Immigration insult 'MY KIDS ARE KIWIS!'

The Māori dad of three just wants a place to call home

- Kasia De Vydt-Jillings

Watching his children perform kapa haka at school, musician John Bryers Ruddock couldn’t hide his joy. After years of raising them in Hawai‘i, he had finally brought them to live in New Zealand – the land of their ancestors, the place his mother called home and the land he had always considered his own.

At first, everything felt right. His tamariki, who had never set foot in New Zealand before, were surrounded by te ao Māori, coming home each day excited to share the haka they’d learned and the words they’d picked up.

“It was just a beautiful thing for me as a father to witness them like that,” says John, 38. “But they’re not able to attend school at the moment as they’re technically considered overstayers now.”

Despite John being a New Zealand citizen, his children, Hōhepa, 12, Peatarangi, nine, and Ihāia, eight, are not recognised as Kiwis. The issue lies in a technicality. John was born in Australia, making him a citizen by descent rather than by birth.

Under New Zealand law, citizenship by descent is not automatically passed to his children, who were also born overseas.