Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton said his community qualifies for an exemption because the community had its say when a petition failed to gain the numbers needed to demand a poll.
This is according to a Wanganui Chronicle story by Moana Ellis who is a “Local Democracy Reporter” funded by the Public Interest Journalism fund which encourages coverage that favours an affirmative-action interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.
But Mr Kirton’s claim is not as clear-cut as he wants you to believe.
I was one of the seven volunteers associated with Hobson’s Pledge and Democracy Action who collected signatures in Taumarunui and National Park on Friday, January 15, 2021, and part of the next day. Here’s what happened.
At that time, nine councils had proposed Maori wards and signatures for petitions in those nine areas were being collected.
The signatures were for a petition which said: A Maori ward is a significant change in voting arrangements for our district. Citizens are entitled to have a say. This is your opportunity to support the democratic process and let our community decide whether such a proposal should proceed”.
A total of 385 signatures were required to trigger a district-wide vote in Ruapehu. The deadline was February 22. Signatories had to be currently enrolled to vote.
We met outside the Taumarunui New World at 10am. Three drove 42km to National Park to collect signatures there. Four started in the Taumarunui shopping strip opposite the railway tracks.
We had petition forms with space for 10 signatures plus full name and residential address.
Going door-to-door as well as buttonholing people in the street we would simply tell people about the proposed Maori ward and ask if they want to have a say and, if so, sign the petition.
I’ve done a lot of direct selling over the years. I hated it at first but grew to enjoy it. I recommend it for personal development.
Collecting signatures was enjoyable. I found that attitudes varied with age – people my age welcomed the opportunity to have a say while younger people were wary.
Everyone in the Whanau Ora building on the main street signed. However, some time on that sunny afternoon a woman who is now a councillor in Taumarunui loudly objected to seeing signatures being collected in the main street and kept her loud objections going until we had to move to going door-to-door in residential areas.
The next morning, by chance at the BP station coffee shop,that woman ran into our colleagues from National Park and resumed her tirade, this time grabbing the clip board that had all signatures collected 42km away.
There was a scuffle. The clipboard was retrieved.
Waatea News published “Ruapehu fracas as Hobson’s Pledge challenged” which said “a Ruapehu District councillor says he’s disgusted with Hobson’s Pledge members who punched a woman who challenged their collection of signatures in Taumarunui".
It went on to say “Police are investigating the incident in which Fiona Chase says she was punched after she grabbed a petition form calling for a referendum on the council’s plans to create a Māori ward”.
Former Ruapehu District Councillor Elijah Pue said “Ms Chase believed the pair had used deception to gain signatures from some of her relatives”.
"It just annoys me that these people aren't from here, they're from Napier. These old white Pākehā men come in here and collect signatures and what has been reported to me from some of our kuia is they lied to our people and said 'if you sign this petition you are supporting Māori wards,' and in fact that’s not true," he said.
Hobson’s Pledge founder Don Brash emailed a response which said “there was such a ruckus that the BP manager called police. According to Chase’s video footage of the incident, posted on the Maori Party Facebook page, she initially asked the manager NOT to call police”.
The Waatea News story at the time said that assault charges had been pressed. That line does not appear in the story as currently posted.
The process for submitting signatures involved sending all the signatures to the Ruapehu District Council first to be sent on to Electionz for validation.
I sent 550 signatures to the Ruapehu District Council. Electionz reported receiving just 475 signatures.
Of the 475, a total 273 signatures were exact matches leaving us 112 short of the 385 threshhold. A total of 64 were on the electoral roll but were recorded at a different address.
Electionz had received seven requests from people who wished to be removed from the petition, which was actioned.
Meanwhile, by January 29, signature collecting in Gisborne, Northland, Kaipara, South Taranaki, Taupo, Whangarei, and New Plymouth had gained momentum with a five districts approaching their goals, while Tauranga’s petition had just been validated.
But it was all to come crashing down. On February 1, the Labour Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced that petitions on Maori wards would be outlawed and that all nine petitions would have no effect.
With the Maori wards bit of our democracy erased by media release, we had more evidence that we were no longer living in the democracy that we had grown up in.
The Ruapehu mayor should have nothing to fear about a referendum on Maori wards in his area. If his constituents want a Maori ward, they will let him know in the vote next year.
Bear in mind, Ruapehu has a substantial Maori population of 43.4 percent of the total according to the 2018 Census.
If a Maori ward is supported, then the council has an indisputable mandate for it. That’s how democracy works.
But Mr Kirton should also be aware that people don’t vote along racial lines and only around 50 percent of Maori ancestry voters are on the Maori roll.
In 2022, Fiona Kahukura Hadley-Chase got a Maori ward seat with just 285 votes. The mayor got 1757 votes. Elijah Pue failed in his run for the mayoralty as the youngest candidate.
For your information, Ruapehu has 6601 on the general roll and 1985 on the Maori roll, with a total of 8586 eligible voters enrolled.
The council has a mayor and nine councillors, three of whom are Maori ward councillors. The deputy mayor is Maori elected on the general roll.
By the way, in 2021, signatures from Ruapehu did keep coming in even though they would be of no effect. A further 34 came in from people who wanted to have a say.
I guess that 34 plus the 75 that went missing between the Ruapehu District Council and Electionz is just three signatures short of the petition threshold, assuming all names and addresses match records.
Then there were the 64 that were on the electoral roll but were recorded at a different address.
And this means Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton is wrong to say that his community has already had its say on Maori wards.
Only 273 of 550 people who wanted to have a say on Maori wards there were permitted to have a say, and that say was for a vote, not for a Maori ward.
At that time, nine councils had proposed Maori wards and signatures for petitions in those nine areas were being collected.
The signatures were for a petition which said: A Maori ward is a significant change in voting arrangements for our district. Citizens are entitled to have a say. This is your opportunity to support the democratic process and let our community decide whether such a proposal should proceed”.
A total of 385 signatures were required to trigger a district-wide vote in Ruapehu. The deadline was February 22. Signatories had to be currently enrolled to vote.
We met outside the Taumarunui New World at 10am. Three drove 42km to National Park to collect signatures there. Four started in the Taumarunui shopping strip opposite the railway tracks.
We had petition forms with space for 10 signatures plus full name and residential address.
Going door-to-door as well as buttonholing people in the street we would simply tell people about the proposed Maori ward and ask if they want to have a say and, if so, sign the petition.
I’ve done a lot of direct selling over the years. I hated it at first but grew to enjoy it. I recommend it for personal development.
Collecting signatures was enjoyable. I found that attitudes varied with age – people my age welcomed the opportunity to have a say while younger people were wary.
Everyone in the Whanau Ora building on the main street signed. However, some time on that sunny afternoon a woman who is now a councillor in Taumarunui loudly objected to seeing signatures being collected in the main street and kept her loud objections going until we had to move to going door-to-door in residential areas.
The next morning, by chance at the BP station coffee shop,that woman ran into our colleagues from National Park and resumed her tirade, this time grabbing the clip board that had all signatures collected 42km away.
There was a scuffle. The clipboard was retrieved.
Waatea News published “Ruapehu fracas as Hobson’s Pledge challenged” which said “a Ruapehu District councillor says he’s disgusted with Hobson’s Pledge members who punched a woman who challenged their collection of signatures in Taumarunui".
It went on to say “Police are investigating the incident in which Fiona Chase says she was punched after she grabbed a petition form calling for a referendum on the council’s plans to create a Māori ward”.
Former Ruapehu District Councillor Elijah Pue said “Ms Chase believed the pair had used deception to gain signatures from some of her relatives”.
"It just annoys me that these people aren't from here, they're from Napier. These old white Pākehā men come in here and collect signatures and what has been reported to me from some of our kuia is they lied to our people and said 'if you sign this petition you are supporting Māori wards,' and in fact that’s not true," he said.
Hobson’s Pledge founder Don Brash emailed a response which said “there was such a ruckus that the BP manager called police. According to Chase’s video footage of the incident, posted on the Maori Party Facebook page, she initially asked the manager NOT to call police”.
The Waatea News story at the time said that assault charges had been pressed. That line does not appear in the story as currently posted.
The process for submitting signatures involved sending all the signatures to the Ruapehu District Council first to be sent on to Electionz for validation.
I sent 550 signatures to the Ruapehu District Council. Electionz reported receiving just 475 signatures.
Of the 475, a total 273 signatures were exact matches leaving us 112 short of the 385 threshhold. A total of 64 were on the electoral roll but were recorded at a different address.
Electionz had received seven requests from people who wished to be removed from the petition, which was actioned.
Meanwhile, by January 29, signature collecting in Gisborne, Northland, Kaipara, South Taranaki, Taupo, Whangarei, and New Plymouth had gained momentum with a five districts approaching their goals, while Tauranga’s petition had just been validated.
But it was all to come crashing down. On February 1, the Labour Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced that petitions on Maori wards would be outlawed and that all nine petitions would have no effect.
With the Maori wards bit of our democracy erased by media release, we had more evidence that we were no longer living in the democracy that we had grown up in.
The Ruapehu mayor should have nothing to fear about a referendum on Maori wards in his area. If his constituents want a Maori ward, they will let him know in the vote next year.
Bear in mind, Ruapehu has a substantial Maori population of 43.4 percent of the total according to the 2018 Census.
If a Maori ward is supported, then the council has an indisputable mandate for it. That’s how democracy works.
But Mr Kirton should also be aware that people don’t vote along racial lines and only around 50 percent of Maori ancestry voters are on the Maori roll.
In 2022, Fiona Kahukura Hadley-Chase got a Maori ward seat with just 285 votes. The mayor got 1757 votes. Elijah Pue failed in his run for the mayoralty as the youngest candidate.
For your information, Ruapehu has 6601 on the general roll and 1985 on the Maori roll, with a total of 8586 eligible voters enrolled.
The council has a mayor and nine councillors, three of whom are Maori ward councillors. The deputy mayor is Maori elected on the general roll.
By the way, in 2021, signatures from Ruapehu did keep coming in even though they would be of no effect. A further 34 came in from people who wanted to have a say.
I guess that 34 plus the 75 that went missing between the Ruapehu District Council and Electionz is just three signatures short of the petition threshold, assuming all names and addresses match records.
Then there were the 64 that were on the electoral roll but were recorded at a different address.
And this means Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton is wrong to say that his community has already had its say on Maori wards.
Only 273 of 550 people who wanted to have a say on Maori wards there were permitted to have a say, and that say was for a vote, not for a Maori ward.
5 comments:
So, let me get this right: Nanaia Mahuta snaps her fingers if memory serves, under urgency and in that instant (well almost) the democratic provisions in the legislation disappear. This current govt shilly shally about for a few months, put it all through due process as drafted by the public servants to introduce a three year delay on nullifying any wards that people do not want and we have to simply suck that up. Oh, well done boys and girls, fair play and all that ... give me strength! The left frankly do not know what fair play is.
So were the " Maori ward '' seats to be retained by local choice in certain local body electorates in the future, should those of Maori origin still be allowed to vote as normal ?
Because in effect the Maori would be doubly advantaged, they had already been given seats based on their skin colour or self identification as Maori. Then they would get to vote for those standing as General , European, non Maori , normal candidates, what would you call them ? It would essentially be one man two votes , if you identify as Maori .
Maori's could run a Maori Ticket , and block vote for those who identify as Maori.
That's what you'd call one man two votes. And we couldn't have that could we ?
So it would seem reasonable to say if there are Maori Wards, then the Maori's don't get to vote at all. But the Maori's wouldn't like that would they ?
They would scream RACISM !
So why don't we stick with one man one vote. And if the Maori's want to run a ticket they can.
And get rid of the Maori seats in the general election too....
Those reading this article should feel free to insert gender pronouns, he ,she, them, they, it, person ,etc that they feel comfortable with.
Interesting considerations Tom Logan, that mainstream media have not brought out to my knowledge. However, from my understanding the one-person two-vote situation will only apply to those Maori who don't put themselves on the Maori roll. Those on the Maori roll get to vote only for Maori ward councillors and a mayor, similar to non-Maori who get to vote for councillors in whatever geographical ward they live in and for a mayor.
Maori who don't put themselves on the Maori electoral roll get to vote for councillors in their geographical ward but they will get additional race-based representation from those elected on to Maori ward seats.
The choice regarding which electoral roll to go on can be made strategically to ensure double representation. Presumably, if only 2 (part-)Maori in a local body district are on the Maori roll they will still vote in one or more race-based councillors who will prioritise the interests of all their fellow Maori on the general roll who can vote for even more race-based councillors in their geographical wards.
The same thing applies to general elections. We have been putting up with racist, undemocratic inequality for a long time. The Ardern/Hipkins government increased Maori ability to distort democracy in that way by allowing them to change their electoral roll much closer to election date. If late polls show that a Maori-favouring candidate for a general seat needs a few more votes to get in, Maori can change to the general electoral roll to get that candidate over the line but knowing they will still be represented by whomever gets in to their Maori seat.
Anyone, please correct me if this understanding is wrong.
Emapathetic I agree with you.
The situation may vary from council to council. But in Auckland the Maori ward seats were intended to be created on the basis of census data of those who identify as Maori , not on the basis of those who registered to vote on the Maori electoral Roll . [ from Auckland Councils adoption of the Royal Commision model, "with the number of Maori ward seats to be determined in proportion to population".]
A Victoria University study in 2018 found at that time about 52.4 % of Maori registered on the Maori Electoral Roll, though they stated that this percentage was decreasing.
So as you say , a tiny few of those who identify as Maori could go onto the Maori electoral roll, gerry-mander the candidates and elect a Maori ward member unnoposed , whilst the majority of Maori go on to on the General electoral roll and block vote for a candidate running on a Maori ticket.
In the 2022 Local Body Elections 235 candidates were elected unnoposed. And given the wholly undemocratic outrage that was 3 waters, you don't think they'd try it ?
As Mike Williams former president of the Labour Party has said, the problem with The Maori voters is getting them to register or vote at all. Local Body Ward electorates and Maori Parliamentary seats solves this . Maori's won't need to register or vote to get candidates elected .
Were the indigenous people in Taumarunui before the Maori arrived?
What is the history?
We're the Waitaha there?
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