Don Brash
Don Brash was Reserve Bank Governor from 1988 to 2002 and National Party Leader from 2003 to 2006
Recap: the Helen Clark Labour Government gave local councils the right to establish Māori wards but, because creating racially-based wards was a major constitutional issue, also gave ratepayers the right to demand a referendum if they objected to such wards.
In every district where councils sought to create Māori wards ratepayers demanded a referendum on the issue, and, in every district except Wairoa, ratepayers made it abundantly clear – with overwhelming majorities – that they did not want racially based wards.
Then along came another Labour Government, but, unlike Helen Clark, Jacinda Ardern wasn’t such a fan of accepting clear messages from the public. In 2021, Ardern’s government removed the right of ratepayers to demand a referendum.
Following this, 32 councils promptly created Māori wards in time for the 2022 local body elections, and 13 more councils voted to establish Māori wards as from the 2025 elections.
Thanks to the current government's coalition agreements, the three governing parties passed legislation this year under which councils that had failed to allow referenda before the creation of Māori wards were allowed to rescind those decisions before 6 September 2024 or would be obliged to hold a referendum on the matter at the local body elections next year.
The result? Alas, of 45 councils only two – Kaipara and Upper Hutt – voted to reverse their previous decision.
The other councils decided – either from the arrogance of ‘we know best’ or from fear of intimidation (and there were many angry scenes) – to stick with their earlier decision, and to hell with the extra cost.
I personally witnessed some brave councillors who argued strongly against race-based political representation but sadly they were in a minority.
This is not the end of the matter of course. There will now need to be 45 referenda around the country where ratepayers will be able to tell their councils, from the privacy of the voting booth, what they think of race-based political representation. Hobson’s Pledge will be campaigning next year to ensure that all New Zealanders get voted into office on merit, not on the basis of who their ancestors were.
Of course the same principle applies to parliament. The logic of having separate Māori electorates has long since gone. The Royal Commission on the Electoral System in 1986, almost 40 years ago, argued that Māori electorates should be scrapped if we adopted the MMP electoral system because, they argued, that system would enable many Māori to be elected. And so it has proved to be: the proportion of Māori MPs in parliament now well exceeds the proportion of Māori in the population, and 35 per cent of the current Cabinet are Māori.
Three successive National Party leaders have pledged to scrap Māori electorates – Bill English, John Key and I – but nothing has changed (in my own case, I was never in a position to do so). But it is beyond time for this issue to be dealt with, especially when those elected in Māori electorates increasingly seem to reject the basic rules of parliamentary democracy.
Choosing our political representatives on the basis of merit not on the basis of race will continue to be a major focus for Hobson’s Pledge in the years ahead.
Don Brash writing as Hobson's Pledge trustee.
This article was originally published by Bassett, Brash and Hide.
