Kerre Woodham: If you want to keep Māori wards, vote for them

The government is restoring the ability to hold referenda on Māori wards as part of its coalition agreement with ACT and NZ First. It's highly unlikely that National would have acted alone, but as part of the Coalition agreement, as part of the horse trading, they committed to holding referenda on the Māori wards.

Local government Minister Simeon Brown announced the move yesterday, saying a bill will soon be introduced to allow communities to petition their counsel to hold binding polls on Māori ward decisions including those wards already established.

“Most New Zealanders want to have their say and this is what this is all about. It's about saying, well, if a Council wishes to have a Māori ward, then ultimately the public get to decide whether that happens or not. That's the government's position. That's what we’re legislating. The last government took it away and we're restoring it.”

So that was Simeon Brown talking to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. Naturally, Labour and Te Pati Māori have condemned the decision. Local Government New Zealand says it represents a complete overreach by central government, (you could also say the same for Three Waters really, couldn't you?), and has warned the coalition government against inflaming misinformation. Others have called the decision racist, a systemic attack on Māori.

But to my mind, there's a really, really easy way to get the result you want when it comes to retaining or ditching the Māori wards. Get out and vote. The 2022 local body elections it was reported that national voter turnout was a record low 36%. You know, there's a number of reasons for that. But 36% of people bothered to vote, and that's averaging it out over the country. Voter turnout in local body elections has declined in New Zealand over the past 25 years, so it was continuing a trend, this wasn't an anomaly. Fewer and fewer people are exercising their democratic right to vote.

So, you can use that. You can galvanise yourselves, you can get organised, and you can get the result you want. And don't give me this because I've had it before ... ‘Ohh, I'm not going to vote man, because the systems against us and it's just supporting an artificial patriarchal construct that goes against the natural rights of humans’, and all of that sort of tosh.

This is the system we have. And again, if you don't like it, the only way you're going to change it in a democratic society is by using the system to get what you want. Te Pati Māori has six seats in government, meaning they no longer need other parties to speak on their behalf in Parliament. They can stand up and speak for themselves because their supporters got out and voted, they threw out long standing Labour ministers from Māori seats.

And when it comes to the Māori wards, it's not just Māori who want them, there are Pākehā who want to see Māori represented through Māori wards. Some Maori don't want them. It's really reductionist to say that all Māori think the same way or Pākehā think the same way or Europeans think the same way, all New Zealanders think the same way. They don't. There is a diversity and breadth of views. There's a diversity and breadth of level of engagement with the political system.

So, if people, and that's all supporters, want to keep the Maori Wards, get out and vote. If you want them gone, get out and vote and you'll get the result you want.

Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.