Hundreds signing up to support Māori seats

Inclusion Northland pro-Māori wards campaign leader Kevin Grose - strong support for Māori seats. Photo / Susan Botting

Hundreds of people have signed up to a new Northland campaign fighting for Māori seats on the region's councils.

"We have been encouraged by the level of support," Inclusion Northland campaign leader Kevin Grose said.

The Northland Regional Council, Kaipara and Whangārei District councils recently made groundbreaking first-time decisions to include designated Māori seats on their councils, and Grose is spearheading the two-pronged Inclusion Northland campaign in support of those decisions.

"It's great that NRC, KDC and WDC councillors, on behalf of their constituents, made well-informed decisions in favour of having Māori seats," Grose said.

"It's disappointing the Far North District Council didn't go the same way.

"We know there are a lot of Northlanders in favour of these seats on their local council."

The Inclusion Northland campaign plans to deliver a petition to Parliament early next year calling for changes to the Local Electoral Act so that electors can no longer demand a poll about councils' Māori seats decisions. Such polls have almost always overturned those decisions in the past, as has been the case with eight of New Zealand's nine most-recent polls.

Māori seats proponents are also adding signatures on Inclusion Northland's separate statements of support letters that will be formally delivered to the NRC and WDC early next year.

Inclusion has been at the Whangārei Growers' Market, gathering signatures.

"We want to support the councils and keep Māori seats in place," Grose said.

"There are a lot of people in our Tai Tokerau community who are in favour of Māori wards."

The group has set up a website (inclusionnorthland.weebly.com) where people are also able to download petition forms.

Grose said it was important that Northlanders in favour of the seats made their views known.

The group, created on November 27, came about as the result of a 10,000-plus-signature petition that was delivered to Parliament by a Whakatane-based group also calling for the removal of electors' rights under the Local Electoral Act to demand a referendum over council's Māori seats decisions.

Grose said it was important Northlanders added their voice to this already-delivered campaign.

The three Northland councils that voted for Māori seats made up the only regional group among New Zealand's record nine councils that this year voted for Māori wards. Northland was also the only region where all its councils considered Māori seats at the same time.

He said the just-delivered petition showed how much of a groundswell there was in favour of the seats.

"Māori wards are important," he said.

The Government has strongly signalled that it will remove the right of electors to demand a poll by the next local government elections in 2022, but Grose said it was important that it moved more quickly in the short term to deal with that right for the nine councils that had voted in favour of Māori wards this year.

They are the Gisborne, Kaipara, New Plymouth, Ruapehu, South Taranaki, Taupō and Whangarei district councils, the Tauranga City Council and the NRC.

Grose said Māori wards offered diversity and inclusion and were part of Te Tiriti o Waitangi expectations of Māori having a greater governance role than happened currently.

Hundreds of Northlanders opposed to Māori wards have already signed up to New Zealand's biggest opposition polling demand campaign. Democracy Northland wants 11,000 signatures across three citizen-initiated petitions to oppose recent decisions in favour of Māori wards/constituencies by the three Northland councils.