Alex Braae in The Bulletin on Maori Wards (pn679)

 

Māori wards gather momentum  After the decision from Nanaia Mahuta, councils and iwi around the country have moved quickly The Spinoff Feb 2 Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin for Wednesday 3 February, by Alex Braae for The Spinoff. Presented in partnership with Z Energy. In today’s edition: Māori wards gather momentum, the managed isolation system is effectively full, and drought on the way again in Hawke’s Bay. Image: Local government minister Nanaia Mahuta (Getty Images) In the day since an announcement from local government minister Nanaia Mahuta, the concept of Māori wards has generated both momentum and opposition. In case you missed it, the minister said the government will change the law to significantly ease the passage of Māori wards on councils – here's a Stuff story about it. Right now, what tends to happen is that a council will vote to implement a Māori ward, local opponents then start a petition for a referendum on the question, and then the ward gets defeated, binding the council from trying again. The process is explained in this story by Alice Webb-Liddall. In Wellington, councillor Jill Day immediately filed a motion to implement a Māori ward, reports the NZ Herald. Mayor Andy Foster signed on, along with a group of other councillors – a few others who didn't sign were still generally supportive of the concept. A Māori ward may have actually got through in Wellington without a referendum, but with the law change it won't be an issue. Iwi groups are also pushing for wards in Manawatū and Hamilton. At this stage, there will not be one in Christchurch. The law change will also invalidate any petitions currently circulating against Māori wards, most notably in New Plymouth – the home of former mayor Andrew Judd, who effectively lost his career after a revolt against his plans for a Māori ward.  At a national level, the politics of this are interesting. Writing on Politik, Richard Harman describes it as a defeat for Don Brash's Hobson's Pledge group, who have been campaigning against them. The reason? Mahuta was able to read the public mood, and see that she'd be able to get this through despite their howls of protest. At the same time, the NZ Herald's (paywalled) Audrey Young made the very fair point that Labour did not go into the recent election with this policy – they just announced it after the vote. One potential misconception to clear up – the establishment of a Māori ward doesn't give Māori voters any extra say in elections than any other voter. It remains a one-person, one vote system. Actually, in local elections that's not quite true. Some people do get more than one vote, it's just they get them by dint of being property owning ratepayers in multiple districts, rather than because of their ethnicity.  And as for whether it is anti-democratic to stop referendums against Māori wards, I'd point you to this column (from when it was first floated by Mahuta last year) by law clerk Florence Dean. She argued that it was wrong and breached the Treaty to have issues of Māori representation decided by the majority. "Voters do not have equivalent power to demand a poll where a council decides to establish a general ward or constituency. So, there’s a double standard by which only Māori participation and representation is subject to a general community review."