3000 join Māori electoral roll after Treaty Principles Bill hīkoi

By Pokere Paewai of RNZ

The Māori electoral roll has grown by more than 3000 people after organisers of the hīkoi mō te Tiriti promoted a switch from the general roll.

Data from the Electoral Commission up to November 25 showed 2262 people changed from the general roll to the Māori roll - up from 59 in October. Just 28 people changed from Māori roll to general roll.

There were also 862 new enrolments on the Māori roll - up from 29 the previous month. All up, there were 3096 more people on the Māori roll than at the start of the month.

Victoria University senior lecturer in Te Kawa a Māui, the School of Māori Studies, Annie Te One said that, historically, Māori had not been well represented in the electoral system so any strategy that encouraged more people to vote was a good one.

“Whether or not we continue to see this increase on the Māori roll, we have to wait and see but the numbers that have come out just in November are pretty phenomenal and showing this small but significant shift towards the Māori roll.”

Engaging rangatahi in politics

During the hīkoi, organisers encouraged participants to make sure they enrolled to vote in the next election with much of the messaging aimed at rangatahi (young) Māori.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told the hīkoi if supporters were not enrolled to vote, nothing would change.

“We are now 20% of the population - we are a million people in this country. That should translate into 19 to 20 seats. We should be determining who the government is every election - that’s the strategy. Everybody on the Māori roll.”

The hīkoi mō te Tiriti outside Parliament in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

When the hīkoi reached Parliament, rangatahi Atareta Milne was one of the speakers to address the crowd, telling them that young Māori were watching and learning.

“I ask you to enrol to vote. I ask you to be on the Māori roll. E mātakitaki ana mātau, e whakarongo ana mātau. (We are watching, we are listening). We need you, for today and for our apōpō!"

Annie Te One said it was vital for other rangatahi to see that happening, to see that they had a voice and could have it heard.

“There has been this consistent and, at times, unhelpful narrative that rangatahi Māori are politically apathetic, but that really isn’t true.

“Rangatahi Māori are really engaged in politics and we’ve just seen this play out - you know, the likes of Eru Kapa-Kingi, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. These two young Māori, who are just two of many who have been involved in different political movements, are showing us that actually rangatahi Māori are leading this change."

The role of social media as a platform to get the messaging out to rangatahi had been huge, she said.

And Maipi-Clarke’s haka in Parliament helped spread awareness nationally and internationally.

“Through this hīkoi, we’re seeing that this platform was not only made available for rangatahi Māori, it was actually made available by rangatahi Māori. It was the likes of Hana and Eru who really led the establishment of this.”

General roll or Māori roll?

Overall, 3.65m people are enrolled to vote in Aotearoa. Of those, 563,964 are of Māori descent - with 292,825 (51.9%) on the Māori roll and 271,139 (48.1%) are on the general roll.

Since 2023, voters of Māori descent have been free to switch between the Māori roll and the general roll at any time except in the three months before an election.

Previously, Māori voters could only switch once every five years, at census time.

Annie Te One said a lot of education still needed to be done so Māori were aware of what was a relatively recent change to the electoral system.

Those on the Māori roll vote in one of the seven Māori electorates. At the last election, six of those seven seats were won by Te Pāti Māori, the sole exception being Labour MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel who won the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat.

There is a historical stigma against the Māori seats which, when combined with a lack of education around how votes on the Māori roll translated to seats, had led to the almost even split of the Māori population between Māori and general rolls, Te One said.

“Māori still only have the same number of votes as any other person in Aotearoa who is voting. Our votes don’t have more weight than anyone else - it is just the ability to respond to how we want our vote to best translate, whether that’s through the Māori electoral roll or through the general electoral roll.”

The number of people changing rolls during and after the hīkoi showed that flexibility of choice was a good thing, she said.

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