There’s a lot of huffing and puffing and chuffing going on about the Maori seats. In particular, the usual suspects (read, the National party) have been asserting that they are undemocratic and they should go. Of course, the Nats would say this: until very recent elections, the Maori seats have been solidly Labour. Ordinarily, that doesn’t matter so much under MMP, where for the most part, the proportion of seats that each party holds is determined by the party vote. As long as the number of seats a party gets based on the party vote exceeds the number of electorate seats that party holds (see the primer on MMP for how this works), then the fact that electorate seats go Labour or National or Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden Party doesn’t matter in terms of the overall makeup up parliament.
But this time round, things might be different. It looks as though the Maori party will take five or six or maybe all seven of the Maori seats, but only take about 3 to 4% of the party vote. 4% of the party vote would give them 4.8 seats in parliament (call it 5 seats). So if they take seven electorate seats, there will be an overhang of 2 seats i.e. two extra seats in the house. That means that the house will have 122 seats, and the governing coalition will need to hold 62 of those seats. All of which is a little worrying if you are the National party, hovering around 50% support, but not sure whether or not you will have any friends to play with in the big house. In your worst nightmares, the nerdy-swot kid (Labour), who is not very popular but nevertheless has lots of friends, might get to be the government instead, all courtesy of the overhang.
It’s not only the National party getting uptight about the Maori seats. Peter Dunne, leader of United Future, is fulminating about the Maori seats too, claiming that they distort democracy, and pervert the will of the majority. Which is just a bit bloody rich, considering that his micro party only makes it into parliament courtesy of his own electorate seat, and the way the polls are panning out at present, he’s highly likely to be an overhang all by himself this time around. (If you want to check the state of the polls in NZ, try Curiablog, for a rolling poll of polls, and reports of each poll as it comes out.)
So are the Maori seats undemocratic?
They certainly were when they were established, back in 1867. Until then, Maori men had been able to vote, provided they held individual title to property. This looked to be fair (i.e. consistent with the franchise for all other men), except that most Maori held property in common and only a very few had individual title. After on-going debate, four Maori seats were created in 1867, and all Maori men aged over 21 were eligible to vote in them, and stand for parliament. But on a per capita basis, there should have been about 14 to 16 Maori seats. So this was an attempt to contain Maori votes. The four seats were supposed to be temporary, until sufficient Maori owned or rented land as individuals, but by 1876 it was clear that this would take far longer than just a few years, so the seats were established on a permanent basis. But Maori could still only vote in the Maori seats unless they held individual title to land, in which case they could vote in both the Maori seats and the general seats. The dual vote was eliminated in 1893, the same year that all women were enfranchised in New Zealand. But Maori were still confined to the Maori seats. In later years, “half-caste” Maori could choose which electoral roll to enrol in, Maori or general. This system persisted until 1975, when the Labour government introduced a Maori electoral option, to be held alongside, or following each census. Voters of Maori descent could choose which roll they would be on for the next five years each time the electoral option was held. There were plans to increase the number of Maori seats, to better reflect the number of people enrolling on the Maori roll, but in 1976, the incoming National government fixed the number of Maori seats at four. Their motives were perhaps not the best: Labour had a stranglehold on the Maori seats, which under the old First Past the Post system, meant that increasing the number of seats would have simply gifted seats to Labour.
Then along came MMP. The Royal Commission on the Electoral Commission recommended introducing MMP, and argued that the Maori seats would not be needed, because parties could use the list system to ensure that Maori were represented in parliament. But Maori argued strongly for the retention of the Maori seats, so they were retained, and the number of Maori seats was allowed to increase or decrease according to the results of the regular Maori electoral option. In the first MMP election in 1996, there were five Maori seats, and in the second, there were six, and by the 2002 election, the number of Maori seats had increased to seven. The next Maori electoral role option is due to be held in 2012. In 2012, people who say that they are New Zealand Maori, or of New Zealand Maori descent, may choose to remain on their current roll (general or Maori), or switch rolls, and if enough people opt for the Maori roll, then the number of Maori seats will increase.
(Source: Maori and the vote on Elections.org.nz)
Given that the Maori seats are the same size as the general seats, and that usually, the number of Maori seats doesn’t affect the overall make-up of Parliament, they are not undemocratic. They are simply a mechanism for selecting individual members of Parliament, and most of the time, they don’t affect who gets to sit on the Treasury benches. But this time round, with the prospect of an overhang, and the interesting chance that the Maori party will hold the balance of power, plenty of people are getting very upset about the “undemocratic” Maori seats.
