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For most of the time since the establishment of Westminster-style Parliamentary Government in New Zealand, the Maori inhabitants have had allotted to them specific seats in the New Zealand Parliament.
Organisation
The Maori seats operate in much the same way as general seats, but have as electors people of Maori ancestry who choose to place their name on a separate electoral roll. Maori electoral boundaries exist on top of the electoral boundaries used for general seats - every part of New Zealand is simultaneously part of both a general seat and a Maori seat.
Number of seats
For most of the period of separate Maori representation, a fixed number of four Maori seats existed (out of a total that slowly changed from under 80 to 99). They comprised:
- Eastern Maori
- Northern Maori
- Southern Maori
- Western Maori
With the introduction of the MMP electoral system in 1993, the rules regarding the Maori seats changed - today, the number of seats floats, meaning that the voting population of a Maori seat can remain roughly equivalent to that of a general seat. In the first MMP vote (the 1996 election), the Electoral Commission defined five Maori seats, and for the second (the 1999 election): six. The 2002 election had seven. Seven out of sixty nine is much less than the proportion of New Zealanders who identify as Maori, but since many Maori choose to be on the general roll, the proportion is not very different from the proportion of voters on the Maori roll.
Elections
Today, elections for Maori seats occur as part of New Zealand general elections. In the past, however, elections for Maori seats were held separately, occurring on different days and having different rules. Historically, Maori elections were more poorly organised than general elections, and received fewer resources. At first, Maori seats did not even require registration for voting, although this was later changed. New practices such as paper ballots (as opposed to casting one's vote verbally) and secret ballots were also adopted later in Maori seats than in general seats. Reforms of the Maori electoral system were frequently delayed or overlooked, with Parliament considering the Maori seats to be largely unimportant. The gradual improvement of Maori elections owes much to long-serving Maori MP Eruera Tirikatene, who himself experienced problems in his own election. All distinctions were finally abolished by the election of 1951, when general seats and Maori seats were integrated.
Party politics
As the Maori seats were established before the development of political parties in New Zealand, all early Maori MPs were independents. When the Liberal Party was established, however, the Maori seats began to align themselves with the new organisation, being held either by Liberal candidates or by Liberal sympathisers.
Since the Labour Party first came to power in 1935, however, it has dominated the Maori seats. This owed much to Labour's alliance with the Ratana church, although the influence of the church is not as great today as it once was. In the 1996 election, however, the Maori seats were briefly captured by the new New Zealand First Party led by Maori Winston Peters, who himself held the general seat of Tauranga. Labour regained the seats in the following election.
The most recent development in the Maori seats was the resignation of Tariana Turia from her ministerial position in the Labour-led coalition and from her Te Tai Hauauru parliamentary seat. In the resulting by-election on 10 July 2004 under the banner of the new Maori Party, she received over 90% of the 7,000+ votes cast. The parties then represented in Parliament had not put up candidates. The new party's support in relation to Labour therefore remains untested at the polling booth.
The Maori Party aims to win all seven Maori seats in the next election, but opinions are divided over whether this is a realistic goal. A Marae-Digipoll survey of Maori roll voters in November 2004 gives them hope: 35.7% said they would vote for a Maori Party candidate, 26.3% opted for Labour, and five of the seven seats looked as if they would be won by the new party.
Establishment
The establishment of Maori seats came about in 1867 with the Maori Representation Act, drafted by Napier MP Donald McLean. Parliament passed the Act only after lengthy debate. Many conservative MPs, most of whom considered Maori "unfit" to participate in government, opposed Maori representation in Parliament, while some of the more radical MPs (such as James FitzGerald, who had proposed allocating a third of Parliament to Maori) considered the concessions given to Maori to be insufficient. In the end the setting up of Maori seats separate from existing seats assuaged conservative opposition to the bill - conservatives had previously feared that Maori would be able to vote in general electorates, thereby forcing all MPs (rather than just four Maori MPs) to take notice of Maori opinion.
Before this law came into effect, there was no direct prohibition on Maori voting, but other indirect prohibitions made it extremely difficult for Maori to exercise their theoretical rights. The most significant problem was that of the property qualification - in order to vote, one needed to possess a certain value of land. Maori owned a great deal of land, but it was held in common, not under individual title, and under the law, only land held under individual title could count towards the property qualification. Donald McLean's bill was explicitly intended to be a temporary measure, giving Maori representation until they adopted European customs about land ownership. However, the Maori seats lasted far longer than the intended five years, and remain in place today.
Calls for abolition
Ever since the establishment of the Maori seats, there have been periodic calls for them to be abolished. Even at the time of their creation, the seats were highly controversial, and given that they were intended to be temporary, attempts to abolish them arose quickly. The reasoning behind these attempts has varied - some have seen the seats as an unfair or unnecessary advantage for Maori, while others have seen them as discriminatory and offensive.
In 1902, a consolidation of electoral law prompted considerable discussion of the Maori seats, and some MPs proposed their abolition. Many of the proposals came from members of the opposition, and were possibly political in motivation - in general, the Maori MPs had supported the governing Liberal Party. Many MPs alleged that elections in the Maori seats were frequently corrupt. Other MPs, however, supported the abolition of Maori seats for different reasons - Frederick Pirani, a member of the Liberal Party, said that the absence of Maori voters from general seats prevented "pakeha members of the House from taking that interest in Maori matters that they ought to take". The Maori MPs, however, mounted a strong defence of the seats, with Wi Pere saying that guaranteed representation in Parliament was one of the few rights Maori had which had not been "filched from them by the Europeans". The seats were retained.
Just a short time later, in 1905, another rearrangement of electoral law caused the debate to flare up again. The Minister of Maori Affairs, James Carroll, supported proposals for the abolition of Maori seats, pointing to the fact that he himself had successfully won the general seat of Waiapu. Other Maori MPs, such as Hone Heke Ngapua, remained opposed, however. In the end, the proposals for the abolition or reform of Maori seats were defeated.
Considerably later, in 1953, the first ever major realignment of Maori electoral boundaries occurred, with inequalities in voter numbers being addressed. Again, the focus on Maori seats prompted further debate about their existence. The government of the day, the National Party, was committed at the time to assimilation of Maori, and had no Maori MPs, and so many believed that the seats would be abolished. However, the government had other matters to attend to, and thee issue of the Maori seats gradually faded from view without any changes being made. Regardless, the possible abolition of the Maori seats was indicated when they were not included among the electoral provisions to be "entrenched" against future modification.
In 1976, Maori were able for the first time to decide which electoral roll they preferred to be on. Surprisingly, only 40% of the potential population registered on the Maori roll. This reduced the number of calls for Maori seats to be abolished, as it appeared to many that Maori would eventually abandon the Maori seats of their own accord.
When a Royal Commission proposed the adoption of the MMP electoral system in 1986, it also proposed that if the system was adopted, the Maori seats should be abolished. It argued that under MMP, all parties would be required to pay attention to Maori voters, and that the existence of separate Maori seats marginalised Maori concerns. Following a referendum, an Electoral Reform Bill was proposed, and the abolition of the Maori seats was included in it. Both the National Party and Geoffrey Palmer, Labour's leading reformist, supported abolition; but most Maori strongly opposed it. Eventually, the provision was dropped. The Electoral Reform Bill is the closest that the Maori seats have ever come to abolition.
More recently, both the National Party and New Zealand First have advocated abolition of the separate seats.
See also
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