Maori Party mounts final push for electoral roll names

Shane Jones

The Maori Party is hitting the road in a final effort to encourage more people on to the Maori roll, but Labour MP Shane Jones says the party has turned voters off the Maori seats and it's doubtful another will be gained.

Maori Electoral Option figures issued in May after the first month revealed less significant movement than in previous options.

In early May 4637 voters had changed from the Maori roll to the general roll and 7923 had switched the other way.

Of new enrolments, 1480 Maori opted for the Maori roll and 359 went for the general roll.

Updated figures detailing the changes over the past two months will be released by the Electoral Enrolment Centre tomorrow.

Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell said the results so far were "disappointing" and it was unlikely the 11 or 12 seats the party had hoped for would be delivered.

It was too early to tell whether another seat would be gained, but the party was embarking on a month-long roadshow to continue to encourage voters to sign up to the Maori roll.

Mr Jones, Labour's Maori caucus chairman, said a new seat would need a "net gain of some 14,000 voters to the Maori roll". He believed the net gain now sat at about 7000.

"For every five Maori voters going on to the Maori roll, [about] three voters are going on to the Pakeha roll. So it's growing slowly but not at a pace which equates with the last option.

"This time around [I believe] there will not be an additional Maori seat - [for] the first time in three options."

Mr Jones, who said Labour was "neutral" on the seats, believed the lack of momentum was "a reaction to the Maori Party".

Although its co-leader Pita Sharples was winning support in some areas, "that aspect of the Maori Party's identity is easily overwhelmed by Tariana [Turia] and her dogged pursuit of separatism and her reckless announcement there'd be 15 seats.

"People are basically saying to her 'no, we're not taking that menu thank you very much, we'll go for something a bit more blended, rather than that sort of brash form of separatism'."


ELECTORAL OPTION

* Every five years voters Maori can switch from the general roll to the Maori roll or vice versa under the Maori Electoral Option.

* This determines which roll voters remain on for the next two general elections.

* The options, which last four months, ends on August 2.