I think there are two ways that you could argue that the seats are undemocratic, neither of them convincing. You could argue that seats reserved for particular groups are undemocratic, or that trying to ensure that particular groups are represented in parliament is undemocratic. However, we already happily ensure that geographically diverse communities are represented, through electorate seats. If it’s appropriate to ensure that geographically diverse communities are represented, then it must also be appropriate to ensure that other communities are represented. Some communities are geographically diverse: hence the electorate seats based on geography. Other communities are ethnically, gender and sexually diverse. The question then is simply about which mechanism to use to ensure representation of diversity. For the most part, in New Zealand, diverse groups are represented through party lists. New Zealand’s parliament became noticeably less white, less male, and less heterosexual following the first MMP election. It also became less Christian, but aside from fringe groups, religion is not an important factor in NZ politics. It so happens that in New Zealand, representation of Maori is achieved not just through party lists, but also through the Maori electorate seats. In the 2005 election, 21 people who identify themselves as Maori or of Maori descent were elected, filling 17% of the seats in the House, which is roughly proportional to the percentage of Maori in the population (about 15%, and increasing).
Alternatively, you could argue that overhangs frustrate the will of the electorate, as expressed in the party vote. They are a bug in the MMP system. However, I don’t see them so much as a bug as, if not a feature, simply a consequence of being committed to ensuring that people from diverse communities in New Zealand are represented in the parliament. Further, our electoral system is not designed to reflect exact proportionality – we would need to have many, many more MPs in order to do that, or a parliament comprising the whole population. The system is designed, like other voting systems, to come up with a fair and defensible and it comes up with about the right result. (This is exactly what’s going on with STV in Australian elections: it’s fair enough, and defensible, and achieves around about the right result.) Not perfect, but jolly well good enough to be part of a democratic system.
There is another aspect to the Maori seats that isn’t to do with representation, but is to do with partnership, and in particular, the partnership between Maori and the Crown that is seen by Maori as part of the standing guaranteed to them under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi). The Maori seats guarantee Maori a seat at the table of government. For that reason, they are unlikely to be abolished any time soon, despite the best efforts of the National party. Any attempt to remove the Maori seats would need the support of Maori (15% of the population, and increasing), and many Maori, even if they aren’t on the Maori roll, would be very reluctant to see them gone. That’s a large chunk of the electorate to upset.
Any politician in NZ wingeing about the unfairness of MMP should think back to why it came about in the first place. Ideologically driven cyclical restructuring of the entire country via the “fast track legislation” method with zero bipartisan participation put the entire populace offside with the parliamentary process. And Labour was equally guilty as the Nats were. It is worth noting that the swell of public discontent was lubricated in the pre blogging time by fast tracked communication via the Radio Pacific’s morning talkback show hosted by Pam Corkery, leading eventually to a refferendum. Bully politicians beware!!
By the way, I do like the sound of the Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden party. Are they affiliated with Austalia’s Party Party party?
BilB: That would be the Party! Party! Party! party.
I thought the Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden Party (offshoot of the old British “Garden Party Party”) had been riven by factinal intrigues? Is it still going?
What happened asfter the great schism of 1977, with all that bitterness between the Fairies Who Want To Be Fairies grouping, and the Realist Entities Non-Fiction Faction (who held that most voters don’t believe in the existence of Fairies, making it difficult for those voters to vote for the Party as currently named and constituted).
Alert and agog.
I generally like the NZ system, but I don’t think your argument in support of the Maori seats on anything other than a pragmatic political basis makes sense.
Sure, unless you have a Netherlands/Israel style national list system, you have to break up the population in some way, and geographical electorates can be arbitrary. But it is arbitrarily fair, in that it is easy to define where someone lives.
The problem with the Maori seats is that all non-Maori (and those Maori who choose to be on the general roll) are on a single roll. So while Maori voters can vote in electorates decided according to either geography or race, everyone else doesn’t. It would logically make sense if you had Maori seats, then seats for those of an Asian background, and white seats too. But where do you draw the line? Surely such a system would make the NZ the laughing stock of the western world? The same logic underpins the Maori seats. They may politically benefit Maori, and as a minority they may need that, but there are so many other opressed minorities who don’t have reserved seats in Parliament either. And, as you say, MMP is much more effective at delivering representation to all minority groups than a system of reserving seats.
I think there are several aspects of New Zealand’s multi-racial polity, that we Australians should recognise as being somewhat more advanced than ours. (I don’t mean MMP).
Treaty of Waitangi, whatever its deficiencies.
Early recognition of land and fishing, hunting rights, howsoever limited.
Respect for Maori lands and customs.
Maori seats in Parliament.
It may be that NZ was a little ahead of us on universal suffrage, womens suffrage, and welfare privisions, but that’s a separate area.
I think it’s high time we learnt from and respected our cousins across the dutch (ditch).
I’d agree on the first three points about New Zealand’s racial politics, but I still don’t understand how reserving electorates for one racial group is in any way enlightened.
