KEY POINTS:
Pacific Island seats should be provided on Auckland councils, the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance was told yesterday.
The Waitakere Pacific Board urged the commission to use the shake-up of local government to create one or more Pasifika seats on local and regional bodies.
Other ethnic groups have also asked for special provision at council level.
Board chairman Taha Fasi said Islanders were lucky enough to have more than half of voters in Manukau City wards like Otara and Mangere, but the present system would never enable them to be voted become councillors in Waitakere.
"It does not matter how good our policies would be ... at the end of the day the majority of voters are mainstream Pakeha and race is always an unseen and unsaid deciding factor," Mr Fasi said.
"Take it from us, we are sick of representing Pasifika from outside the political and elected arena. We have been used to advise on the cheap but at the end of the day we do not have any political clout."
The number of Pacific Islanders in Auckland at the 2006 Census was 177,933, or 13.6 per cent of the total population.
In last year's local elections, three Pacific Islanders were elected to the Manukau City Council and one to the Auckland City Council - 3.4 per cent of the 116 council positions.
Commission chairman Peter Salmon, QC, told Mr Fasi his proposal would require a separate Pacific Island electoral roll for the Auckland region and wondered if it would lead to calls for a separate Asian roll.
Mr Salmon said another suggestion put forward by Pacific people was for a board or advisory group that could make Pasifika appointments to a council.
The Pacific sector council of the Labour Party said Maori, Pacific and Asian communities ought to be represented at all levels of local decision-making through a mix of elected and appointed members.
The Waitakere Ethnic Board has called for an ethnic ward of two or three members in Waitakere, where 34 per cent of the population were born overseas.
The Counties Manukau Ethnic Council also wants provision for ethnic representation on councils or community boards.
The commission has raised the issue of separate Maori seats in a discussion paper, and had several submissions from Maori and other groups for and against Maori seats.
