New Zealand First has today announced that we will be campaigning to change the electoral law to ensure that only citizens have the right to vote.
Currently, any permanent resident who has gone through the normal process, after just two years living in New Zealand, can vote.
In addition, anyone who is here on certain visas that have no expiry date, are technically eligible to vote after just one year living in New Zealand.
I have supported and advocated for this change for 20 years or so. I think it is important that people become citizens of a country, not just reside there. Citizenship is important, and NZ provides very little incentive for residents to become citizens.
Around one in five people in NZ are not citizens. That is a very high proportion. I’d like to see it reduce. Not by having fewer immigrants, but by more of them becoming citizens.
In Australia and the UK only around 10% of residents are not citizens.
It is very rare for a country to allow non-citizens to vote. We are one of the few in the world, and our regime has been described as the most liberal in the world.
While I strongly back changing the eligibility from residents to citizens, I don’t like the idea of someone who has been eligible, losing their eligibility through no fault of their own. So I would grandfather in anyone currently on the electoral roll.
It is good to see NZ First promote this change. It should not be controversial.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
7 comments:
No Not grandfathering just make the process slick.
No, David, the law must exclude all non-citizens. Want to vote? Easy, earn it, become a citizen.
Not sure I agree totally David.
I am a "resident" and not a citizen.
I was born in Adelaide in 1946. We moved to NZ in 1950, where I have been residing ever since.
I have been educated here, worked here for 50+ years, paid taxes here and consider myself a true Kiwi !!
I did consider citizenship years ago, but it was a bureaucratic complex process and was not needed. It was also made clear to me that, being born in Aus, I was accepted.
However, I do agree that allowing migrants to vote after 2 years in wrong.
Make it 10 years ?
I was a permanent resident for 48 years having been brought to this country at the age of 2. In that time I consider I contributed more to this country than a lot of citizens and certainly paid a lot more tax. I earned my right to vote. What magical difference does parroting an oath of allegience make, particularly to a person who is not themselves a ciizen and doesn't bother to live here. And, a person to whom I'm already subject anyway by virtue of my British birth. I only converted because a permanent resident remains in New Zealand at the pleasure of the Minister of Immigration and I refuse to be held in thrall to a politician.
You have options, Doug and Jone. Either claim your right to vote by becoming a citizen, or recognise you haven’t earn the right. It’s pretty easy to get a passport for folks who have been here so long. Are you in or out?!
Fair comment, Jones Boy.
You miss the point, Anon 10:05.
Getting citizenship is bureaucratic, and unnecessary for folks like me who are true patriotic Kiwis by virtue of having lived here for the last 75 years
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