The election is on a knife edge.
On one side is a coalition that wants to encourage people to get ahead through lower taxes, less regulation, stronger economic growth, and more freedom. On the other side are parties that want to penalise success.
Labour, which proved itself to be not only incompetent at managing our country but downright destructive, wants to tax us more. Not content with having the power to control what we earn through income tax, they now want to get their hands on our assets as well. And while they claim their 28 percent Capital Gains Tax (CGT) will only affect investment property – including baches – history suggests that once such a tax is in place a government’s insatiable need for more money will invariably see the rules being “tweaked” and with the stroke of a pen family homes, farms, shares, or any other assets could be captured in the tax net as well.
That’s why New Zealanders have always had a deep-seated distrust of a CGT, rejecting repeated attempts to introduce one – with former Prime Minister David Lange once describing it as the sort of tax you introduce if you want to lose not just one election but the next three!
Then there’s the Greens. While they originated within the environmental movement, they have now morphed into a communist party in all but name. They feed on the politics of “envy and greed”, with their major ‘Tax the Rich’ election platform attempting to generate a victim mentality amongst voters to provoke hatred towards anyone doing well. According to their warped mindset, middle class families are rich oppressor-types, who deserve penalising through punitive taxes: a top income tax rate of 45 percent, a 2.5 percent wealth tax, a 33 percent inheritance tax, an extension of the “bright-line” tax on residential investment property from 2 to 10 years, the removal of tax deductibility on investment property, a rise in company tax to 33 percent, and a 5 percent withholding tax on offshore profits.
The Maori Party also favours an increase in the top tax rate – to 48 percent, a 2.5 percent wealth tax, an increase in company tax to 33 percent, an additional 5 percent foreign company tax, a land banking tax of 33 percent, a ‘batch and vacant home’ tax of 2 percent, and a 5 percent Stamp Duty.
At the most extreme end of the race towards totalitarianism is The Opportunity Party. TOP doesn’t just want to penalise anyone trying to get ahead through tax, it wants to control their lives. Their objective is to scrap the lowest rates of income tax, introduce a new tax on the land a family owns, and pay people a “universal benefit” so everyone becomes dependent on the State.
It’s important to also remember that at this election the family home isn’t just under threat from tax: both the Maori Party and the Greens have indicated they want private land opened up for a new round of Treaty settlements!
While Labour is currently saying ‘no’ to the new tax demands of coalition partners, it cannot be forgotten that this is the same party that once embraced the Orwellian ‘single source of truth’ mantra — a chilling reminder that their guarantees ultimately meant nothing, making it impossible to take any assurances they offer at face value.
If it’s the difference between Chris Hipkins becoming Prime Minister or remaining Leader of the Opposition, we all know how easy it would be for pre-election promises to be conveniently forgotten.
What also seems to be being forgotten this election is the diabolical mess Labour made of running the country when they were last in government.
There’s possibly a good reason for this.
Virtually the whole time Labour held the Treasury benches, they were not subjected to proper scrutiny by the mainstream media. Jacinda Ardern was, after all, their protégé – the new party leader they’d helped become Prime Minister through their relentlessly positive coverage. As a result, their treatment of the PM and Labour was kind, in sharp contrast to the approach they’ve taken with the current government.
In reality, the Coalition has been subjected to almost 3 years of unrelenting attack – which is a scandal in itself since the media are meant to be objective and balanced in their reporting.
Whether this is in any way related to the fact that around half of the country’s journalists are members of an activist union that’s affiliated to the Labour Party – giving them direct influence over policy development, candidate selection, list rankings, Party leadership and so on – is difficult to tell, but at face value media bias in favour of the left is unmistakable.
So, faced with a barrage of media negativity about the Coalition and a fading memory of Labour’s actual incompetence, it’s easy to see why voters might be persuaded to pin their hopes on a “new” government, especially when the much-vaunted economic recovery has been slow to materialise.
As if an orchestrated attempt by the media to influence the election is not bad enough, a new rort has now emerged.
The Maori Party intends gaming the 2026 election by using their Maori seats to gerrymander a change in government.
