People in the public gallery sang waiata when the decision was made to adopt a Māori ward in the Western Bay of Plenty. Photo / Alisha Evans
People in the public gallery sang waiata when the decision was made to adopt a Māori ward in the Western Bay of Plenty. Photo / Alisha Evans
THREE KEY FACTS:
The coalition Government’s Māori wards bill passed its third reading in Parliament on Tuesday.
The Local Government (Māori Wards) Amendment Bill came out of a commitment in the coalition agreements with both AcT and NZ First.
Councils that established Māori wards without a referendum will have to hold a binding poll alongside the 2025 local body elections.
Lady Tureiti Moxon is chairwoman of the National Urban Māori Authority and managing director at Te Kohao Health and was a member of the establishment board of the Māori Health Authority.
OPINION
Today marks a sombre moment in time as the Crown has once again chosen to disregard Te Tiriti o Waitangi by repealing the Māori Ward law.
It is not a great day for democracy at all. This is what colonisation looks like in 2024. It’s a move that’s an abuse of power and this has been reinforced by a majority of mayors in our country.
We support the letter by Local Government NZ that was signed by more than 50 mayors and chairs from Selwyn to Southland who said the bill was an overreach in local decision-making.
Let alone the fact it encroaches further on Māori rangatiratanga and is an inappropriate exercise of kāwanatanga by the Crown.
Which is a complete and utter breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as we have stated in our WAI 3163 claim currently before the Waitangi Tribunal.
Prioritising here-and-now superficial politics over substantive historic covenant principles will not build our nationhood, it destabilises it and relegates Māori to being second-class citizens.
All in the name of a fast-tracked regime intent on cutting Māori human rights out of legislature in the name of one country, one people, one system.
In the future, our mokopuna’s mokopuna will look back in utter disbelief at the regression shown by the current coalition wilfully dominating our 54th Parliament.
Reinstating the right to a local referendum and poll on Māori wards and Māori constituencies by government mandate is not partnership, it is a unilateral dictatorship.
The collective of mayors opposing also point out it’s in complete contrast with the commitments the Government made during the election campaign to empower local government to make decisions about its own communities.
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said Māori wards and local government had “lost touch”.
I thought we had advanced beyond all of that for many years from all the decades of hard work that so many Māori had done to secure a seat at the governance table.
Yet here we are facing the effects of a racist government, probably the most blatantly racist government this country has ever seen.
The whole thrust is to take over the power and control of Māori in Aotearoa when evidentially this government system continues to fail Māori dismally.
Removing all references to biculturalism, which once positioned our country as a global leader in positive race relations, is now a jarring contradiction and a tactic of State domination.
It undermines the rangatiratanga of the council and all citizens, preventing them from playing a crucial role in shaping the growth and development of our country as a partnership between two peoples.
Legally they have an obligation, not just under the Te Tiriti o Waitangi, but also under the Human Rights Act to consult with the people and act in good faith.
I was one of the hundreds of submitters to the Justice Select Committee opposing the Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill.
Lady Tureiti Moxon at Waitangi Treaty Grounds.
At no time did our people surrender ultimate authority to the British to be assimilated under that system. Leading scholars both Māori and non-Māori have been expressing similar views for a generation or more.
Yet undemocratically, it has fallen on deaf ears with those who should be exercising power with principle for all New Zealanders.
