By ELEANOR BLACK
When a busload of kaumatua from the Bay of Plenty boarded a Wellington-bound bus at 3 am to hear "their" bill read in Parliament, Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick knew the issue of proportional representation had hit home.
The controversial bill to establish two Maori seats on the 12-person Bay of Plenty regional council may have prominent parliamentarians in a lather, but it seems to have won support from voters.
Maori from the Bay of Plenty's three major tribes - Te Arawa, Mataatua and Takitimu - say guaranteed representation on the council will help them keep an eye on the region's natural resources and take a more active role in decision-making.
They shrug off arguments from National list MP Max Bradford and Act deputy leader Ken Shirley that separate seats are at worst a form of apartheid and at best unnecessary and illogical.
Mrs Chadwick points out that the central Government has had Maori seats since 1867 and their introduction to a regional council is hardly revolutionary.
Rotorua district councillor Maureen Whaaka, who has been pushing for Maori seats for the past eight years, says her people have had enough of "hit and miss" representation.
"People seem to think if we have Maori seats we are electing Maori just to do Maori things. We're not," said Mrs Whaaka. "It puts us all around the same table."
Maori would be more interested in the political process if they knew one of their own would make it on to the council, she said.
People who took part in an informal Herald street poll in Rotorua and Tauranga mainly agreed, voicing support for a system they said would make government more reflective of the local population, which is 28 per cent Maori.
But Jim Pringle, the only member of the regional council who does not support the bill, worries it could encourage a rift on the council.
South African born, Mr Pringle says separate seats for different ethnic groups are a step backwards.
"I left South Africa because of separatism and I certainly don't want to be responsible for perpetuating it here. 'Separate' is 'apartheid.' No amount of word- play can change that."
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