We’ve seen attempts to use the Maori Seats to bring down the government before.
In 2014, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira tried to use his Te Tai Tokerau Maori seat to piggyback Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party into Parliament. It was a textbook attempt to game the system – a $3 million campaign to sidestep the 5‑percent MMP threshold, with Internet-Mana agreeing to split and operate independently once elected.
But the public rejected their anti-democratic rort: Hone Harawira lost his seat and the Internet Party failed to make it into Parliament.
The Maori Party’s manipulative plan involves convincing supporters to split their vote to support Maori Party candidates in the electorates while giving their party votes to either Labour or the Greens.
Their plan is to create a massive overhang in Parliament of six or seven seats, which they know is likely to swing the election outcome in favour of a Labour-led government.
An overhang, of course, is created when a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote entitles it to. Since they keep the extra seats, Parliament becomes larger and more disproportionate.
The Parliamentary overhang was designed to deal with an occasional awkward result thrown up by voters. It was never envisioned to become a mechanism to deliberately undermine democracy and MMP.
Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi is already claiming victory: “This is the very first time the Maori roll will be determining who the next prime minister is. If Te Pati Maori is able to win the seven Maori seats, the Greens hold on to their 12-13% and Labour holds on to their 34%, we’ve got a change in government.”
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, public law expert Liam Hehir explains how the Maori Party’s attempt to game the election could backfire spectacularly and result in the abolition of the Maori seats:
“All electoral systems can be gamed to a greater or lesser extent.
“What Te Pati Maori wants to do now, however, is a serious escalation. At its own campaign launch, the party has asked supporters not to give it their party vote. It is campaigning for electorate votes only. The obvious potential effect is to create an overhang that could give it disproportionate influence in the next Parliament…
“But if the quirks of MMP are purposely used to provide extra MPs to support a Labour-led Government that would otherwise have fallen short, all bets would be off. Millions of voters could easily be persuaded that a feature of the electoral system intended to guarantee Maori representation was now being used as a weapon to circumvent the democratic will of the people.
“For my money, I think it is more likely that the result would be the abolition of the reserved Maori electorates.”
The need to abolish the Maori seats is no longer a matter that can be swept under the carpet.
The distortionary impact these seats are having on Parliament is too significant: Maori now make up a record 27 percent of Parliament’s MPs, far exceeding their 17 percent share of the population. The argument being used that Maori seats are needed to ensure Maori have a voice in Parliament is now so ridiculous that even if all seven reserved seats are removed, Maori would still be overrepresented with 21 percent of the seats.
But there’s a deeper reason the Maori seats must go: they are now being used to radicalise the machinery of government. What was once an historical concession has been weaponised to undermine Parliamentary sovereignty and advance a model of governance in which tribal authorities are exerting power over our public institutions.
The consequences are everywhere. Long-settled historic Treaty claims have been re-opened to deliver fresh rounds of multi-million-dollar payments. Wealthy tribal corporations are being handed invaluable public assets including the Urewera National Park, the Waikato River, Mount Taranaki, Auckland’s volcanic cones – and, potentially, control of New Zealand’s entire foreshore and seabed.
The Maori seats were central to the adoption of the radical United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – and the introduction of the subversive He Puapua plan for tribal control by 2040.
In fact, the Maori seats are no longer about representation — they have become the gateway through which tribal power is being embedded deep into the apparatus of state, at the expense of equal citizenship and democratic accountability.
If New Zealand cares about democracy, the Maori seats cannot remain.
But if they do, what’s next? Maori ownership of freshwater? Or perhaps it will be a brand-new Treaty-based constitution to give those wealthy tribal corporations full control over New Zealand.
When the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System proposed MMP, they warned the Maori seats would distort the core principle of proportionality and they recommended their abolition: “In the form of Maori representation we have proposed for MMP, there would be no separate Maori constituency or list seats, no Maori roll, and no Maori option. All New Zealanders would vote in the same way for the party they wish to govern, and for a constituency MP.”
