With polling day fast approaching, an obvious trend has emerged from the daily voting numbers.
With seven days to go, in Northland the turnout by Maori electoral roll voters is 22.3% compared with just 9% at the same time at the last election in 2022. The general voter turnout is also up, but not by the same magnitude. The dates are not directly comparable because voting opened a week earlier this year so the returns may plateau in the last week, but the difference is significant enough to ask the question: Why is such a big difference in the Maori roll turnout, not replicated in the general roll?
It may have something to do with the Maori ward referendum!
The referendum is a big deal. It’s important. Not only will it affect the influence Maori have over local councils and the access to huge resources and rights that go with it, but it will have a flow-on effect for the Maori seats in Parliament. If the Keep vote wins on Saturday, then removing the Parliamentary seats will become much harder than it already is.
There is a lot at stake. I think the referendum result is more important than the candidate vote. Politicians come and go – Maori seats are more permanent.
There may be several reasons for the unusually high turnout on the Maori roll. Maybe the votes are simply coming in early and will end up somewhere near what’s “normal”, but this does not explain why we are not seeing a corresponding rise in the general vote.
Or maybe Maori folk have all of a sudden and en masse, embraced the virtues of the democratic process and are eager to be part of a vibrant democracy!
A more plausible explanation is that the Keep Maori wards lobby groups are mobilising their supporters better than the Remove groups. Whether that will swing the result in favour of a Keep win remains to be seen when the votes are counted on the 11th of October.
What we do know is that the Electoral Commission, in co-operation with local councils, has been very actively encouraging people to vote. But encouraging who?
Concerns have been raised about a “roadie campaign” launched by the Electoral Commission and put into effect by local council staff. It is council staff who have the all-important role of identifying the areas to be visited.
The roadie campaign is a ratepayer-funded initiative using council staff and resources to visit what it describes as “remote” communities. Local elections are done by post, so it makes one wonder if these “remote” communities are so remote that they do not have a postal service?
Or is it that the council staff assume “remote” means communities with low voter turnout, and those happen to be communities with a high proportion of people on the Maori roll?
This is how it has been described by the Northern Advocate:
“Northland’s biggest local election voting roadie campaign kicks off this week as mobile ballot boxes are taken into some of the region’s most remote locations. Voting ballot box roadies to more than 180 mostly far-flung locations began in the Far North on Wednesday and will begin in Kaipara next weekend. Thousands of kilometres will be travelled and more than 100 destinations will be visited…The Northland roadies will visit marae, rugby clubs, sports halls, schools, markets and other community-led events across the district.”
The Far North District Council says the purpose of their Mobile Ballot Box Tour is “aimed at educating our communities about the upcoming local government elections in October, and empowering people to vote.”
What measures are in place to give us confidence that all people are being empowered to vote, and not just some people? When this question was put to the local Returning Officer, Dale Ofsoske he gave the following assurance, “The mobile voting unit is staffed by electoral officials appointed by me…I have full confidence in my electoral officials to undertake their duties impartially and professionally.”
While the Electoral Officer may have confidence, others don’t, and nor should they. In Northland, pro-Maori rights activists have prominent positions within the local government sector, so it is not unreasonable to question whether they are using their position to enhance the Maori vote and outcomes for Maori. The livery on a Whangarei District Council “roadie campaign” vehicle would suggest they are.
While council staff appear to be falling over themselves to empower Maori voters, those who oppose Maori wards have struggled to get their message out. Hobson’s Pledge say, “The media won’t give us a fair hearing. Politicians won’t speak for us. Our campaign has been hit from every side – attacks from activists and Te Pāti Māori, shutdowns from major media companies, and biased narratives from journalists…”
That has also been the case in Northland. There has been very little mainstream media coverage, and what coverage there has been has lacked balance and, in some cases, has been misleading. For example, when covering the issue of Maori representation on councils, the Northern Advocate said Maori had historically been underrepresented! Clearly, it did not suit the reporter to quote the figures to show that today Maori are over-represented both on local councils and in Parliament!
One would hope that an issue as important as the way electors elect their representatives would be covered in the mainstream media without bias. Sadly, this has not been the case. To think the media is unbiased is naïve.
Even the impartiality of information provided by the Electoral Commission has been called into question. Following a complaint to the Auditor General from Act MP, Cameron Luton, the Commission has removed a link on their Vote.nz website that took the reader to a pro-Maori ward website by Local Government NZ and Taituarā – Local Government Professionals Aotearoa.
The Electoral Commission itself appears to have sworn allegiance to a Maori worldview. They describe the role of their Chief Maori Adviser as follows:
“Hone leads a team which helps embed a Māori worldview throughout the Commission to honour our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Hone’s team are committed to prioritising engagement and partnership with Tangata Whenua to build trust that influences positive long-term participation in Aotearoa’s democracy.”
With such a view, how can we have any confidence that the Electoral Commission will be unbiased?
The Say No Māori ward campaigners are also reporting significant and immediate damage to their election signs, with reports that signs are being damaged or removed within hours of going up.
Whangarei’s Bream Bay Ward candidate Matthew Yovich has expressed his concerns about what he describes as a “dangerous slide” in the political climate after his image on campaign hoardings was shot at. He has been upfront about his opposition to Maori wards.
Matt Yovich said, “This isn’t just about a few damaged signs…We live in a democracy, and in a democracy, we settle our differences with debate and a vote. There is no justification for bringing guns to politics…We need to draw a line in front of any slide toward political violence or intimidation. I think shooting at someone’s face on a campaign hoarding crosses that line.”
Matt Yovich is right when he says we need to draw the line at violence. We need to draw the line well before it gets to the point of violence. This thuggery and intimidation must stop but will only stop when central government politicians take it seriously, and when the public says they will no longer be bullied by thugs.
Whangarei District Council Mayoral candidate Marie Olsen received death threats and threats to burn her house down after she questioned the numbers attending the hikoi to Wellington in November last year. The threats were referred to the Police. She has declined an invitation to speak at a candidate meeting on a Marae because the organisers could not guarantee her safety.
Our society is now more divided than it has ever been, in no small part due to Jacinda Ardern and Nania Mahuta. We are now at a crunch point. We either unwind the racial separatism that now pervades virtually every level of government and go back to the principle that in a democracy everyone is equal, or we continue down the a path to tribal rule where everyone kowtows to a ruling elite by virtue of some fanciful birthright because a distant ancestor immigrated here first.
It’s time to get real and accept that if we want to keep our democracy, we need to fight for it. Doing nothing is not an option – it’s gone too far.
It’s now time for those on the general roll to mobilise in the same way that the racial activists have mobilised the Maori roll. Start by voting today if you have not already done so. Then encourage everyone you know to vote also – let them know their future depends upon it.
Continuing to sit on the fence is a luxury we can no longer afford.