Turia warns Brash over Maori seats

Tariana Turia

The Maori Party is warning National against continuing with its campaign to abolish the Maori seats in Parliament.

National leader Don Brash is worried about the number of Maori seats increasing and says getting rid of them is an important policy for his party.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said today Maori were "sick to death" of political opportunism.

"Dr Brash had better start thinking about that very, very carefully because our people will not tolerate it," she said on National Radio.

"And come the next election, when he needs the Maori Party vote he may well find it's not there for him."

Dr Brash said at the weekend the Government was endorsing "state-sanctioned separatism" with a campaign he believes could be aimed at getting more voters on to the Maori roll.

National and the Maori Party held talks after last year's election when Dr Brash was trying to gather more votes than Labour so he could form a government, but they came to nothing.

Today marks the beginning of the 2006 Maori Electoral Option, which is held every five years to give voters the choice of being on the general roll or the Maori roll.

The number of Maori seats -- there are seven at present -- depends on how many people are on the Maori roll.

Dr Brash said the option was promoting a racially-divided electoral system" and National saw no future for it.

He said there was anecdotal evidence that workers hired by the Electoral Enrolment Centre, which runs the option, were saying they would encourage Maori to go on the Maori roll.

Justice Minister Mark Burton said that was nonsense, and it was important for democracy that as many people as possible were enrolled.

Mrs Turia said she had experienced previous option exercise, and they had been professional and neutral.

- NZPA