In a comprehensive clinical analysis of the Maori seats in 2008, leading Constitutional Lawyer and Professor of Law at Canterbury University Dr Philp Joseph KC concluded, “There are four reasons why the Maori seats should be abolished: they are anachronistic, they institutionalise Maori separatism, they represent a form of reverse discrimination and they threaten to manipulate MMP electoral outcomes through ‘overhang’.”
So here we are in 2026, facing a significant overhang threat from the Maori seats that could result in a government being imposed on New Zealand that voters specifically rejected.
The Maori Party’s attempt to use the Maori seats to rig the election should be the final nail in their coffin – an attack on democracy, stability, and Parliamentary Sovereignty, that the Coalition can no longer ignore.
They now need to promise that if they are re-elected, a referendum on the Maori Seats will be held as a matter of urgency.
One of the best aspects of Kiwi culture is our instinctive desire to give everyone a fair go. But the flipside is that we have little tolerance for anyone attempting to play dirty.
That’s exactly what the Maori Party is now aiming to do – they want to use their special reserve Maori seats to engineer an election outcome that serves their self-interest rather than the will of the people.
Whether enough voters on the Maori roll will reject their attempt to game the election remains to be seen, but in the interest of democracy and New Zealand’s future, the Coalition now needs to give Kiwis the opportunity to decide whether the Maori seats should stay or go.
Please remember the email addresses of all MPs can be found on our “Have Your Say” page HERE.
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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:
*Should the Coalition announce that if re-elected, a referendum on the Maori Seats will be held as a matter of urgency?
*Poll comments are posted below.
*All NZCPR poll results can be seen in the Archive.
THIS WEEK’S POLL COMMENTS
| Should have been held 3 years ago! | Michael |
| They were meant to be a temporary solution for the time, there are now multiple members in parliament that identify as maori, in fact by percentage over represented | Alec |
| We have to stop this radical extremist party from doing further damage to our country. We also must close down the Waitangi Tribunal and remove all references of TOW in legislation otherwise we’ll be living in a parallel society that every non Maori will have to fund. | Cath |
| This must be branded as a treasonous dirty trick played against the public of New Zealand, by the coalition. | Peter |
| Get rid of any race based politics | Grant |
| New Zealand has become an apartheid state. Rather than all being equal under the law, and as a society we have given one race priority over all others. The reality is a house divided cannot stand, we as a nation are divided and the devision is getting larger, it is just time before the nation goes beyond the point of no return. | fred |
| Long overdue | Lindsay |
| The Maori seats are totally past their use by date-Maori are very well represented throughout the political spectrum | Les W |
| The same for everyone | Gavin |
| Overdue by many years | Claire |
| Long overdue | Don |
| Our current MMP government need to drag Chris Luxon into reality – Maori seats should already be gone along with pulling out of the Paris agreement as it is no longer scientificly backed by their own admission. (8.5 etc) Plus our Climate commission is NOT science based and never was. Have a look for yourself. Just who is in charge ? not the readers of NZCPR. | Maurice |
| Yes,yes,yes | Laura |
| We are ONE PROPLE! | Cross |
| YEARS late …..whatever… | Gill |
| Should have happened as a precondition when MMP was introduced. M%u0101ori are now disproportionally represented in parliament. | Mike |
| Have been asking for this for the last 10 years | Bruce |
| We definitely do not need to entrench an apartheid regime into our social fabric. | Russel |
| The Maori seats are outdated. However,any party suggesting this before the election would be committing political suicide. Winston might get away with it. | Janet |
| NZ will only prosper as a nation when collectively equal rights & opportunity exist. If individuals want race-based bias to elevate their status, then they will never help shoulder the burden of responsibility or uplift our nation. | Graham |
| This now unnecessary historical feature of NZ politics is well beyond its best before date. NZ will be a laughing stock if TPMs dream comes true. | Graham |
