Geoff Parker: The Māori Seats - History, Not Myth

Professor Anaru Eketone claims the Māori electorates were a cynical device to suppress Māori political influence.(paywalled) The historical record suggests the opposite: the Māori seats were created to bring Māori into the parliamentary system and guarantee representation, rather than exclude them.

By 1867, when the Māori Representation Act 1867(1) passed, Europeans outnumbered Māori roughly four to one. In 1864 there were about 62,000 adult European men, but only around 19,500 were on the electoral rolls. Many more were actually qualified under the property franchise but had not enrolled. Even so, the number of potential settler voters already exceeded the total number of adult Māori men in the country(2). Any fear that Māori might “outvote Europeans” was therefore absurd.

Eketone also cites the 1861 Avon electorate, where only three voters turned up, implying that tiny electorates meant settlers feared Māori domination. But this is misleading. Nineteenth-century elections were frequently uncontested, and turnout was often tiny because voting was public, inconvenient, and required long travel(3). Small electorates reflected a scattered population, not a looming Māori threat. Early elections typically involved only a handful of voters per electorate—normal for the period, not evidence of manipulation(4).

The Māori seats addressed a real problem: under the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852(5) voting required individual property or household qualification. Most Māori land was communally held, leaving Māori largely unable to meet the franchise.

The Native Lands Act 1862(6), which Eketone references, came two years after the Waitara land dispute sparked the first Taranaki War and followed decades of disputes over conflicting Māori claims. While critics often argue the legislation ultimately facilitated large-scale land alienation, the 37-clause Act itself formally recognised Māori ownership, established courts to determine title, allowed the governor to create reserves, and enabled Māori owners to receive certificates of title. Parliament could have extinguished all titles outright, but instead it created a legal framework that many Māori used to manage, sell, or retain their land through trusts — a system that continues to benefit Māori today.

The Māori electorates solved the voting problem by granting all Māori men over 21 the right to vote, decades before universal male suffrage applied elsewhere in New Zealand(7). Far from limiting Māori rights, the law expanded them.

The seats also guaranteed meaningful participation. Four electorates—three in the North Island, one for the South—were superimposed over existing electorates. Māori with qualifying property could still vote in European electorates, giving many a dual vote(8). Officials went to extraordinary lengths to ensure participation: in 1890, a returning officer undertook a six-day trek through dense Urewera bush to establish a polling station at Maungapōhatu(9). Such efforts are hardly consistent with a strategy to suppress Māori voices.

Early Māori MPs were often elected unopposed, and voting procedures were informal while communities learned the system(10). Far from a tightly controlled or “token” arrangement, the first elections were experimental, inclusive, and encouraged participation. Small electorates were a normal feature of a scattered colonial population: the 1853 general election had just 5,849 enrolled voters across the entire colony(11).

Māori vs European electorates

Another critical point: when the Māori seats were created in 1867, each European electorate represented roughly 3,500 people, while each Māori electorate represented around 12,500 people(12). In other words, Māori electorates were about three to four times as large in population as European electorates.

Why were the Māori electorates set this way?

1. Practical enfranchisement: The main goal was getting Māori voting. A fixed number of four electorates allowed all Māori men over 21 to vote, overcoming communal land barriers(13).

2. Data limitations: Reliable Māori population and voter data were incomplete, making proportional allocation difficult(13).

3. Political compromise: Fixing the number at four preserved existing European electorate distributions and avoided upsetting European Mps(13).

4. Temporary expectation: Seats were originally intended as temporary until Māori qualified under the general property franchise(13).

While Māori were under-represented by modern proportional standards, the four seats ensured guaranteed parliamentary representation, at a time when European immigration was rapidly outpacing Māori numbers. This was enfranchisement, not suppression.

Historical context also matters. The early 1860s, marked by the New Zealand Wars(14), prompted politicians to integrate Māori politically and recognise iwi who had allied with the Crown or remained neutral(15). Creating dedicated Māori electorates was practical, not cynical, following the precedent of special electorates for gold miners earlier in the decade(16).

If the Māori seats were truly designed to suppress Māori influence, they represent one of the strangest acts of “democratic suppression” in history: guaranteeing representation at a time when Māori were rapidly losing population share. The seats did exactly what they were meant to do—bring Māori into the parliamentary system, protect their voice, and encourage participation, while the settler population continued to grow.

 However today the original rationale for the Māori electorates has disappeared. In the current Parliament 33 MPs identify as having Māori heritage — about 27% of the House — far exceeding Māori’s roughly 17% share of the population. Even without the seven reserved seats, Māori representation would remain substantial, the historical purpose of the Māori electorates has now been fulfilled and, consistent with the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System and with Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, they should now be abolished in favour of equal representation for all voters.

Footnotes / Sources
1. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
2. Statistics New Zealand, Historical Population Statistics, 1864, https://www3.stats.govt.nz/historic_publications/1864-statistics-nz/1864-statistics-NZ.html
; Sinclair, Keith, A History of New Zealand, Penguin, 2000.
3. McRobie, Alan, Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, GP Books, 1989.
4. Wilson, James Oakley, New Zealand Parliamentary Record 1840–1984, 1985.
5. New Zealand Parliament, “History of the Electoral System,” https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/history/history-of-the-electoral-system/
; Foster, B., A History of New Zealand, 4th edition, 2010.
6. Waitangi Tribunal and Te Ara, “Native Lands Act 1862,” https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-mangai-maori-representation
7. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
8. McRobie, Alan, Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, GP Books, 1989.
9. New Zealand History, “Polling in isolated Māori communities,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
10. New Zealand History, “Māori representation in Parliament,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/maori-representation-in-parliament
11. McRobie, Alan, Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, GP Books, 1989.
12. Te Ara, “Māori representation,” https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-mangai-maori-representation
13. Ibid.; New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
14. Belich, James, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Auckland University Press, 1986; McGibbon, Ian, The New Zealand Wars 1845–1872, 2000.
15. Belich, James, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, 1996.
16. New Zealand History, “Setting up special electorates,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats

Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.