Ben R,
Well it was their country (the Maori), and they fought the British to a stand still. That is how it came out, and that is how it is. Had the British one then the country would have been flooded with migrant (Indian) workers. As it happened the Maori one so they flooded the country with migrant workers (Australian). And now the Maori are flooding Australia. Sounds fair to me.
That should of course be “won”, “won”.
I knew their voting system was a buggers muddle (preferential voting is far superior) but this is the first time I have learned that they have a racists voting system, too. I am glad I don’t live there. Racism of any form has to be condemned.
I don’t understand how an indigenous population has a right to be treated differently when it comes to the electoral process. I’m not justifying what happened to the Maori, or to any other indigenous group, but when you have a population of citizens in a modern democracy every citizen should be treated equally in the distribution of electorates.
Despite the fact it may seem the Maori party is undemocratic, they would not have survived in the position they have for so long if people thought they were undemocratic or dishonestly. The whole idea of the Maori people is about keeping such politicians honest, and if that alongside other culturally deep values such as the land and managing resources for the betterment of our own future (ie: our grandchildren and their kids grandchildren a maori concept called taonga tuku iho). Imbued in the Maori history is the disconnection to cultural values such as the land which leads to high statistics in low economic wealth, low education and health. Maori own less than 4% of their home lands due to land confiscations. Because of the degree of which and how bad the stealing of the lands etc explains why the duty of such representation or how the MMP seats came about is about honouring such taking. So unfortunately what may seem undemocratic to you is actually a system that works for Maori. Unfortunately this can never be really understood by people who try to dissect it from a political book political website or trying to understand it from a political review. Putting ones view on a blog is all very well but the sense of the matter is that it is real, living it and breathing it not just in between lines on a website in the very bushes of peoples homes, in the tears of babies born new to their homelands to the very waters of the mountains to which elderly people return to their homes to see the very survival of what remaining lands they have to have their representation, on a MMP state voting system. Maori Party should be take most of the 7 seats. If it means honesty and keeping politicians honest whats wrong with that!
It’s an interesting artifact of a different political system, it gives the NZ election a slightly different tilt, apart from that (not being part of the system) what right do I have to comment on it specifically?
In general terms, IF the Nationals are picking up 50% (+1 vote) of the primary vote then they should be in power, the electoral system should never lock out a party with an absolute majority of votes. We wouldn’t appreciate it (and in fact don’t appreciate it) when parties here are given a “hand up” to gain representation they don’t deserve at the expense of others, and just because there conservative doesn’t mean we give up that ideal.
Beyond that … It’s hard.
PinkyOz
Ben: I still don’t understand how reserving electorates for one racial group is in any way enlightened
It ensures they have a political voice rather than being sidelined. You only have to look at our history to see that it’s been necessary; while NZ elected its first Maori to a general seat in 1893 (James Carroll), we didn’t elect the second until 1975. Even today, no Maori holds a general seat (though this is slightly anomalous, generally there have been two or three since 1990). Without these seats, Maori would have been completely voiceless for most of our history (as opposed to being merely under-represented and ignored).
As for claims that this is some form of “special privilege”, bollocks. It’s the same bloody rights as everybody else. Everyone gets to elect an electorate MP from their community; Maori who choose to simply get to enrol in an alternative electorate, that’s all. Is the concept of overlapping communities of interest and overlapping identities really that difficult to grasp?
It would logically make sense if you had Maori seats, then seats for those of an Asian background, and white seats too. But where do you draw the line?
Whereever it ends up.
The reasons why there are Maori seats but not e.g. Pasifika or women’s seats are entirely historical (though increasingly also tied to Maori status as tangata whenua), and there is no principled reason why we do not have alternative electorates for other groups. One of the reasons we don’t, though, is that no other group has asked. If they did, then we’d have to consider their case (are they a large enough group? Do they have real problems getting representation under the current system? would it work?). After all, its not as if it makes a blind bit of difference to our electoral system overall.
PinkyOz: overhangs suck. But they’re the price we pay for retaining traditional geographic representation within a proportional system. A lot of people don’t seem to accept that, yet are also unwilling to accept the solution of surrendering electorates and moving to a list-only system.
Just a question. What other alternative electorates are there in NZ?
Not that I have any problem with a specific Maori electorate. Given NZ’s specific history they should have one.
BenR:
I don’t understand how an indigenous population has a right to be treated differently when it comes to the electoral process.
