the context of the Peter Thiel controversy, the Department of Internal Affairs acknowledged that “humanitarian reasons are less used than others” but would not give any further breakdown.54 This, with respect, is likely to be a significant understatement. On the above analysis, it is safe to assume that grants of citizenship under s 9(1)(c) on the basis of humanitarian circumstances will have been extremely rare, if not non-existent. The history of Mr Kun’s application further illustrates the difficulty. In March 2016, the Department of Internal Affairs provided Mr Kun with the opportunity to comment on the Department’s draft advice to the Minister, in which officials proposed to recommend (on the basis of this settled interpretation of the public interest requirement) against a grant of citizenship in Mr Kun’s case. In that draft advice, the Department acknowledged that the Minister “may consider” that the circumstances of political persecution faced by Mr Kun were exceptional. But it went on to remind the Minister that he also needed to be satisfied that there was a public interest in the grant of citizenship, and that this required “a benefit or advantage to New Zealand that is not already attained”. The Department did not address the possibility that Mr Kun’s humanitarian predicament itself gave rise to such a public interest, being content to note that “any benefit or advantage to be gained by the New Zealand public in terms of Mr Kun’s skills and experience if he were to become a citizen is outweighed by his inability to meet the standard [ie s 8] requirements”.55 5. The Helu approach: a public interest in avoiding harsh or unjust outcomes In sum, prior to mid-2016 (when Roland Kun’s citizenship application was finally determined), the Department’s settled approach to “public interest” was profoundly unreceptive to applications grounded in humanitarian circumstance. The legal significance of Mr Kun’s case lies in the fact that, in the course of finalising its advice and recommendation to the Minister (and following further submissions made by Mr Kun’s lawyers), the Department of Internal Affairs accepted that this narrow approach no longer correctly reflected the law of New Zealand. The Department’s revised approach draws on judicial recognition, in the immigration context, that the community as a whole has an interest in the avoidance of harsh outcomes to the individuals that comprise it. That judicial approach is not a new one.56 Conveniently for Mr Kun, however, in March 2015 (just months before Mr Kun’s citizenship application was made), the Supreme Court of New Zealand had affirmed, and expanded on, the relevant principles.57 Helu v Immigration and Protection Tribunal concerned one of the predecessors to s 207(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 – a provision that empowered the relevant tribunal to quash a deportation order (made against a criminal offender) if: firstly, it “would be unjust or unduly harsh” to deport the appellant; and, secondly, it “would not be contrary to the public interest” to allow the appellant to remain. Notably, the provision at issue in Helu (unlike s 207(1)) did not require “exceptional circumstances” (whether humanitarian or otherwise).58 But the inquiry into whether deportation would be “unjust or unduly harsh” – like an inquiry into exceptional humanitarian circumstances – invited a focus on whether intolerable hardship to the individual would flow from an adverse “Reasons for majority of ‘exceptional’ NZ citizenship grants unexplained” stuff (New Zealand, 17 March 2017) <www.stuff.co.nz>. 54 Internal Affairs spokesman Steve Corbett, quoted in Tom Pullar-Strecker, above n 53. 55 Draft advice and recommendation to the Minister, 15 March 2016 (on file with author). 56 See for example Helu v Immigration and Protection Tribunal [2013] NZCA 276, [2013] NZAR 923 at [43]; O’Brien v Immigration and Protection Tribunal [2012] NZHC 2599, [2012] NZAR 1033 at [42]–[46]; Garate v Chief Executive of the Department of Labour HC Auckland CIV-2004-485-102, 30 November 2004 at [41]; Zanzoul, above n 48, at [176]–[179]. 57 Helu, above n 13. 58 Section 207 replaced a number of appeal rights in the earlier Act, some of which included the additional requirement of exceptional humanitarian circumstances and some of which did not. 12 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3094731