A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
The front page of last Thursday's paper proclaimed “We want to see equity”.
To me, equity means giving the same opportunities to everyone irrespective of their circumstances. Creating separate arrangements for distinct groups, especially ethnicity-based groups, is not equity.
It has been argued that, in respect of representation on the
local council, separate arrangements are available to farmers. This is not the case; representation is based solely on population; the region is divided into contiguous areas, each supplying a number of representatives in proportion to the population of each area; that farmers tend to live in sparsely-populated rural areas is incidental.
The demand for people of Maori descent to have special arrangements for representation implies that the present constitution of council is somehow disadvantageous to them, despite the fact that all councillors, at their induction, swear to act in the interests of the whole region, not just the area that elected them.
Can it be that those who seek separate representation actually want their representatives to act in their specific interests?