| A referendum may be a political necessity but the Maori seats should be abolished on general principles alone. | Mark |
| not necessary any more at all | Brian |
| Stop the tsunami of Maori creating apartheid. | Kathryn |
| Long , long, long overdue . One question though – is a referendum necessary ? Just do it ! | Hugh |
| It’s a no brainer and should have been done years ago in the interests of democracy. | Bill |
| Rather than a referendum, they should undertake to abolish the seats if elected. Instant election winner!! | Shane |
| The choice is simple, a political system based on racist Apartheid principals, or remove the Maori seats and finally have a democratic parliament. | Pete |
| How can this comment be more publically distributed. An Open Letter perhaps. | Howard |
| Urgent | Greg |
| Luxon’s 2023 promise on dismantling maorification has never been upheld. If he’s still PM it won’t happen. | Jim |
| Of course! Don’t hold your breath though. The Nats were going to play merry hell and break things but did NOTHING! The country is stuffed; God Defend New Zealand! | Bruce |
| Othere than the obvious, who is benefiting from not listening to the will of the majority? Listening to the narrative of the Government’s 3 party leaders, it’s obvious which party is “dragging the chain” on this issue. | Ian |
| There is no further need for Maori seats in Parliament as they have very good representation already and the manipulation of the Maori seats is not what was intended | Peter |
| Passed their used by date – they were meant to have been scrapped as part of the original MMP design – Maori are now substantially over represented in parliament. In this modern age we dont need seats based on race | Peter |
| But their promises do not often lead to useful legislation. | Ray |
| Definitely | Sue |
| This is long overdue. But why is a referendum necessary, cannot the seats be disestablished by a simple vote in Parliament? | Rod |
| National promised to remove them at the last Election but failed to do so the seats should have gone but nothing has been done. Now we are faced with a rigged Election in November. | Robyn |
| They should add the referendum to this election and not wait. A Maori dominated government after this election will see Maori separatism entrenched and virtually irreversible. | Grant |
| Get rid of them | Mike |
| Yes but they should be quiet about it until they are sure they won the election. Then strike ruthlessly at all that nonsense and put an end to these travesties. | Michael |
| One people regardles of race or religion . Settle all maori claims by 2028 and move forward as one people all working together for the good of N.Z. | Stephen |
| Yes Yes Yes | Colin |
| Should have been abolished with the introduction of MMP! | Kevin |
| Certainly! Who in their right mind could say no? This should have been done decades ago! But the Maori party “gaming the system” is nothing new and is to be expected. But quite frankly, I think the so-called “The Opportunity Party” and its sudden rise — fostered by a mainstream media love fest — is equally dangerous. No one I’ve spoken to seems to grasp how outlandish its platform is. Some polls have it over 9%. If it gets into Parliament, it will help cement a radical coalition’s rise to power. Let’s each of us do all we can to expose it for what it is! | Marla |
| MOST, MOST, MOST Definitely they MUST. Otherwise our once wonderful NEW ZEALAND is stuffed. | Brian |
| Yes,please | Peter |
| No longer relevent | mike |
| Sick of this BS Maori elite activists | Alan |
| The Maori seats are no longer necessary. They represent separatism and scream racism. | Elizabeth |
| This is one of the priorities to put to to bed once and for all for NZ to progress. | Mike |
| Treat every candidate the same regardless of heritage. Maori representation is at an all time high without the Maori seats. The current Maori parliamentarians have been elected on merit. The way it should be. | Carl |
| YES regardless of what the Maori Party is doing in 2026 | RICHard |
