Monday, August 07, 2006



Another Maori seat?

The Maor Electoral Option has officially closed, and resulted in a net increase of 14,914 in the Maori roll. This is probably enough to result in a new Maori seat, but its by no means certain (it all depends on how many people there are living in the South Island). By way of comparison, an increase of 24,144 last time saw the creation of two extra seats, while 17,948 extra Maori voters in 1997 saw only one. But regardless of whether its a new seat or not, it is still far short of what the Maori Party was hoping for. Maori aren't voting with their feet to ditch their guaranteed representation - but they're not exactly flooding to it either...

Posted by Idiot/Savant at 8/07/2006 12:39:00 PM

6 comments:

The chance of an increase in seats this time is made slightly less likely due to the fact there weren't enough Maaori to justify a full seventh seat at the last option (on a strict number basis there ought to have been 6.8 Maaori seats). The increase of two seats at the last option was made slightly easier by the entitlement following the option before that, being between 5~5.5 seats (so that only enough Maori to justify an additional 1.4 seats or so was enough for two seats).

 Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 8/07/2006 01:30:00 PM

That's what I thought - but playing around with a calculator, they should have enough to get them over 7.5.

 Posted by Idiot/Savant : 8/07/2006 01:44:00 PM

One of the reasons postulated on Nat Rad for the relatively low uptake on the Maori roll this time was that a large number of Maori who were enrolling before the last election would have enrolled straight onto the Maori roll, due to the work of the Maori Party.

Any ideas what the seat shuffle might be if there was an extra one, eg would the extra seat be in the North Island or the South?

 Posted by Span : 8/07/2006 01:47:00 PM

Almost certainly the North. There are so few Maaori-roll enrolled Maaori in the South Island, that Te Tai Tonga (the old "Southern Maaori) seat) includes not only all Maori in the South Island, but Stewart Island, Chatham Island, and Wellington (City) as well.

I suppose it's possible that Te Tai Tonga will shrink to encompass only the South Island, but a second Maaori seat in the South Island just will not happen (an extra general seat in the South Island is impossible).

 Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 8/07/2006 02:01:00 PM

It's also due to the fact that NZ First and National (and maybe ACT too...) aren't standing candidates in the Maori seats anymore - as Derek Fox said, the change is because the conservative Maori voters have shifted rolls. That's good tactics on the part of the NZ First and the Nats, who of course want to abolish the seats...

 Posted by Lewis Holden : 8/07/2006 04:01:00 PM

Without the Maori seats, National would be much less of a shoe-in in places like Northland and the East Cape, of course.

I'd suspect that the Maori roll will get popular until people of Maori ancestry form a majority in NZ (which is only 50-100 years away) and it then becomes somewhat moot.

 Posted by Rich : 8/07/2006 08:44:00 PM

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