Ele Ludemann: Politicking with public money

Whanau Ora is politicking with public money:

The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency has launched the longest ad ever made in Aotearoa urging more Māori to sign up to the Māori Electoral Roll. . .

The ad features artist and activist Tame Iti (Ngāi Tūhoe) alone in a cavernous space reading a ‘Māori roll call’ of New Zealanders who have recently joined the Māori electoral roll for 30 minutes. . .

Corina Shields: Why I'm getting off the Māori roll

It would be foolish of me to write this without acknowledging the fact that this is one that has the potential to upset some Māori and with any hope, the government and their friends. But nonetheless, it is one I feel strongly about, so if it means dealing with people's ill perceived notions of who I am as a person so be it. All I ask, is that people at least read what I have to say before forming judgement about me.

To get to the point, I need to provide some of my own backstory. At 18, I did what a lot of people do. I enrolled to vote and spent the next 20 years not knowing or caring who I was voting for. I just did the same thing as my parents. And for me, that meant going on the Māori roll and voting for Labour.

In 2017, I was slightly overjoyed to see the back end of National but that was shortlived as Labour proved to over promise and under deliver on those promises.

David Farrar: Parliament votes to end “one person, one vote”

Parliament (well Labour and Greens and Māori Party) voted last night to end the concept of one person one vote in New Zealand.

By 77 to 43 they voted for the first reading of the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill.

This bill over-rides the existing electoral law which requires wards to be roughly the same size, so that a vote in one ward is worth as much as a vote elsewhere. The same law applies at a national level with a 5% tolerance.

But what this bill does is legislate for 22,000 voters on the Māori roll to elect three ward Councillors and 56,000 voters on the general roll to elect three ward Councillors. This means the votes of people on the general roll will be worth 39% of the votes of those on the Māori roll – which is of course restricted to those who have had at least one Māori ancestor.