Two years ago, we were counting the days to the 14 October General Election. With the left-leaning legacy media in overdrive – promoting the parties on the left and attacking those on the centre-right, New Zealanders desperate for change were anxiously wondering whether enough was being done to overthrow Labour.
The problem was that Jacinda Ardern and her ‘we are the sole source of truth’ ruling elite had not only crushed our rights during those Covid years but were radically changing our culture too. By forcing He Puapua – their secret agenda to replace democracy with tribal rule – onto the country without any public mandate whatsoever, Kiwis had lost faith in Government and were looking for parties willing to dismantle the political establishment and give them their country back.
With National, ACT and New Zealand First promising reform, they were voted into office with 52.8 percent support, while Labour’s vote collapsed from 50 percent in 2020 to just 27 percent.
A key demand of voters was to restore local government democracy. Petition rights for Maori wards, which gave locals the final say on how their council representatives were elected, had been removed without warning by Jacinda Ardern’s Government shortly after winning a majority in 2020.
Introduced into the legislation covering local body elections by Helen Clark’s Labour Government, this petition right veto had been in place for over twenty years.
With democratic convention requiring changes to constitutional arrangements to have a higher threshold than ordinary decisions – in order to prevent those in power from manipulating the electoral system for their own advantage – petition rights were used as a democratic safeguard to be applied in the two situations that involved voting system changes: The first was when the method of voting was being switched between FPP (First Past the Post) and STV (Single Transferable Voting), and the second was when the electoral roll needed modification to accommodate Maori Ward voting.
Petition rights, which enabled locals to challenge and overturn a decision to establish Maori wards if 5 percent of voters supported a petition calling for a binding referendum, had been used successfully on 23 occasions over the years. In those cases, council decisions to establish Maori wards without the approval of their community were reversed, as locals made it very clear: they did not want their communities divided by race.
The Herald’s Chief Political Reporter Audrey Young, was scathing about Labour’s removal of the veto right: “The Government has made a strong case for abolishing local voters’ ability to overturn a council’s decision to establish a Maori ward. So it is unforgivable that Labour did not put it in its 2020 election manifesto. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta foreshadowed the move within weeks of the election. It was clearly on Labour’s agenda all along. It may be a divisive issue but there is no excuse for Labour having hidden it at the election. No doubt Labour feared it could strengthen the arm of Act or, more importantly, of New Zealand First and did not want to take the risk of saying what it wanted to do in case the issue cost it votes.”
And that indeed turned out to be the case. Labour’s He Puapua agenda had been kept well hidden, even as it was being rolled out. With the tribal takeover of local government a key objective, preventing communities from blocking the establishment of Maori wards, was regarded as crucial.
When the newly elected Coalition Government finally announced their policies in November 2023, restoring local democracy through the reintroduction of petition rights was a priority.
As a result, the decision of whether Maori wards stay or go is again in the hands of voters.
That means electors in those 42 communities where race-based seats had been imposed by councils without public approval – see the full list below – now have the opportunity to vote in a referendum to either “Keep” or “Remove” their Maori Wards.
With Local Government Election Day now less than a week away (voting closes at noon on Saturday 11 October, with Tuesday 7 October the last day for postal voting – after which voting papers must be dropped off at council ballot boxes to be counted), there are growing concerns over whether those opposed to race-based division in local government are doing enough to counter the massive effort going into ensuring the Maori wards are retained.
In fact, alarm bells are now ringing over whether so-called ‘independent’ bodies are crossing the line to advocate for Maori wards.
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Frank Newman, a former local body councillor and political strategist, has been monitoring election developments in the North, and since the concerns he has raised appear to be part of a well-orchestrated nation-wide campaign to retain the Maori wards, we are sharing them here:
“With seven days to go, in Northland the turnout by Maori electoral roll voters is 22.3% compared with just 9% at the same time at the last election. The general voter turnout is also up, but not by the same magnitude. The difference is significant enough to ask the question: Why is such a big difference in the Maori roll turnout, not replicated in the general roll?
“It may have something to do with the Maori ward referendum.
“The referendum is a big deal. Not only will it affect the influence Maori have over local councils and their access to huge resources and the rights that go with it, but it will have a flow-on effect for the Maori seats in Parliament. If the Keep vote wins on Saturday, then removing the Parliamentary seats will become much harder than it already is.
“There may be several reasons for the unusually high turnout on the Maori roll.
“One explanation is that the Keep Maori wards lobby groups are mobilising their supporters better than the Remove groups. Whether that will swing the result in favour of a Keep win remains to be seen.
“What we also know is that the Electoral Commission, in co-operation with local councils, has been very actively encouraging people to vote. But encouraging who?”
Frank describes how mobile voting booths are travelling the region, visiting marae and remote communities to ‘encourage’ voting.
In fact, an enormous – and very expensive – effort is going into the Far North, where the Mayor is a strong supporter of Maori wards: “Six mobile ballot box units will travel the district visiting urban centres and small or remote Far North communities in an effort to reduce barriers to voting and help anyone wanting to enrol or cast a special vote. Mobile ballot boxes will be available throughout the district, 7 days a week from 10 September to 10 October. It’ll come to your marae, your local hall, school, sports club or market.”
