Drive on to increase Maori voters

Christina Diamond (left) and Deidre Monga are helping to get more Maori to vote in this year's general election.

Maori are being encouraged to have their say at this year's general elections after a poor turnout three years ago.

A group called Vote Maori Vote has been set up involving four Rotorua women who are actively urging Waiariki Maori to stand up and be counted.

A total of 33,703 people are enrolled to vote in the Waiariki electorate yet just over 19,900 - 60 per cent - voted in the 2011 election. That compares with the Rotorua general roll of 42,886 enrolled voters with 32,097 having their say or 74.8 per cent.

Spokeswoman Christina Diamond said Vote Maori Vote was formed as a professional development course project with their work on local Maori trusts. The four women involved are all volunteers and said it was separate from their day jobs and independent of any political party. There are three other branches throughout the country.

"A big chunk of those not voting are rangatahi [young people] and we just thought with elections coming up this is relevant and something we're all really passionate about," Ms Diamond said.

The group was hoping to encourage Maori aged 18-34 to be more visible at the polling booths. They are finding success in engaging that age group through their Facebook page.

"We're just wanting to get the message out there and cool it up a little, jazz it up a little bit. We're not doing anything different but we're wanting to break up the message for them to understand and stay interested.

"The type of people we're trying to involve don't want to read information like a pamphlet, they usually pick it up, put it in their car and it never gets read," Ms Diamond said. "We want Maori to have a bigger presence in Parliament and in order to do that we need to vote."

Mana Movement president and Waiariki candidate Annette Sykes said the younger age group hardly turned out in the last election. She hoped the alliance with the Internet Party would help them in engaging with younger people who were new to voting.

"They [Internet Party] have a huge understanding of technology that I don't think any other political party does.

"We believe that technology and the understanding of what the internet brings is already attracting those and encouraging new voters who have just turned 18 to play an active role," Ms Sykes said.

She said she would like to see a series of concerts, education forums and sporting stars taking an active role to encourage young people to vote.

Maori Party co-leader and Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell said he had visited major cities in Australia talking to Maori explaining how to have their say across the Tasman.

He said he was active on social media but was focused on the face-to-face connection on getting his message across.

"It's about trying to get young people talking to young people. This group (Vote Maori Vote) is great, I just hope they talk about it as a picture rather than just vote.

"If you don't vote, you take what you get. We're wanting to highlight the fact that their vote has the ability to influence issues on a daily basis like the increasing cost of cigarettes and pyschoactive substances being being banned at a drop of a hat."

Waiariki Labour Party candidate Rawiri Waititi could not be contacted.