At the heart of the current debate about Māori wards in local government are strongly held views about the importance of democratic principles to our country.
On one side of that debate, the argument runs that requiring councils to hold a referendum if they want to keep Māori wards should be applauded as democracy in action. Also, that there is nothing to stop candidates of Māori descent from getting elected to councils if they put their mind to it, so you don’t need special Māori wards - and indeed to have them is inherently racist.
All Treaty-based responses aside, there are two main problems with the line of argument about Māori wards being undemocratic.
First, as Winston Churchill’s famous quote implies, democracy itself is not perfect or always fair. One problem with democracy is that it can lead to what I recently heard a leading Māori lawyer describe as the “tyranny of the majority”, whereby the minority voice is drowned out and minority rights are trampled on.
We have an MMP system in New Zealand to help address this type of problem, by tempering the level of unbridled power we saw exercised under the Muldoon government and ensuring a wide variety of perspectives across the political spectrum all get a vote in Parliament. Māori seats operate in the same way. Ironically, were it not for MMP, the Act Party’s proposed Treaty Principles Bill would not see the light of day.
That leads to the second problem with the “democracy” based objection to Māori wards.
As Mayor Kirsten Wise pointed out in her Talking Point on August 10, a purely democratic or “majority rules” system has undeniably failed Māori. For nearly 30 years after it was established, there was only one councillor identifying as Māori elected to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. In 2019, councillor and now chair Hinewai Ormsby broke the mould in Napier after an exceptional campaign few people from any background could match, with Charlie Lambert elected after serving on the Wairoa District Council, which itself put Māori wards in place before any other local authority in the region.
So it is not as simple as saying Māori can get elected like everyone else. Obviously, and as history shows, they can’t. We have to ask ourselves, as the Pākeha majority, is this a reflection of a lack of talent or ability on the part of Māori, and if so - why would that be? Are Māori wards racist, or is the systemic lack of Māori representation at council tables instead a reflection that the voting public itself has a racist bias, unconscious or otherwise?
Next week, the regional council will vote on one of two legally available options - to either rescind the Māori wards we put in place for the 2022 election or have a referendum if we want to keep them. Frankly, I would like to vote “no” to both options. Again, like Mayor Wise, I see a referendum as more likely to replicate the “tyranny of the majority” that the local government electoral system perpetuated against Māori before the ability to demand a poll or referendum was removed in 2021.
As I see it, we should also celebrate what Māori wards can deliver. The rich insights and perspectives of the Māori worldview, drawing on hundreds of years of occupation of these islands, living with floods, droughts and cyclones, have so much to offer. Indeed, pretty much everything so-called “democracy” has failed to deliver in local government decision-making for too many years, even decades.
Perspectives like taking a longer-term view; thinking about what is best for our grandchildren or mokopuna, not just the next three years and getting re-elected, while kicking costly infrastructure projects down the road. Like putting the environment at the centre rather than the economy always coming first. Like focusing on what is good for the collective of communities as a whole, rather than individual rights and immediate gain or profit, without responsibility to others or future generations.
That is what the Māori voice brings to the table, and Māori wards guarantee that voice is heard. If we sweep that away by majority vote, we will all be the poorer for it.