With biased pro-Maori ward newspaper reporting and subtle pro-Maori ward campaigning by local council staff, we can only hope that Kiwis understand the inherent danger of racial division and vote for unity.
Concerns have also been raised about bias in the Electoral Commission itself. It turns out that this body, which should go out of its way to ensure it is not influenced by politics, has also embraced He Puapua.
Their website explains their Chief Maori Advisor leads a team which not only helps “embed a Maori worldview throughout the Commission to honour our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, but also prioritises “engagement and partnership with Tangata Whenua.”
How on earth can the Electoral Commission – an organisation that is fundamental to our democracy – have become an advocate for Maori sovereignty and the tribal elite’s fake ‘partnership’ agenda?
With Local Government New Zealand now pressing for the Electoral Commission to take over the running of all council elections from 2028, and the Commission responsible for running the 2026 General Election, it is vital that this separatist influence is removed by the Coalition Government as an absolute priority.
In spite of Maori ward councillors swearing an oath to work in the best interests of the community, their focus on syphoning as much council funding as possible away from areas of greatest need into projects that only benefit Maori, can be extremely detrimental to the overall public good.
When the Coalition’s Local Government (Maori Wards) Amendment Act was passed into law, it gave councils that had established Maori wards without a mandate from their community the options of either voting to disestablish them or to hold a binding referendum at the election.
The only council that voted for abolition was the Kaipara District Council. Mayor Craig Jepson explained that a key reason was to remove their destructive influence:
“The Maori seats have become radicalised. Our Maori ward councillor continually disrupted and undermined our council. Although she took an oath to work in the best interests of all people, she clearly put the interests of Maori first, at the expense of everyone else.
“It has also cost ratepayers a lot of money because the council has had to respond to frivolous Code of Conduct complaints and legal challenges to our decisions, asserting we have breached our Treaty obligations.
“The simple fact is the Kaipara District Council is not the Crown and does not have duties as a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi. Our council meets its obligations to Maori as required by the Local Government Act. We facilitate participation by Maori in local decision-making processes, but while doing so, we ensure our decision-making entails equal rights for all communities and people of the district.”
Those “frivolous” Code of Conduct complaints, that had become such a liability for the Kaipara Council, are now set to debilitate all Councils if the Local Government Commission gets their way.
This group of four Commissioners, three of whom were originally appointed by the former Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta – with a fourth member appointed last year by the Coalition – have produced a draft Code of Conduct that would compel all councillors to effectively swear allegiance to “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
With the so-called Maori version of the Treaty effectively a front for He Puapua, the proposed Code would require Councillors to support co-governance and the fake Treaty partnership agenda.
For a Coalition Government elected on the promise of halting He Puapua and eliminating race-based policies from legislation, to even consider such a proposal defies logic. One can only hope that the whole concept has only been presented as a serious recommendation by this ‘independent’ body because it was originally commissioned by a Labour Minister. But, if that is the case, it is clear that the agency is still working for the former government and should be sacked.
All is not well within our local councils, and there is little doubt the Coalition is aware of the financial risks to ratepayers and to central government should bail-outs be required – which seems inevitable if councils continue their current trajectory.
The essence of the problem is that local councils have been taken over by left-wing radicals who are using council resources to advance their ideological agendas. Worse, they are doing so against the will of the communities they purport to represent.
As a result, so few people are engaged in local politics – and the media coverage is now so poor – that a vacuum of ignorance allows these radicals to get themselves elected without fair scrutiny.
With Council voting likely to end up at around 40 percent – only half of the general election turnout – the only hope for a better outcome is if sensible people, who don’t normally bother voting, can be encouraged to do so.
So here’s the challenge: please ensure everyone you know votes and that they – including voting age children and grandchildren – are aware of the dangers of radicalisation and race-based division, and say ‘no’ to Maori wards and left-wing capture.
*The 42 councils holding a Maori Seat referendum at the 2025 elections are:
- Central Hawke’s Bay District Council
- Far North District Council
- Gisborne District Council
- Hamilton City Council
- Hastings District Council
- Hauraki District Council
- Hawke’s Bay Regional Council
- Horizons Regional Council (Manawatu-Whanganui Regional Council)
- Horowhenua District Council
- Hutt City Council
- Kapiti Coast District Council
- Kawerau District Council
- Manawatu District Council
- Masterton District Council
- Marlborough District Council
- Matamata-Piako District Council
- Napier City Council
- Nelson City Council
- New Plymouth District Council
- Northland Regional Council
- Otorohanga District Council
- Porirua City Council
- Palmerston North City Council
- Rangitikei District Council
- Rotorua District Council
- Ruapehu District Council
- South Taranaki District Council
- South Wairarapa District Council
- Stratford District Council
- Taranaki Regional Council
- Tararua District Council
- Tasman District Council
- Taupo District Council
- Thames-Coromandel District Council
- Waikato District Council
- Waipa District Council
- Wellington City Council
- Wellington Regional Council
- Western Bay of Plenty District Council
- Whakatane District Council
- Whanganui District Council
- Whangarei District Council
Full details can be found HERE.
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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:
*Do you believe the Electoral Commission’s embedding of a Maori World View represents a threat to democracy in New Zealand?
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