Rotorua Council wants to give non-Maori voters 40% of a vote only

Stuff reports:

With that in mind, she said the council’s new preferred model was one with three Māori ward seats, three general ward seats and four at large seats – 3-3-4.

It allowed voters on both wards the same number of seats to influence and equalised the number of Māori ward and general ward seats.

However, the model was unlawful under the Local Electoral Act as the law has a strict formula that limits the number of Māori ward seats based on population sizes.

There were 21,700 people on the Māori roll and 55,600 people on the general roll in Rotorua, her report said.

So we now have this in the open. The Rotorua Council no longer believes in one person one vote. It believes that if you are not Maori, you should get only get 40% of a vote. They think 22,000 people should get the same number of ward Councillors as 56,000 people – because those 22,000 people have the right ancestors.

Their model breaks the law around equality of votes, but hey lets just change the law.

Rotorua-based Labour list MP Tāmati Coffey is the bill’s sponsor. It seeks an exemption from the Local Electoral Act’s requirements preventing the 3-3-4 model.

So a Labour MP is introducing a bill so the vote of non-Maori will be just 40% of those of Maori in Rotorua. Welcome to our future.