Despite that, I like having two votes, one for a party and one for an electorate, because sometimes one of my votes will be done reluctantly and so having two means that at least one of them can bring me some satisfaction.
Generally, my party vote goes to whoever I want to be in government and my electoral vote often goes to the person, irrespective of party, that impresses me most because I liked the character of the person.
I am enrolled in Te Tai Tonga, the old Southern Māori Electoral seat.
I saw a National Party cabinet minister on the news recently saying that they are thinking of standing candidates in the Māori seats again this election. I personally would welcome a wider choice as at the last election there were only three candidates standing in Te Tai Tonga.
However, if Winston Peters gets his way the Māori electorates will be disestablished.
I have heard a lot of misinformation about the origin of the Māori electoral seats.
There is a myth that the Māori electoral seats were granted by the benevolent British empire to ensure that Māori would have representatives in Parliament. Their creation was much more cynical.
In the 1860s only men with wealth, primarily through individual land ownership, were entitled to vote. As long as Māori held land communally as a group rather than as individuals, we were largely excluded from voting.
However, from the settlers’ point of view, the trouble with communally-owned land is that it is much harder to persuade owners to sell.
The settlers solved this problem by establishing the Native Land Court, set up to determine ownership so that land title could be individualised. Instead of having to deal with multiple owners, it was now much easier to entice, persuade, cajole or trick individuals into selling land.
The unintended consequences of the Native Land Court providing individual land titles to Māori was that there were now growing numbers of Māori men who were eligible to vote.
In the 1861 general election only 13,196 men were registered to vote. However, a landowner could vote in all of the electorates he owned land and so could have multiple votes.
With 53 electorates the average number of registered voters per member of Parliament was only 249. Assuming all those eligible to vote did so, you only needed a maximum of 125 votes to elect an MP and it would not take much effort to organise the number of voters required to be elected.
However, in some places it took even less effort. In the Avon electorate in 1861 only three voters turned up. This was a potential problem for the settlers — if more Māori men became eligible to vote, Māori could conceivably outvote the Europeans and rule the country.
The issue was recognised by settler groups who wrote letters to newspapers calling on the government to take action to prevent Māori from having influence in Parliament.
One letter writer said that he and his friends had persuaded 200 Māori men not to enrol but that this approach was not going to last forever and so a more effective way of limiting Māori influence was needed.
There were a few politicians who had a degree of respect for some Māori and could not in good conscience completely disenfranchise those Māori voters. The compromise was to set aside four token seats for Māori out of 75 seats in all.
The original stated intention was for it to be temporary until such time as Māori were properly assimilated and could be trusted to vote ‘‘responsibly’’. A more probable reason was that it was clear, that in time, European immigration would totally swamp Māori, especially as the Māori population of the time was decreasing and so the problem would take care of itself.
To me, the benefit of the Māori electorates is that I can choose a candidate who is accountable to Māori voters. Some have argued that there are Māori MPs in mainstream parties such as National, but they are selected by Pākehā, they have to be acceptable to Pākehā and they are accountable to Pākehā.
Someone elected in a Māori seat is selected by, acceptable to, and accountable to their Māori constituency.
I find it ironic that many of those who argue against the Māori seats do so for the exact same reason they were set up in the first place — that is, the fear that Māori and our values will have power and influence in Parliament.
- Anaru Eketone is a professor in social and community work at the University of Otago
