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.