Advance voting in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election opened yesterday for those on the Maori roll who won't be in the electorate on June 29.
In the meantime, campaigning across an area covering seven general electorates, from Gisborne to Wainuiomata, is a big task for the candidates for the Maori Party, Greens, Labour, Mana, plus some independents.
Who are they targeting? Technically, those who are on the Maori roll or plan to be on the Maori roll. You have to be Maori or of Maori descent, lived in Ikaroa-Rawhiti for more than one month, and be a New Zealand citizen or resident. Statistics show that is potentially about 30,000 people. In the 2011 election, about 18,000 voted, with the late Parekura Horomia winning for Labour.
Most candidates have declared their lineage, their whakapapa and, where possible, some family connection to the departed Horomia as a standard introduction to their CV. It can seem like a declaration of "how Maori are you" and reminds me the same question was asked by TV3's Rachel Smalley of Education Minister Hekia Parata on The Nation. Smalley also asked Parata if she was a bitch to work for, so I'm guessing the interview was about getting aggressive with the minister.
The question of "how Maori" a person is sounds like a European concept of trying to quantify, label or package something like those family trees you can construct with software programmes and help from ancestry.com
