Local Electoral (Maori Representation) Amendment Bill
First Reading, Wednesday 16th of June 2010 - Final Speech

Kia ora anō tātau e te Whare. Ka mihi atu ki te āhuatanga o ngā kōrero kua kōrerohia, ā, tino rata atu au ki ngā kōrero kua puta i ētahi. He kawa tonu te kōrero a wētahi engari, he pai tērā. [Greetings to us once again, the House. I acknowledge the tenor of the addresses presented. Some were very satisfying to me, but some were somewhat distasteful. But that is fine.]

I thank all members for their contributions tonight. They have pretty much covered the length and breadth of some of the discussion on the Local Electoral (Māori Representation) Amendment Bill, and I do not intend to go back over all of those points, but I will make a couple of points. The “one person, one vote” law is a great ideal, but for Māori the aspiration of equality before the law has been a long time coming.

When we look at the very establishment of Parliament in this country, we know that when the General Assembly met for the first time in 1854, Māori had no representation. That was an anomaly, because their property was in hapū ownership rather than individual title. As Ranginui Walker has pointed out, that gave Parliament pretty much free rein to alienate and confiscate Māori land, and to make war on Māori. Eventually, 23 years later, Parliament passed the Maori Representation Act to establish four seats in Parliament. That was all well and good, but on a population basis in a House of 80 members there should have been 20 Māori seats.

The issue of Māori representation has been with us a long time, and it is likely to stay with us into the future. The whole crux of the bill that I have put in front of the House is to try, on the basis of the Treaty relationship, to find voice for Māoridom within local government, having stabilised at least the position for Māori seats at the national governmental level. One thing I found interesting while doing some work on this bill was a thing called the ratepayer franchise. Most New Zealanders get to vote in the local body elections only where they live, but a very special group of New Zealanders get to vote both where they live and where they own property. That means that for those who can afford to have a property here and a property there, they get an extra vote. So I ask myself why it is that people find that acceptable under the rules, yet for Māoridom we seem to struggle with the notion of allowing equal representation when we have an anomaly of that sort of concern. Why has nothing been done about that particular notion?

Chester Borrows, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, talked about the notion that communities should decide. As we explained through the Auckland super-city discussion, that is all well and good, but the practical reality is that that is not how it happens. If it is left for councils to make the decisions on representation, those councils are already likely to not have Māori representation, and are they likely to support the notion of having Māori representation without going through the argument? I do not think so.

Those councils will forever hold on to that notion of power. When we talk about Māori representation, and indeed the Treaty of Waitangi, the problem for us and indeed this Parliament is the whole question of understanding what the Treaty of Waitangi relationship stands for. In the last couple of years that I have been in this Parliament, there have been times when members of this House have come up to me and, for one reason or another, all of a sudden realised that there is a Māori voice.

That voice happens at this point in time to come from a Māori party, and some of the discussion that we have put on the floor of this House has been a real awakening for them and a new discussion that they had never ever heard. I wonder whether, if that is reflective of the national Parliament of this country, what hope Māori representation has at a local body level. If I was to ask the members of the House how many of them have been to a marae and stayed over for a tangi, for example, I would suggest that it would be very few. That is not to say that going to a tangi is the greatest experience in one’s life, but what it asks us is how those people will ever get to an understanding, the views, the dreams, and the aspirations of Māori people, if they cannot be, see, feel, and be amongst the people.

That is why Māori continue to demand a place at the decision-making table, because those who are at the decision-making table at this point in time in most cases will never ever be able to understand what we feel as a people, and what our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are for our tamariki and mokopuna.

In closing I say that I hope that members who are not necessarily in the House in this point in time can reflect on that. At times when there are crucial decisions to be made, when Māori would like to get next to our Treaty partners, as on issues such as the Tūhoe settlement and the foreshore and seabed legislation, it would be really good if we could come together at one point or another, and if Māori and Pākehā actually understood how Māori people feel about this country and issues, and their desire to contribute. Hopefully at one point or another there will be that realisation that we can make a positive contribution, but it would help if many members understood the dreams and aspirations of Māoridom in this country.

ENDS

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