Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono Photo: Supplied
Among three more Member's Bills plucked from the Biscuit Tin ballot in NZ's parliament last week (3 August), there's a piece of legislation looking to fix a 40-year-old outcome of the anti-Pacific racism of the Dawn raids era.
Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono's Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill would restore the right to New Zealand citizenship for people from Western Samoa who were born between 1924 and 1949 - a right promised to them and found owed them by New Zealand's then highest court.
In 1982, the Muldoon Government pushed through the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act to deny New Zealand citizenship to Western Samoans.
In 2003 during the second term of the Helen Clark-led Labour Government, a petition with more than 90,000 signatures calling for the 1982 law's repeal was presented to Parliament. No action was taken by the government.
Johnny Blades from The House caught up with Tuiono in Samoa last month, to talk about his bill.
