I want to vote in the New Zealand election – but cost and Covid-19 make it harder for expats
Early last year, in what now seems like another world, I nabbed bargain flights from London to Sydney. My parents were already there, visiting, so my sisters flew from Wellington to join us.
We spent a pleasant two weeks together, with the unspoken understanding that it would be another couple of years before we saw each other again – such was the frequency of visits I’d fallen into since leaving New Zealand in 2015.
I’ve now learned that I paid a heavy price for those cheap flights. By opting to cash my “trip home” chip in Australia instead of New Zealand, I effectively – and entirely unwittingly – forfeited my right to vote in the coming election.
Complacent in my citizenship, I did not know – or had forgotten by the time it became relevant – that in order to be eligible for overseas enrolment, you must have visited New Zealand within the past three years.
I was last there in July 2017, leaving me only just short of a vote in an election that will decide not just the next government, but whether or not to legalise cannabis and euthanasia.
I understand that citizens overseas must have to show some proof of a meaningful tie to New Zealand so as to have a say in its future – especially since we know that citizenship can be bought. But tying the right to vote to a regular visit assumes a certain level of privilege – not to mention global mobility now suddenly curtailed by coronavirus.
Even pre-pandemic, a return plane ticket from London cost about $NZ1,500 (and as much as twice that, at Christmas): equivalent to one month’s rent. Many New Zealanders resident overseas will have weighed up a visit home and found they could not afford the cost or the time off.
My own three-year absence was a case of poor planning, not financial hardship. But in the northern hemisphere, three years can fly by without there ever being an opportune time – or a spare few thousand dollars – to make the trip back home, especially if your work is low-paid or insecure.
Coronavirus has made it even harder by closing international borders and making long-haul flights expensive and unsafe for who knows how long.
Now Jacinda Ardern’s government is considering adding another barrier by charging returning citizens $3,000 for their two-week stay in quarantine.
The additional costs would be another coronavirus-era blow for the New Zealand diaspora, thought to number 1 million globally, who have been made to feel like both a burden and a threat.
The pandemic has highlighted New Zealand’s mixed feelings towards its citizens overseas. Though the “brain drain” is typically decried as a loss of homegrown talent, Kiwis returning during Covid have been met with hostility, being seen to have opportunistically jumped on a “lifeboat” from virus-stricken lands.
Gerry Brownlee, deputy of the opposition National party, has painted them as privileged gadabouts who expect taxpayers to foot the bill for their quarantine despite their “highpaying careers or expensive holidays in Europe”.
In truth, only the very wealthy are able to freely hop between hemispheres – especially now.
Many New Zealanders overseas have not been able to return because of work or housing commitments, the exorbitant cost of flights, or fears of transmitting the virus to relatives.
They might also, like me, call overseas home for now – but still feel invested in Aotearoa from afar.
Coronavirus may force the government to reckon with how to recognise its citizens overseas, now that we cannot be expected to jump on a plane to show our commitment or make ourselves heard.
For a start: the three-year visit requirement for voters should be reassessed for the next election, if not September’s, to reflect the impact of the pandemic on travel and the economy.
Though I don’t live in New Zealand now, I would never rule out returning one day for good – especially if I can have my say as a citizen, now, in shaping the country it is to become.
In fact, when I woke up this morning to an email from the Electoral Commission, kindly double-checking that I was quite sure I’d not been “back at all since 2017”, I fleetingly considered making a strategic trip back, just to be able to vote.
Then I remembered all the reasons I couldn’t.