Look at it this way: Most indigenous populations are significantly lower than what they would’ve been without European Invasion and Marginalisation, and their cultures (ie, those native to the country in question that generally don’t exist elsewhere) are also at risk as a result of that. And as Idiot/Savant’s comment suggests, I’d tentatively say that maintaining NZ’s respect for Maori land and culture has come out of HAVING the Maroi seats. I suspect also those in Maori seats do feel freer to actually be the voice of that community, when you consider the issues some of the Australian Indigenous MPs and Senators have faced in terms of feeling like they’re letting down the community when they’re stuck in Party political positions (see also the panic going on in the US that Obama’s only going to look after ‘his’ people if he’s elected)
I don’t see the issue with a country’s electoral system acknowledging the particular historical importance and necessity of its indigenous population, particularly when that population has a history of being marginalised and silenced. Which goes to Deborah’s last paragraph, which I think is much more important than “political pragmatism”. It’s about history, and partnership, and the honouring of Treaties (which is a fascinating concept given the string of treaties the US have with their first peoples that have never been delivered on, and Australia’s lack of a treaty at all, which says a lot in itself). And if the only value you can see in that is political pragmatism, then I suppose that’s your view, but that seems a rather narrow view from here.
There is one other issue that should be understood about the Maori status in Aotearoa is that the Maori have always maintained their sovereign status having their own king or queen. New Zealand has in fact 2 separate sovereigns, hence the special status of the maori seats in the New Zealand parliament. Assimilation may well have been a Pakeha ambition, but it was never a Maori one. And for any one who has trouble with all of this, a Haka to them.
Idiot/Savant,
Point well taken. I don’t think much of geographically-based electorates either, but we really have to consider the history there. Territory (in European history at least) is easily the driving force of politics, it’s easy to understand, and ties political movement to the real world. Plus it represents nicely on battlefield plans and electoral maps.
Whatever we think about democracy in general, it’s not that far related from the Monarchies and Despotism that preceded it. It’s an evolutionary step in a ongoing search for the ‘optimal’ form of governance, we don’t give up our past gains ‘Just Because’. It’s all about tinkering and building acceptance (this is why we could consider that we have had no ‘Revolutions’ per se, all human system change is evolutionary, only the scale and execution time changes). In other words, geographic electorates are as much an artifact of our system as the Maori seats system in New Zealand, what we choose to do about it is another thing entirely.
PinkyOz.
BilB: Leaving the question of sovereignty aside for the moment (its both a question of constitutional debate and practical reality), you are simply mistaken about the origins and status of the Maori king. It was a post-Treaty innovation aimed at putting Maori on an equal footing with Pakeha. More importantly, the Maori king has no legal constitutional status in New Zealand. Tremendous mana, yes, but legal power, no.
PinkyOz: erritory (in European history at least) is easily the driving force of politics
Sure. And what the Maori seats recognise is alternative, overlaapping Maori forms of territory. Seat boundaries must follow Maori communities of interest (tribes), just as general seat boundaries must follow Pakeha communities of interest. And there’s no reason why the two can’t co-exist; in NZ, we recognise that people have multiple overlapping identities, not just one.
I/S,
The fact that such a leader was appointed by Maori confirms absolutely the point that Maori needed to speak as one voice in the protection of their identity. European civilisation created such personages themselves many times in times of need just such as the treaty time. Maori had never faced the need for a unifying leader prior to the European invasion. I should point out that the Queen of England has no real legal power. Tremendous influence, yes, but power, no.
BilB: The fact that such a leader was appointed by Maori confirms absolutely the point that Maori needed to speak as one voice in the protection of their identity
I agreee ntirely. But you’re also wrong about the English monarch; she retains substantial legal powers, even if by convention they are only exercised on the advice of her ministers.
The Maori King doesn’t have even that. Legally, he’s a private citizen. His power (such as it is; they don’t exercise much, though clearly have some influence) comes from his mana, not from the law or constitution.
Isn’t the Maori king also drawn from one dominant tribe – the Ngati Tainui – and that allegiance or mana is really only from that one admittedly strong tribal following?
Pablo: there are other tribes which support it, including Tuwharetoa, Taranaki, and Whanganui, but basically yes.
I/S
As I recal there is the option under some circumstances for people (Maori people) to accept Maori justice. In this frame work the Maori King has real power. Importantly, the Maori Queen enjoyed the respect of the British monarchy and the New Zealand Parliament.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1719882.htm
But the arguement is about threats to democracy, and in my experience the largest threat to democracy in New Zealand has come from heavy handed politicians who abused their office to the extent that the public called for a new system. First past the post was chucked out and MMP came in. And the Maori seats had no bearing on that change.
Idiot/Savant,
I’m not really commenting too much on the good/bad points of Maori seats, I’m not from NZ ad I really don’t have that right. It’s more a general commentary on democracy and where we cam from. Every democratic system has artifacts like this, whether it be the electoral college in the states, the Hare-Clarke voting system in Tasmania or the split elected/appointed house of lords in the UK, we all run our systems differently. None of which is bad per se, it’s just another step on the road towards building a democracy that truly represents it’s people, and that’s all we could ever hope for really.
PinkyOz.