Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Parliament has passed a bill changing the law for Māori ward establishments.
Under the new law, councils with Māori wards set up since 2020 must hold a binding referendum or scrap the ward.
Critics label the legislation discriminatory, claiming it unfairly targets Māori by imposing unique requirements.
Parliament has passed a bill changing the rules around how Māori wards are established following an impassioned and fiery debate in the House.
The coalition Government’s Māori wards bill reverts the law back to the old rules for establishing Māori wards and requires either a binding referendum onwards that were established since 2020 without a referendum or for the council to scrap the ward.
The Māori Wards bill has been a contentious issue, sparking strong responses from the opposition as well as local councils and other entities that submitted to the select committee.
Labour has described the bill as “discriminatory” while the Government says it is returning democratic decision-making powers to communities. Te Pāti Māori has described the bill as a “targeted attack on tangata whenua” that would forcibly remove Māori from the “decision-making table”.
Ministers debated in the House during the third and final reading of the bill on Tuesday afternoon. Local Government Minister Simeon Brown, who is the minister responsible for the bill, declared today “a great day for local democracy”.
His statement prompted a roar of heckles from the other side of the House. He said a law amendment implemented by the previous Government - which allowed councils to establish Māori wards without a referendum – “took away the voices of local communities across the country and undermined the principles of democracy.
“We believe that actually voters should be able to have their say and actually make decisions in terms of what goes down in their local communities.”
Brown addressed Labour MP Willie Jackson who was one of the many MPs on the opposite side of the house that interjected as Brown spoke.
“The people of New Zealand rejected your form of democracy, Willie Jackson. They rejected it on the 14th of October and they voted in the coalition government to restore local democracy in New Zealand.”
There was almost not a single moment when Brown wasn’t being heckled until the Speaker stepped in and called for silence. Labour’s Shanan Halbert yelled out to say Brown was “National’s David Seymour”, while another member said “shame on you” as Brown continued speaking.
Under the new law, councils that have already established a Māori ward without a referendum would be required to hold a binding poll alongside the 2025 local elections.
“A shameful day”: Labour fires back
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said this was “a shameful day for our Parliament as we pass another piece of legislation that discriminates against Māori, that treats Māori differently to other New Zealanders.”
Hipkins used his own local council, the Lower Hutt Council, as an example. The council was currently undertaking a representation review which would include reviewing whether it should continue with community boards, board committees, the number of ward councillors, the number of at-large councillors there should be and whether or not to have a Māori ward.
“Only one of the decisions that comes out of that review will be subjected to a referendum and that’s whether or not there is a Māori ward,” Hipkins said.
“That is absolutely discrimination when Māori are being treated differently to non-Māori.”
Green MP Hūhana Lyndon said the Government was continuing to attack te iwi Māori and exclude Māori from the local government decision-making table. Act’s Cameron Luxton said the law change was not an attack on Māori but a “defence of the liberal value that all human beings have equal moral worth”.
National MP for Rangitata James Meager. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In 2002, a Labour-led government changed the law to allow councils to set up Māori wards but the law also allowed a minority of voters - 5% - to force a referendum and ultimately veto a council’s decision.
The new law brings back the 5% threshold for petitioning the council and requires those councils which have established Māori wards since 2020 without a referendum to hold a referendum at the next local body elections.
“Divisive changes introduced by the previous Government denied local communities the ability to determine whether to establish Māori wards,” Brown said earlier this year.
“The coalition Government’s view is that any decision to establish or disestablish a Māori ward is one that should remain with communities. These changes ensure that local communities have a say in their governance arrangements.”
Speaking to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s reading, Labour’s local government spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said the bill was racist.
“The price here is that Māori voters are being treated differently to other voters, and that’s a massive democratic cost. It’s just outrageous, really.”
Under the law, Māori wards would be subjected to a referendum when rural wards would not be.
“Why do we sit back and let provisions being brought in for the establishment of Māori wards that are different to any other ward? The only difference is race and that’s disgraceful.”
“The removal of Māori wards is another racist, targeted attack on Māori, for being Māori. We are being forcibly removed from the decision-making table that we built in the first place and invited Pākehā to sit at in 1840,” Kapa-Kingi wrote.
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. Photo / Tania Whyte
“This is an attempt to silence tangata whenua ... the argument is that Māori wards will be the demise of democracy. To remove Māori wards is an assault on Te Tiriti, the only reason a democracy inclusive of Pākehā could ever exist.”
The bill itself received more than 10,000 public submissions. Some of the issues cited during the parliamentary select committee included the costs imposed by holding the referendum, which McAnulty estimated to be around $35,000 depending on the size of the district and that the bill may lead to a rise in negative rhetoric directed toward Māori councillors.
The Māori wards bill was a part of the Act and NZ First coalition agreements with National.
These changes ensured local communities had a say in their governance arrangements.
The bill also changes statutory timeframes for local elections, extending the delivery period for voting papers from six days to 14 days, and extending the voting period by 10 days.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
