who own properties in multiple different locations to vote in all of those different locations because that's not one person, one vote.

“It's basically saying that if you're rich and you own lots of properties, you get a disproportionate share of the vote compared to people who don't. I think they're not making those changes.

“So this is really just an excuse for them to have a whack at Māori, which is something that this government is very, very comfortable doing.”

Hipkins also attacked Health Minister Dr Shane Reti for changing the letter of expectations for Te Whatu Ora.

“He actually removed from that letter of expectations a requirement that was in there from the last Labour government to balance the books and to operate in a financially prudent manner.

“So what we're seeing is that they were told by the government to just focus on meeting the targets, don't worry about anything else. And of course, they blew the books in the process. They recruited a whole lot more people to meet the government's targets.

“That brought in an extra cost. That cost hit the books around April. This is all stuff that's happened under their government.

“They need to man up and accept responsibility for that. And actually, they should open the books. They should let the New Zealand public see exactly where that money's going.”

Watch full interview here: