The table below gives us an idea of how Maori are responding to their right to exploit the Maori electoral option.
The data can be considered alongside Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi’s urging Maori to opt for the Maori roll and to have more Maori seats established.
Maori enrolment
Click to view - Source: Electoral Commission
His party won six of the seven Maori seats at the last general election.
His objective was declared during the General Debate on October 16.
RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori):
Being the only tangata whenua movement in this House means that the weight of our Māori nation sits solely on the shoulders of the six people that sit here in this part of the House. One of the easiest ways we can do that is that we need more of our people to enrol on to the Māori roll for the first time.
Māori on the Māori roll now out-populate Māori on the general roll. Congratulations to our people. This is showing the new breed of Māori coming through. The kōhanga reo generation has arrived—70 percent of our people are 40 years and younger.
If we are 20 per cent of the population, that would translate into more seats in this House if all of our people were on the Māori roll—18 to 20 seats. But because we have people still on the general roll—Māori people on the general roll—we get half of what we should be getting, which is seven Māori seats, and, in actual fact, should be 14 if all Māori were on the Māori roll. That was at 16 percent. Now we’re at 20 percent, it will increase.
Andy Foster: Voting where they want to vote.
Hon Member: You’re not Māori.
RAWIRI WAITITI: Yes, be quiet. This is about us using this democratic process to our advantage
Get on the Māori roll, ensure that we have more on the Māori roll to ensure we have more Māori seats for more Māori voices.
The recent hikoi was a vehicle for turning rhetoric into a recruitment drive.
Using data more recent than ours, RNZ reported:
3000 Join Māori Electoral Roll After Treaty Principles Bill Hīkoi
The Māori electoral roll has grown by more than 3000 people – after organisers of the hīkoi mō te Tiriti promoted a switch from the general roll.
Data from the Electoral Commission up to 25 November showed 2262 people changed from the general roll to the Māori roll – up from 59 in October. Just 28 people changed from Māori roll to general roll.
There were also 862 new enrolments on the Māori roll – up from 29 the previous month. All up, there were 3096 more people on the Māori roll than at the start of the month.
During the hīkoi, organisers had encouraged participants to make sure they enrolled to vote in the next election – with much of the messaging aimed at young Māori.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told the hīkoi if supporters were not enrolled to vote, nothing would change.
“We are now 20 percent of the population – we are a million people in this country. That should translate into 19 to 20 seats. We should be determining who the government is every election – that’s the strategy. Everybody on the Māori roll.”
When the hīkoi reached Parliament, a young Maori, Atareta Milne, told the crowd other young Māori were watching and learning.
“I ask you to enrol to vote. I ask you to be on the Māori roll. E mātakitaki ana mātau, e whakarongo ana mātau. (We are watching, we are listening). We need you, for today and for our apōpō!”
According to the data used for the RNZ report, 3.65 million people were enrolled to vote in New Zealand.
Of those, 563,964 are of Māori descent – with 292,825 (51.9 percent) on the Māori roll and 271,139 (48.1 percent) on the general roll
The RNZ report explained that since 2023, voters of Māori descent have been free to switch between the Māori roll and the General roll at any time except in the three months before an election.
Previously, Māori voters could only switch once every five years, at census time.
Those on the Māori roll vote in one of the seven Māori electorates. At the last election, six of those seven seats were won by Te Pāti Māori. Labour MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel won the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat.
The Māori Electoral Option is the arrangement which entitled Maori to switch from the Māori roll to the general roll.
The Electoral Commission website explains:
When can you choose rolls?
If you are Māori, and enrolling to vote for the first time, you choose which electoral roll you want to be on.
You can also change your roll type at any time, except:
- in the 3 months before a general election
- in the 3 months before local elections which are held every 3 years
- before a parliamentary by-election if the change would move you into the electorate where the by-election is being held.
If you’re Māori and enrolling for the first time you can still choose either the Māori roll or the general roll.
Is there a non-Maori option?
Sorry, no.
What’s more, voters on the general roll have lost one seat for the next general election.
The number of Maori seats remains the same.
Stats NZ reported on October 23 –
The press statement says:
The number of general electorates in Aotearoa New Zealand will decrease from 65 to 64 at the next general election. There is no change to the number of Māori electorates, which remains at seven, Stats NZ said today.
The number of electorates in the North Island will decrease by one from 49 to 48.
“This means there will be one more list seat in a 120-member Parliament,” acting deputy government statistician Kathy Connolly said.
Data from the 2023 Census and Māori Electoral Option was used to determine those results.
But doesn’t the discriminatory effect of the Maori Electoral Option mean our electoral system is unfairly pitched in favour of Maori voters?
Not according to the supporters of the Electoral (Equal Protection of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill , which aimed to entrench the Maori seats in our electoral system.
Labour’s Arena Williams, for example, declared:
Equal rights for Māori and non-Māori citizens, equal protection for voters to participate in our democracy, equality in the eyes of the law under our constitutional framework—these are the things that by voting down this bill, the National Party members, the ACT Party members, and the New Zealand First party members in the House tonight are rejecting.
And:
This is a bill which simply corrects an aspect of our constitutional framework in the Electoral Act which would treat the rights of voters in general seats as different from those of voters in Māori seats. It would be a simple change that would be able to be effected tonight if those members had chosen to support it.
It’s a sad day when parliamentarians cannot agree by consensus that the rights of Māori should be the same as every other citizen. And it belies a bad-faith approach by parties who would seek to enter into a Treaty principles debate, where they say they want equal protection of Māori and of non-Māori citizens, when, in fact, they had this opportunity to grant equal protections but it was clear that equal protection, in their politics, only means for non-Māori. I am very disappointed by this debate.
In the same debate, Waititi said:
… I believe this is probably one of the most racist laws of the electoral law here in New Zealand.
We’ve got the Māori roll and we’ve got the general roll, and so why is it called the “general roll”? Because it makes the Māori roll the “other”.
And then we call it the “general elections”, which actually really solidifies that particular way of thinking. So the Māori roll and the Pākehā roll makes sense to me. Māori roll and non-Māori roll—that makes sense to me.
The 2018 Māori Electoral Option resulted in the percentage of Māori on the Māori electoral roll remaining a majority at 52.4%, but at that time there was a net increase of Māori changing from the Māori electoral roll to the general electoral roll.
A Victoria University of Wellington survey of Maori who had opted for the general roll aimed to determine why they had made that choice. The two core questions of the survey were:
- Why have you chosen the general electoral roll?
- What would make you change to the Māori electoral roll?
Results:
80% of respondents agreed (agreed and somewhat agreed) that
- ‘There is more choice of candidates on the general roll’ and;
- ‘Māori don’t all think the same and its good to have Māori on both electoral rolls’
But maybe that thinking has changed…
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
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