Our murky citizenship approvals

The granting of New Zealand citizenship to American billionaire Peter Thiel raises questions about whether the processes for cases such as his are transparent enough. A small number of applications for New Zealand citizenship which do not meet normal criteria, and would otherwise be turned down, are approved by the Minister of Internal Affairs under discretionary powers in Section 9(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act. There were 28 such approvals last year.

Thiel was granted a Section 9 approval by the then minister, Nathan Guy, in June 2011.

Ministerial discretion under the act is an important provision, not least because it helps protect people from over-zealous bureaucrats.

But we do not know much about the people who are being given citizenship despite not meeting the normal requirements. We don’t generally know their names, nor why their applications are being approved.

This is not about the 30,000 immigrants a year who, having met the criteria and formed strong attachments to New Zealand, successfully apply for residency and then make a conscious decision to embrace citizenship of their new home.

Rather, it is about cases like Thiel’s – people who are given a pass for “exceptional circumstances” when they do not otherwise satisfy requirements which are rigorously applied to everyone else. There needs to be more public scrutiny of this murky process.

Thiel was given residence in 2006 despite declaring that he didn’t intend to live here, and his citizenship was later granted even though he had spent only 12 days in the country.

Those who worry about privacy concerns should consider that, by law, the gift of New Zealand citizenship is intended to be a public matter. Almost all citizens over the age of 14 have to attend a ceremony, often conducted by their local mayor, at which they swear allegiance and receive their citizenship certificate. The Citizenship Act states that these ceremonies must be conducted in public, again unless the minister states otherwise.

Thiel was one of the very few people – fewer than 1 per cent of new citizens – allowed to receive their citizenship at a private ceremony, which he attended in Santa Monica, California, in August 2011. The fact of his citizenship did not become generally known until it was stated by the Overseas Investment Office as a reason why he could buy land at Wanaka.

Even though citizenship ceremonies are required to be public, access to the register into which new citizens’ names are entered is very limited. Usually, information is made available only to the people themselves, close relatives and for legal purposes.

This lack of transparency about who has been granted citizenship is not consistent with the public registers which record other important personal events – for example, births, deaths, marriages, civil unions and official changes of name. Any person generally can request copies of the documents which record these other transitions in people’s lives.

For some new citizens, there will be good reasons for privacy, especially if citizenship is granted for humanitarian reasons. Allowances can be made for them.

In other cases, why can’t we know at least the names of those who are being allowed into New Zealand under these special rules?

By law, the gift of citizenship is intended to be a public matter.