Michele Cabiling: Equality must be for everybody

They voluntarily "sold" land they mostly never occupied, cultivated, or hunted and gathered over.

Those upset about National's decision not to include Maori seats in the new Auckland Council rely on a number of fallacious arguments. Proponents want two reserved Maori seats decided by local voters registered on the Maori roll, and a third seat appointed by Ngati Whatua, the iwi claiming mana whenua, or rights of first occupancy over the Auckland isthmus.

According to Dominic O'Sullivan: "First occupancy, or mana whenua, not race per se ... justifies guaranteed representation" for Ngati Whatua.

The idea that those whose ancestors arrived earlier should enjoy separate, different, or superior rights to more recent arrivals is arrant nonsense. Our laws hold that every New Zealander, irrespective of ethnic or cultural identity, enjoys equality in citizenship.

This holds true whether some of their ancestors arrived in a waka in 750 AD, a sailing ship in 1842, or if the New Zealander in question put his hand up at a citizenship ceremony five minutes ago.

O'Sullivan also states: "Auckland's local iwi never surrendered power and authority over their traditional lands and resources." This is hardly the case. When Ngati Whatua signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the Crown became sovereign over them.

They voluntarily "sold" land they mostly never occupied, cultivated, or hunted and gathered over, thus extinguishing any residual "mana whenua" over that land.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples asserts that separate Maori representation is "a Treaty right". That can't be correct. The chiefs of the tribes who signed the Treaty of Waitangi accepted the Crown and the equality in citizenship provisions of Article III on behalf of all their descendants alive today.

This means the same right to participate in central and local government elections as any other New Zealander - the right to individually vote for the candidate they want to represent them. There is never any guarantee that one's preferred candidate will be elected.

O'Sullivan believes that the racial prejudice of a Pakeha majority means otherwise well-qualified Maori candidates are missing out on public office. Such a claim is so old that it creaks.

Without thinking too hard I can come up with a number of individuals of Maori descent who demonstrate that voters are far more colour blind than those pushing this view seem prepared to accept.

Maori Battalion war hero Arapeta Awatere was an Auckland City councillor in the 1960s.

Sandra Lee was elected to Waiheke County Council in 1983. In 1989, she became chairperson of that council. When Waiheke was amalgamated into Auckland proper, Lee became a member of the Auckland City Council. In the 1993 general election, Sandra Lee successfully contested the Auckland Central electorate as an Alliance candidate, defeating the incumbent, Richard Prebble.

Kahu Sutherland, with a history of community service and working with troubled youth, was elected to the Whangarei District Council in 2004. He was re-elected in 2007 and is now deputy mayor.

Sir James Tui Carroll first made it to Parliament in 1887 in the Eastern Maori seat. Always an opponent of race separatism, Carroll subsequently stood successfully in 1893 in the general seat of Waiapu, the first time a Maori was elected to Parliament by Pakeha voters. As a measure of the esteem in which he was held by his party, Carroll was twice acting prime minister during the overseas absence of the incumbent.

Winston Peters entered Parliament in 1978, winning the general seat of Hunua after a protracted legal battle to confirm the final election night count. Peters subsequently served six consecutive terms as MP for Tauranga over the period 1984 to 2002.

O'Sullivan further asserts: "Guaranteed representation also helps to protect iwi authority over their own affairs. For iwi, the protection of group rights to land and resources, for example, are essential elements of the right to culture, which is preliminary to the personal freedom that democracy is intended to secure."

In a free society, individuals have the right to form groups or combinations for any lawful purpose. They are entitled to "manage their own affairs" as they see fit. This includes the "personal freedom" to collectively own and operate land and resources, and to whatever forms of cultural expression group members might wish to engage in.

"Democracy" actually refers to the way that political representatives are elected. It does not refer to well-organised minority groups hijacking the process in order to vote themselves special privileges.

Occupants of reserved Maori seats will pass judgment on matters affecting ratepayers, yet most of those impacted will not get to elect them, nor are they subject to recall by the majority of voters in the event of non-performance. That's the surely the antithesis of the "democracy" that Dominic O'Sullivan appeals to.

Michele Cabiling lives in Grafton in Auckland.