SUBMISSION: Local Electoral (Maori Wards and Maori
Constituencies) Amendment Bill
11
February 2021
Committee Secretariat
Maori Affairs Committee
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
ma@parliament.govt.nz
Dear
Sir,
Thank
you for providing the opportunity to make a submission on the Local
Electoral (Maori Wards and Maori Constituencies) Amendment Bill.
This
submission on is on behalf
of New Zealand Centre for Political Research, a public policy think tank
established in 2005.
The NZCPR opposes the Bill and asks the Select Committee to recommend that the Bill be withdrawn on the basis that it is anti-democratic and misleads the public of New Zealand.
Our concerns are as follows.
In seeking to abolish the right of ratepayers to veto
decisions by councils to establish Maori wards without a community mandate,
this Bill represents an unprecedented attack on local government democracy.
Furthermore, the reasons given for the law change are
totally misleading.
In her press release announcing the law change the Minister
of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta claimed, “Polls have proven to be an almost
insurmountable barrier to councils trying to improve the democratic
representation of Maori interests. This process is fundamentally unfair to
Maori. Increasing Maori representation is essential to ensuring equity in
representation and to provide a Maori voice in local decision making.”
But this statement is totally misleading. According to a
survey carried out by Local Government New Zealand in October 2020, the
proportion of Maori elected to local authorities is now 13.5 percent. With the
2018 census showing Maori as 13.7 percent of the adult population, there is no
under representation.
These figures confirm that Maori seats are not needed to
increase Maori representation because Maori are quite capable of getting
elected in general seats.
The Local government veto rights were introduced into law by
Helen Clark’s Labour Government in 2002 as a constitutional safeguard to
protect the voting system.
In any democracy the voting system is sacrosanct and needs
protecting to prevent those in power from manipulating it. That’s why
democratic convention requires decisions to change the electoral system to have
a higher threshold than ordinary decisions.
The veto right safeguard in the Local Electoral Act
takes the form of petition rights - ratepayers can challenge a council decision
that changes the electoral system without a community mandate if 5 percent of
voters support a petition calling for a binding referendum.
Veto rights were applied to two new provisions in the Act
that changed the electoral system.
The first enabled councils to introduce STV voting. Since
single transferable voting completely changes the way the voting system
operates, the veto right safeguard was applied.
And the second provision requiring the veto safeguard was
the introduction of Maori wards. Since only voters on the Maori electoral roll
can vote for candidates standing in the Maori seats, any council that
establishes Maori wards has to change the voting system to introduce the Maori
roll.
To justify the abolition of petition rights, the Minister is
claiming, “The current system has a different set of rules for establishing
Maori and general wards and that uneven playing field needs to change. The
process of establishing a ward should be the same for both Maori and general
wards.”
But this is also a serious misrepresentation. Petition
rights only apply when the voting system is changed. Since establishing Maori
wards changes the voting system, whereas establishing general wards does not,
petition rights only apply to Maori wards, not general wards.
If the Minister is sincere about making the provisions for
establishing Maori wards and general wards the same, then, to protect New
Zealand’s democracy, the petition right should be expanded and applied to the
creation of general wards as well.
Under the Bill as it stands, tens of thousands of ratepayers
in local authority areas where petitions have already been announced and
signatures have been collected, will have their lawful democratic rights
revoked. This is unconstitutional.
At the very least, the retrospective provisions in the law
should be removed and the current legislative arrangements should stand for
those local authority areas where legitimate petitions are being collected.
That is the only responsible course of action.
Last year, the Prime Minister’s reminder that we are all
part of the team of 5 million struck a chord. Kiwis want to be united by the
things we have in common, not divided by our differences.
That’s why communities oppose Maori wards. They don’t want
to be divided by race. They will vote for anyone of any ancestry who earns
their respect. But they do not want to be told that because they are or are not
on the Maori roll, they can or cannot vote for a particular candidate. They
don’t want to be segregated by the voting system – and, most importantly, they
want to retain their right to tell their council that dividing their community
by race is wrong.
In conclusion, the Labour Party’s 2020 election manifesto
stated, “Labour will uphold local decision making in the democratic institutions
of local government… Labour will ensure that major decisions about local
democracy involve full participation of the local population from the outset.”
In light of that election promise to New Zealanders, to
abolish democratic rights retrospectively and under urgency, with no proper
consultation amounts to a total abuse of power.
For the sake of democracy and the integrity of the law and Parliament we urge the Committee to recommend that the Local Electoral (Maori Wards and Maori Constituencies) Amendment Bill be withdrawn.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Muriel Newman
New Zealand Centre for Political Research
www.nzcpr.com
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