DON BRASH: Let New Zealand decide the future of Māori seats

The following is written in Don's capacity as Hobson's Pledge trustee

At Hobson’s Pledge, our position has always been clear and unwavering: it is time to abolish the Māori seats in Parliament.

Our reasoning is straightforward. In a modern, healthy democracy, citizens succeed on merit - not ancestry.

And right now, Māori MPs are already achieving incredible success in their own right, winning general electorate seats and earning high list rankings across the political spectrum.

That is exactly how a functioning democracy should work.

What is not a sign of a healthy democracy is reserving seats for one group of people based entirely on race or on when their ancestors arrived.

Let’s not forget history here: In 1986, the Royal Commission on the Electoral System explicitly stated that Māori seats should be abolished if MMP was adopted. Well, MMP arrived - but the seats remained.

Not only are these separate seats a relic of the past, but they are now being actively exploited by activists to skew our wider political landscape.

Take a look at what activist Katrina Smit recently wrote in e-Tangata. She openly called on voters to jump from the Māori roll to the General roll for the sole purpose of tactically ousting centre-right MPs—specifically targeting National’s Chris Bishop in Lower Hutt.

Her cynical logic? The Māori seats are guaranteed to go to Te Pāti Māori or Labour anyway, so why not weaponise the General roll to manipulate the overall election outcome?

For years, activists have encouraged Māori to move onto the Māori roll on the basis that it would strengthen Māori political representation and increase the number of Māori seats. But for the next two elections, that isn't true, and so the strategy has changed. 

The number of Māori electorates is fixed at seven until at least 2032, regardless of how many people are on the Māori roll. Thanks to changes in the way electorate boundaries are calculated, there will be no increase or decrease in Māori seats before then. That means Māori voters can switch to the General roll without affecting the number of Māori electorates at all. 

In other words, for the next two elections, Māori activist voters can have their cake and eat it too: retain all seven Māori seats while also gaining influence in closely contested general electorates. 

This is an outrageous situation. It proves beyond a doubt that these race-segregated seats are no longer just an outdated relic of the past - they are actively being used to distort our democracy.

It is also worth mentioning that there are Māori in every party in Parliament right now and 30% of the Cabinet are Māori.

Remember, the number of Māori seats isn't even based on how many people choose to sign up for the Māori roll; it’s based on total population statistics. It is a rort built on a rort, and it undermines the core democratic principle of "one person, one vote."

The time for special seats is over.

New Zealanders are fair-minded people, but we have had enough. Polling shows it, and the tens of thousands of you who have signed our petitions prove it. Now, we need the coalition government to step up and act.

We are launching our major new campaign: REFERENDUM NOW.

It is time to hand the talking stick back to the people of New Zealand and put this issue to bed once and for all.