LINDSAY MITCHELL: Residents must retain their right to participate

According to Treasury, "People present in New Zealand each year are increasingly non-NZ citizens":

"In 2024, there were 476,000 resident visa holders to spend at least one day in New Zealand, and 705,000 holders of permanent resident visas."

Residents who have lived in NZ for at least a year can vote. But Winston Peters wants to change that to prevent several hundred thousand people who work and pay taxes in NZ from doing so.

Many of these people will have citizen applications in process.

For years I had tenants who were honest, employed, totally reliable, wanting to make NZ home but were in the long-winded queue for citizenship. I know because I signed related papers on their behalf and frequently queried their progress. They were English, Colombian, and Malaysian.

But NZ First is quite happy to tax and rate residents yet deny them the right to participate in the democratic process.

Stuff also reports:

"Speaking at a campaign meeting in Warkworth on Sunday, Peters said the party would end voting rights for permanent residents, arguing that deciding New Zealand’s future should be “the privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand”.

One can't help but wonder which 'New Zealand' he refers to? Is that the one governed by the Crown or the growing dystopian parallel version envisaged by those who claim Maori never ceded sovereignty? Including the leader of the Labour Party.

The whole business of loyalty to NZ is fraught, given the turmoil of the last decade. How many politicians have been described in traitorous terms? How often are NZ leaders accused of being mere puppets whose strings are pulled by globalists?

I have no idea about the veracity of those claims but to hear Winston speak about 'allegiance to NZ' as if it is something all citizens share by virtue of their citizenry is laughable.

Loyalty to New Zealand is a subjective can of worms.

So reverting to an objective argument: people who live here, work here, pay taxes and contribute in many other ways must have a say in the laws that affect them.

On the weekend of the 250th birthday of American Independence its worth remembering the clarion cry of the American Founding Fathers - No taxation without representation.