Get rid of those special seats and guess what? Māori would account for 20 per cent of the seats in the new Parliament
While the Caretaker Hipkins Government remains appropriately quiet and the commentariat conjectures on the shape of the new government, Kiwiblog has drawn attention to the issue of Māori over-representation in the new Parliament.
Over-representation, at least, if representation based on ethnicity is a measure of the health of our democracy.
A big question raised by the Kiwiblog figures therefore is why New Zealand needs to maintain its seven Māori-only electorates.
RNZ, on the other hand, has been examining the representation of Indian and Chinese citizens.
The Kiwblog article is .,.
RNZ, on the other hand, has been examining the representation of Indian and Chinese citizens.
The Kiwblog article is .,.
The Parliament of 122 MPs has a record 32 who are Māori. This represents 26% of Parliament, which is approximately twice the 13.7% of the adult population who are Māori. This is a good thing that Māori New Zealanders are so well represented, and contradicts the narrative that the system is somehow hostile to Māori.
So who makes up the 32 MPs. Let’s break it down by the six parties.
Labour – Nine MPs out of 34 (26%). Labour has seven List MPs who are Māori, one Māori seat and one Māori MP who won a general seat.
Greens – Six MPs out of 15 (40%). Five List MPs and one Māori MP who won a general seat.
Te Pāti Māori – Six MPs out of six (100%). Six Māori seat MPs.
National – Five MPs out of 48 (10%). All five won general seats.
NZ First – Four MPs out of eight (50%). All List MPs.
ACT – Three MPs out of 11 (27%). One Māori MP who won a general seat and two List MPs.
This shows that there is no unified view on behalf of Māori. Five of the six parties have a greater proportion of Māori MPs than the adult population, and one has slightly fewer.
National is the party that is most successful at selecting Māori candidates in general seats.
Te Pāti Māori of course holds the most Māori seats.
Labour has the most List MPs who are Māori.
NZ First has the highest proportion of their caucus Māori, after Te Pāti Māori.
On the strength of those numbers, it looks like New Zealand could get rid of the seven special Māori electorates and Parliament would still have 25 Māori MPs. That would still account for 20 per cent of the seats in Parliament.
RNZ in recent days has published at least three reports which examine the representation of Asians in the new Parliament.
One was headed
Eight MPs of Asian descent to represent their communities in Parliament
This report said eight politicians of Asian descent will represent their communities in the next parliamentary term – the same number as the MPs of Asian origin who became lawmakers after the 2017 and 2020 elections.
Among them is Carlos Cheung, who defeated popular Labour MP Michael Wood in Auckland’s Mt Roskill. He will be the only Chinese-origin MP in Parliament over the next three years.
Another report is headed
Chinese representation in Parliament likely limited to a single lawmaker
This says only one MP of Chinese descent will likely represent the community in Parliament over the next three years.
Again, the report mentions National Party candidate Carlos Cheung who comfortably won Auckland’s Mt Roskill electorate after special votes were counted, defeating Labour MP Michael Wood by 1,565 votes.
In securing the Labour stronghold, Cheung becomes the second Chinese electorate MP after Pansy Wong, who won the newly formed Botany electorate in 2008.
Meanwhile, two other Chinese candidates who were seeking to enter Parliament – Nancy Lu, ranked 20th on National’s party list, and Labour’s Naisi Chen, ranked 33rd – didn’t make the cut.
Yet another report is headed
National lacks Indian representation in Parliament for second consecutive term
This kicked off:
With the Election Commission announcing the final results of the 2023 general election, it has been confirmed the National Party, which is in a position to form the next government with support from ACT and New Zealand First, is not sending any Indian MPs to Parliament for a second consecutive term.
Should National be blamed for this? Or voters?
The report goes on to say:
Although National selected an unprecedented five electoral candidates of Indian origin to run for office, all lost their bids to win their respective electoral seats.
These were Siva Kilari (list ranking 30) in Manurewa, Mahesh Muralidhar (43) in Auckland Central, Navtej Singh Randhawa (46) in Panmure-Ōtāhuhu, Karuna Muthu (51) in Rongotai in Wellington and Ankit Bansal (52) in Palmerston North.
All but Auckland Central, where Muralidhar lost to sitting Greens MP Chlöe Swarbrick, were Labour strongholds.
This, combined with the candidates’ low list rankings, had made the community sceptical in the run-up to the elections whether any would eventually make it into the Beehive. These fears have come true with final results now confirmed.
We suggest the author of this article might now have a go at winkling out the Indian candidates in the Māori Party.
Come to think of it, RNZ might go looking for anyone in that party who is not Māori.
It’s a party which takes pride in its lack of diversity.
In an article in The Post today, party president John Tamihere writes:
We want to make it very clear that as Te Pāti Māori, we have the mandate of our people off the street. No-one else has that mandate. No-one else can over-talk us, or endeavour to deride us, or endeavour to say that we do not have a mandate.
While we accept there are other whakapapa Māori in other parties, they were not elected on a 100% owned and a 100% governed Māori party.
Nevertheless, 26 of the Māori MPs in the new Parliament did not stand for the Māori Party.
Moreover, while Māori account for 26 per cent of our MPs, but only 13.7 per cent of the voting population, non-Māori have cause to complain that they are under-represented and to campaign for electoral reforms to rectify the imbalance.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
3 comments:
As the debate on co-governance gathers momentum, this dangerous nonsense must be brought to the attention of the tax payers.
Several days ago stuff was quite aggrieved that Carlos Cheung was insufficient to represent Chinese, apparently not realising that he was elected by Mt Roskill voters to represent them, regardless of ethnicity. For years I’ve voted for Melissa Lee, evidently without realising that since she is a Korean woman, she couldn’t possibly represent me, a white male.
Our media’s obsession with racial head counting is a disservice to representative democracy.
Firstly it is absolute rubbish to claim 32 of our MP's are Maori, but we are compelled to do so merely because of the legal definition of what constitutes being Maori, and the fact that our fraudulent Census process creates more and more as the years roll by. The Maori population as a consequence is guaranteed to grow at about twice the rate of the European population. As a genealogist I would like a random sample of Maori over the age of 35 to supply me the names, birth place and birthdates of their 4 grandparents and 8 Gt Grandparents, plus a DNA sample. My educated guess is that research would show that the average "Maori" s likely to be between 1/4 and 1/8 measured by blood quotient.
I might add that if you asked the 32 Maori MP's to define themselves many would not consider themselves to be Maori by any sensible measure. In my own family I have a blonde, blue eyed grandson who has a Maori ancestor born c1825 yet by law he is Maori despite being only 1/64 by blood. Crazy!
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