“Aren’t We a Team of Six Million?” Contested belonging and the partisan politics of the diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand

Covid-19 disrupted the routine politics of high mobility, high migration rates, and liberal franchise and political membership rules in Aotearoa New Zealand. During lengthy border closures, members of the one million-strong diaspora struggled to exercise taken-for-granted rights in relation to mobility, return, welfare, and political participation. Further, the government’s discourse of looking after, and fostering solidarity within, the “Team of Five Million” during the pandemic was seen by some as excluding the large non-resident population of a country usually focused on its immigrant population. The crisis moment presented by the pandemic generated substantial political debate about the contemporary meaning of belonging in New Zealand society, for immigrants and emigrants. I examine the partisan dimensions of these debates about the meaning and exercise of citizenship in times of crisis (including Covid-19 and subsequent natural disasters). I examine the emergence of active outreach and campaigning by political parties to previously poorly mobilised and mostly ignored non-resident citizen populations. I consider, further, whether parties’ attempts to leverage this crisis has is likely to have an enduring, disruptive impact on the country's traditional politics of immigration and emigration. I argue that partisan contestation – between the left and right – has heightened the political salience of the diaspora and may drive renegotiation of previously unexamined aspects of the electoral rights associated with citizenship abroad. However, the slow, difficult move away from pandemic migration policy and towards an immigration 'reset' has made for reactive party politics in this important policy area.