Maori wards petitions to return

Maori wards became a hot-button issue when the New Zealand coalition government announced, on April 4, 2024, that it would restore the rights of local communities to determine whether to introduce Maori wards.

The Ardern Labour government in 2021 removed the right for constituents to petition for a vote on whether to proceed with Maori wards.

Since then, 32 councils imposed Maori wards on their communities knowing that, with two exceptions, whenever a vote was held, substantial opposition from the community overturned such proposals.

A Maori ward or constituency is a change to local body representation where a seat or seats are set aside for voters on the Maori roll.

The number of seats is based on the Maori population, not the numbers on the Maori roll in the area. This inflates the number of Maori seats on any council since only around 50 percent of Maori vote on the Maori roll.

A curious feature is that a Maori roll candidate does not have to be Maori. This has the effect of increasing job opportunities for unemployed politicians of the virtue-signalling type.

A Maori ward is a voting arrangement unlike another innovation in local government in which the local “mana whenua” iwi appoints members to vote on council committees.

Councils argue that this is quite OK since the appointees don’t vote on the main council.

But councils never say that council committees frequently vote on decisions on behalf of the full council, and the tribal appointees share in this vote.

This form of separate Maori representation in local government has existed since 2001, when the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act set up three Māori constituencies.

This was after that council’s Maori Regional Representation Committee proposed, in 1996, that the council establish Maori seats similar to the Maori seats in Parliament.  Iwi leaders supported the move.

Proponents argued that Maori “deserved” a seat at the table despite the fact that all New Zealand citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote, seek a seat, and sit on any local council in New Zealand if they so wish.

The establishment of the Auckland Council in 2010 brought up the issue of separate Maori representation and that resulted in the creation there of the Independent Maori Statutory Board.

In 2011, the then Human Rights Commissioner, Joris De Bres, wrote to 77 councils, asking them to consider the question of Maori seats in their next representation review.

Three councils – the Nelson City Council, the Wairoa District Council, and the Waikato District Council –agreed to start the process of establishing Maori seats.

Affected electors petitioned for votes. A whopping 79 percent opposed proposals in Nelson and Waikato while 52 percent were against the Wairoa proposal.

Representation reviews come around every six years. In 2017, five councils proposed Maori wards, there were five votes, and five proposals were rejected.

Of those who voted, 80 percent of Kaikoura voters were opposed, 78 percent in Western Bay of Plenty, 77 percent in Manawatu, 69 percent in Palmerston North, and 56 percent in Whakatane.

The overwhelming no vote prompted Local Government New Zealand president Dave Cull to send a letter ostensibly representing the 78 local authorities throughout New Zealand to party leaders in Parliament asking for such a law change to outlaw the right for affected citizens to petition for a vote on Maori wards.

Meanwhile, the push for separate Maori seats on local bodies continued and affected residents continued to petition and vote them out.

Eighty percent opposed Maori wards on the Hauraki District Council in May 2013, 68 percent voted no to the Far North District Council in March 2015, and 83 percent said no to the New Plymouth District Council in April 2015.

In 2020, nine councils proposed Maori wards, signatures were collected for nine petitions but on February 1, 2021, before votes could proceed, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced that the Local Electoral Act would be amended to outlaw votes on Maori wards.

The two councils that installed Maori wards after a petition and a vote which gained the majority support of their constituents are the Waikato Regional council, established in 2013, and the Wairoa District Council (2016).

The coalition government’s new policy on Maori wards would include holding binding polls on wards that were established without the ability for local referendums to take place.

But, don’t hold your breath. The change won’t take effect until October 2028.