KEY POINTS:
Over the past few years, debate on the Maori seats has, for the most part, focused on whether they should be abolished. This election campaign has delivered a switch, however, thanks to the Maori Party's insistence that entrenching entitlement to the seats in legislation will be one of its goals in post-election negotiations. This has potential implications for the National Party, in particular. It has a penchant for tying itself in unnecessary knots whenever the question of the Maori seats arises. This could be another such instance, yet, in reality, entrenching the seats need not be an issue of great difficulty or, indeed, a matter of great moment.
At the moment, the Maori seats are not protected in the same manner as the general seats and several other constitutional arrangements, including MMP. These can be changed only by a 75 per cent vote in Parliament or a majority in a referendum. The Maori seats could be abolished by a simple parliamentary majority. This could be delivered by the votes of non-Maori MPs, a situation that would be grossly unfair, given there is no clamour for their abolition in the country at large. That aside, entrenchment would be a largely symbolic gesture in support of the seats, which, for the first time, are providing distinctive representation for the Maori electorate.
As such, there would seem good reason for National and Labour to lend their support. National's policy, however, is that the Maori seats are temporary and it would begin abolishing them in 2014, the date it has set for Treaty grievances to be settled. However, earlier this month, National leader John Key indicated privately to the Maori Party that abolition was not a bottom-line policy for National, and that it would not stand in the way of a post-election deal. The Maori Party's subsequent announcement that entrenchment had bottom-line status heightened the discomfort level for National. It suggested Mr Key's pragmatism would have to go up a notch, at the risk of alienating the party faction keen to see the seats abolished.
Labour, for its part, has avoided supporting entrenchment. Prime Minister Helen Clark's message, re-emphasised yesterday as she threw in a red herring about the non-entrenchment of clause 268 of the Electoral Act, was that Labour was committed to the Maori electoral option, which controls the number of those electorates. It saw no problem, she said, to entrenching this as a way of protecting the seats. But that, of course, is not what the Maori Party wants.
If Labour is "absolutely committed to the seats staying", as the Prime Minister suggests, there is surely no reason not to support their entrenchment. Clearly, Helen Clark wants to watch National wriggle, knowing that, without her party's backing, Mr Key's endorsement of entrenchment will be of greater note. Such political manoeuvring, however, serves only to obscure the real issue.
The theory behind the difference accorded the general and Maori seats was that the Maori seats were temporary. They would go when Maori no longer demonstrated a desire for them. That desire has, however, intensified and, with the rise in numbers on the Maori roll, four seats have become seven. No longer are any of the seats assured for Labour and nor is there the prospect that, some time soon, Maori will no longer feel the need to enrol in separate electorates to be guaranteed a voice in Parliament.
Finally, therefore, the Maori seats are delivering on expectations that they would bring Maori into national politics. They are proving their worth. Their entrenchment would, in practice, change very little. But it would be a positive way of acknowledging their value.