| Hi Muriel, why don’t you write about the wef affiliations all the parties have. And the agenda 2030, you’ll own nothing. Currently being set in place. Those who don’t want the NWO MUST NOT vote FOR ANY POLITICAL MASTER. BY VOTING – all you are doing, is voting for a – NEW MASTER. Nothing changes, they are all different feathers on the same bird. THUS YOU ARE reaffirming to the government you’re actually owned as a Slave. You are telling them – you’re voting for the NWO/ahenga. 2030, which is all tied up with the digital track’n’trace congestion charges being bought in, along with your digitalised ID, data centre’s, safety monitoring cameras, cbdc’s. The alleged congestion charges have got nothing to do with congestion. It’s NZ’s first major step towards TOTAL control over who’s going to be allowed to travel anywhere…VERY SOON YOU WILL PAY TO LIVE AND MOVE ANYWHERE YOU WANT. You will have to pay to go to the supermarket to buy food…if for some reason you can’t pay the “con-gestion” charge ..you won’t be able to buy food….you’ll even pay to go to get fuel, on top of the cost of the fuel… if you can afford to pay. that’s what your alleged vote is about to bring onto the sheeple of NZ. THE NWO. POLITICIANS ARE LIARS AND DECEIVERS. And we keep voting for them. | Jenny |
| It’s a very devilish concept to have separate seats | Derek |
| Any previous justification for these seats based on land holdings has long since been removed. The special electoral roll and seats for Maori should do be removed. | Peter |
| The sooner the better! | Ron |
| This should have happened years ago all the good ones stand for other parties so they are already well represented | Peter |
| Can you see Luxon doing that? | Sydney Harvey James |
| Maori seats should have gone long ago | Mark |
| The coalition should exercise its Parliamentary majority and repeal before the next election. | Graeme |
| further to last weeks the Adverts encouraging people to vote are heavily weighted towards Moari and Pacifica. We wont get out of the mess labour and greens and te pati created by weaving baskets as the adverts portray | Gavin |
| This is essential. I am fed up with politicians dodging the Maori seats issue. Get the coalition to pledge a referendum ASAP. | John |
| Unfortunately, the current coalition is also showing how warped MMP is, with a hopeless PM having too much sway over his partners, being poorly advised and following his own agenda, not the election promises he was elected on. Followers of the ‘right’ have the opportunity to warp the system to help meet their own needs. Shall be interesting to see the results, I’m just fearful for NZ’s future | Liz |
| ASAP | Allen |
| Undemocratic | dave |
| 1 people 1 country, there’s to many of everyone in parliament, most to jack shit but rob us blind. | John |
| Absolutely | Liz |
| This is long overdue! | Rebecca |
| The government needs to enforce its policy on the public servants, if they don’t comply or worse lie to parliament then they need to be fired & replaced with civil servants that can follow the mandate handed to the government by the peope. | John |
| WeCANNOT HAVE A LABOUR GOVT AS THEY ARE SO GOOD AT LYING & THINKING OF THEMSELVES FIRST BEFORE THE PEOPLE! THEY ARE TORALLY WICKED NOT CARING FOR THE PEOPLE | Dominique |
| Long overdue | Collin |
| Race based self entitlent has to go!! | Grant |
| Yes, the whole subject has become a taxpayer draining rort. PS- I believe you are too polite re the media- about time NZ fixed that issue too. | Andrew |
| Maori seats have got to go – no longer fit for purpose. | Dwane |
| MMP overhang is Devious | Helen |
| Yes but better still just get rid of them | Clive |
| Binding referendum with immediate effect | Jim |
| Absolutely.. total greed by bludgers. | Barry |
| Should have been gone years go. | Keith |
| Urgent | Graham |
| they should have been removed when mmp was introduced | alf |
| Failure to disestablish the Maori electorates will consign New Zealand to a rinse and repeat of where South Africa finds itself now. That would suit the Harawiras and Waititis and Tamiheres if the world, but they don’t rule the country. Yet. Unless the coalition announces abolition of the Maori seats URGENTLY AND WELL BEFORE THE ELECTION, they won’t receive either of my votes. | Richard |
| Long overdue. And MMP rules also need to be fixed to avoid an overhang in future regardless who | Paul |
| There is no need to take this policy to the electorate. We all know the majority want rid of the Maori seats. After the election is won is the time to start the process of cancellation of the seats. | Allan |
| Should have happened 20 years ago | Frank |
| 100%…do it immediately | Richard |
| Definitely. | Frank |
| YES. Definitely. This crap has to stop, or democracy in NZ will be gone, along with most of our productive citizens | Andrew |
| we must fontjis | richard |
| Absolutely overdue. | David |
| There are no “real” maoris left in NZ. Only “Actors” who identify with a pre stone age people. Can we “imagine” Neanderthal seats in the European Parliament ? | CHARLES |
