THREE KEY FACTS
Some voters will have a regional council and a district or city council that are both having a referendum on the future of their Māori wards or constituencies.
An option available to voters with two ticks is to choose “keep” for one and “remove“ for the other.
The referendum takes place at the same time as local government elections.
If you’re voting in the Māori wards referendum over the next month, you’ll probably vote one of two ways.
Those who like either the romantic concept of them, or what they have achieved, will vote to keep them.
Those fearful of all things that give a voice to Māori will probably vote to remove them.
But hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who aren’t particularly prone to political emotion will also have a third option – one that hasn’t been discussed much yet.
In short, they can have a bob each way.
This is a binding referendum, initiated by the coalition Government, and 37 local councils and five regional councils that have initiated Māori wards are required to take part.
If, like me, both your regional council and local council is having a referendum, you’ll have two ticks available to you.
And even though it sounds counter-intuitive, you don’t have to give the same answer for each council.
You are allowed to say you want to keep Māori wards at your district or city council, but don’t want them at your regional council, or vice versa.
I think it’s an option – once people have thought about it – quite a few will choose.
I live in Flaxmere and pay rates to the Hastings District Council and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC).
Both Hastings and HBRC introduced Māori wards in 2022, which means we’ve had three years to view them in action before the referendum.
Vocal supporters of Māori wards see no downsides to having them and describe their opponents as racist.
Opponents of the wards see no upside and describe them as divisive and claim they’re akin to apartheid.
Three years is enough conclusive evidence to show me Māori wards are nothing like the massive threat to the fabric of our democracy that opponents make them out to be.
But that time period has also shown there can be downsides to having them.
HBRC’s Māori wards, from what I’ve seen, have created a bridge to better relations with tangata whenua.
That’s pretty important for a council with a mandate to look after the region’s environment.
They haven’t solved everything, and weren’t much of a fix during Cyclone Gabrielle, where reports showed the lack of engagement Civil Defence had with tangata whenua made the disaster worse for Māori.
But there is still an alignment there – Māori ward councillors acting as an extra kaitiaki for the local environment – that I like, and I’m leaning towards voting to keep them.
With the Hastings District Council, I feel the opposite.
Flaxmere has one of the largest suburban Māori populations in the region.
Perhaps understandably, it lost a councillor in a reshuffle to accommodate two Māori ward councillors around the Hastings table in 2022.
And with a Māori ward in place, a huge swathe of the suburb’s population must now vote for Māori ward councillors rather than someone to represent their suburb’s interests.
It means the one Flaxmere councillor who is left is now unable to be as effective, because they no longer have the mandate from the community that they did before.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the three years since the ward’s introduction, Flaxmere lost its only supermarket for more than a year.
It watched the council close its gym and its nearest outdoor pool to make rates savings.
It even had an ugly grey “H” for Hastings sign installed at the suburb’s entrance, which was then removed after a wave of criticism.
Roads and footpaths in Flaxmere continue to be of a lower standard than nearby Havelock North and control of roaming dogs still feels next to non-existent.
Would an extra councillor for Flaxmere help? Would they be able to ensure the changes planned for the suburb’s centre are genuinely attractive and special – perhaps even an indoor mall?
I think so.
Much like the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat in Parliament, the sheer size of the Hastings district means it’s a challenge for Māori ward councillors to cover the area they are responsible for.
When Flaxmere needs targeted support, those councillors also have other communities with other priorities.
One of the inaugural Māori ward councillors for Hastings even resigned mid-term to focus on being a teacher instead.
In my mind, Māori wards were, and are, a reasonable idea to fix a pale and flawed system. They are done with good intentions and they typically produce good results.
Wairoa’s Māori ward is one that appears from the outside to work well.
The majority of governance complaints I hear from Wairoa and its large Māori community come from either the overreach or the ignorance of Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and central government.
It’s a district that seems, overall, relatively proud of its little council, and I don’t think that same pride would exist if its decision-makers didn’t reflect the community they run.
Voters in Wairoa and Hastings and beyond shouldn’t just consider if they like or hate the concept of Māori wards.
They should consider how the wards will work for their communities, and vote accordingly. And they don’t have to be consistent.
Chris Hyde is the editor of Hawke’s Bay Today and has a decade of experience in regional newsrooms. His paper won Voyager Regional Newspaper of the Year in 2024 and 2025 for its coverage of Cyclone Gabrielle and its aftermath.