In the coming weeks, former politician and activist Anae Arthur Anae will seek an audience with Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka. Anae is trying to collect a million signatures and petition the New Zealand government to allow Pacific island nations three-month visa-free access.

Last week he was in Samoa trying to convince Samoans to join in and he was happy with the response from his countrymen. Anae wants the New Zealand House of Representatives to seriously consider treating Fiji, Samoa, Soloman Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu with respect and dignity as they do 60 other nations.

He has a point that Pacific people from Fiji, Samoa, Soloman Islands, Tonga Tuvalu and Vanuatu should be allowed to enter New Zealand and issued a three-month visitor visa on arrival at a New Zealand Airport.

New Zealand’s treatment of the Pacific is discriminatory when it comes to visas. Samoa has had a long-standing battle. New Zealand has the third highest population of Samoans after the United States and Samoa. More than 180,000. It is not uncommon for people to want to visit relatives, attend weddings, funerals and church functions in New Zealand but getting a visa to just do that is near impossible.

Why are Samoans and Pacific people treated in this manner? Published statistics provided in NZ News headlines recently showed that Pacific Islands people make up over half of all declined visitor visa applicants, proving that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is discriminating against Pacific peoples.

From August to October 2022, nearly 1500 visa applications from 68 countries were declined; over half were from nine Pacific countries. The disparity is clear in the numbers from that period: Of 1299 applications by visitors from Tonga, 224 were declined. In comparison, of the 1398 applications for visitor visas by people from Thailand, only six were declined.

Of 3380 applications by people from Fiji, 371 were turned down, whereas only 30 applications were declined from the 3816 by visitors from South Africa.

Why is it that Immigration New Zealand unfairly judges whether someone will follow the conditions of their visa, including if they will return in the timeframe specified and have processes in place which ensure that people are ‘genuinely visitors’.

While there are universal criteria for anybody wanting to come to New Zealand, the statistics show that Pacific people are overrepresented. Therefore, the “So-called ‘Treaty of Friendship with Samoa” and ‘special relationship’ that New Zealand alleges it has with its Pacific neighbours is not at all reflected in these statistics.

Understandably, New Zealand’s biggest fear is that Pacific people will overstay their welcome. Anae proposes that if they overstay without an extension application, they are barred for three years from travelling back to New Zealand and if they leave as required after 3 months, they can return the same day and be issued another three-month stay visa.

Anae is right when he says the continued discrimination towards the People of the Pacific must end now. The passing of the Citizenship Bill last year gave justice to the wrongs done by New Zealand to Samoans in 1982. It is the same hope of justice that Anae carries with this petition.

All statistics show that New Zealand’s immigration system is still very much biased against Pacific people coming into the country. It is time that New Zealand stops adding this sorry immigration chapter to its sordid history of dealings with the Pacific and her people, especially Samoans.

Given the history of intergenerational trauma and unjustness to Samoa and her people over the last hundred or so years: the 1918 flu epidemic, the assassination of Tupua Tamasese O Aana III in 1929, the Dawn Raids of the 1970s, the racist Samoa Immigration Act 1982, it is imperative that NZ Immigration does the right thing and amends its visiting visa requirements as proposed above.

Samoans can enter the UK without a visa, Samoans can enter Israel without a visa, Samoans can enter China without a visa. It is now time for Fiji, Samoa, Soloman Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu to enter New Zealand without a visa.

The petition can be signed through this link; https://petitions.parliament.nz/be0011ac-4aff-46ea-ae33-08dd42eb63ec/sign