| Absolutely It would be one election promise they would have to keep | Ian |
| The sooner the better. | Max |
| The coalition has been very weak on these social issues. If they win (big IF) they must get some backbone to take on Hu Puapua | Hilary G |
| Enough’s enough. Time for the racist seats to go. | Lee |
| What is a Maori – only 2% of those claiming to be Maori have over 50% blood lines…. | Gerry |
| be democratic | Kelvin |
| One People. | David |
| ASAP | Brenda |
| Why wait when it can be done by a simple act of parliament right now? | Martin |
| But pointless if the Maori overhang plan works. If Labour/Greens/TPM get in, there will be NO referendum, and the Maori seats will be imbedded forever! Unless you are saying the current government can future-force a post-election referendum, that will prevail even if the government changes. I don’t believe it can. | Linzey |
| Superb commentary, but is it being read by the relevant population?? If not is funding the problem? | Anthony |
| Long overdue. Should have happened years ago. | Gail |
| Yes, but the Nats would block it | Cookie |
| We have to do this if we want a democracy. I thought we were having a vote on the Maori seats this election – would save money! | Diane |
| Yes, absolutely, long long overdue. | Chris |
| Totally yes,maori are well represented now without race based sears | John |
| Should have been stopped many years ago. | Anita |
| The seats are not embedded and should simply be removed by the Government. They are simply an affront to democracy. | perce |
| Even a binding referendum at the election would be better | Basil |
| Because they are totally unnecessary given that there re many Maori MPs anyway | Liz |
| Yes of course the maori seats should have been removed in 1893 when universal suffrage commenced. Do it now!! | Sam |
| I Can’t believe we’ve hung on to these Maori seats for all these years. I think it shows alot of New Zealanders are just plain stupid and that our politicians are very feeble. | Paul |
| They must go. How can National sit by and allow a rigged election take place. Its outragious that radical maori can pervert the outcome of the election and are telling us so. STOP THE ELECTION UNTIL A REFEREDUM ON THE MAORI SEATS IS HELD. ITS THAT IMPORTANT. | Allan. |
| The Maori Seats are well past their usefulness in this country. They encourage racism!!! | Ray |
| When will KIWIS realise that T.P.M, do not want to partricipate in our DEMOCRACY AND PARLIAMENT! T.P.M WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY….. BECAUSE THEY ARE MARXISTS!! THEY TRY TO HOLD UP OUR PROCESS AND DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY AT EVERY TURN……. WHY ARE THEY ALLWAYS …….AWOL!! WE HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR ABSENCE!!! WHY??…. | david |
| not needed now | Neville |
| But the corrupt TEA PARTY, HAVE TOLD US That they are going to GERRYMANDER THE VOTING SYSTEM, SO AS TO GAIN THE OVERHANG, OF THE ELECTORATE VOTE!! | david |
| It should been done prior to this election | terrence |
| Yes of course but to castigate Maori for using a deficiency in our stupid MMP electoral system is wrong. That flaw is open for any party to use. As the saying goes ‘all is fair in love and war’ and, I would suggest, politics. The big problem in this country is that politicians are when they enter parliament seem to leave whatever brains they might have had outside and also abandon commonsense. | Alan |
| Most certainly, and long overdue | Gordon |
| Absolutely and overdue per the royal commission. Otherwise, it may never happen as the country will be destroyed into the Puha Republic of Woke-atearoa | Brian Damage |
| Will Luxon grow a spine to support this referendum or will he again prove to be a Luxflake? | Alister |
| Absolutely – they should have held a referendum on the Maori seats years ago! | Don |
| Yes. If people are angry about the Maori seats, this is the right time to hold a referendum otherwise they are like to be seduced by the tribal establishment saying abolition is unfair and anti-democratic. | Murray |
| It would be a powerful incentive for middle voters fed up with National’s weakness to rethink voting centre-right instead of going across to Labour. | Phil |
| Yes, but has National got the courage to do this? Both NZF and ACT have said they want a referendum on the Maori seats, but National has always prevaricated. This is a real test. | Brenda |
| Yes, yes, yes! The Maori seats should have been abolished in 1893 when everyone got the vote. It’s ridiculous that we’ve had to wait over 130 years for that to happen! | Hugh |