Call For Abolition Of Maori Seats

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30826, 11 August 1965, Page 14

Call For Abolition Of Maori Seats

(From Our Parliomentarv Reporter

WELLINGTON, August 10.

The Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) tonight issued a clear call for abolition of separate Maori representation in Parliament according to a time-table which, he said, should be fixed now. “Rather than given consideration to an increase in the number of Maori seats,” he said, “this I louse should be considering the abolition of these seats. “We are far from the days of 1867 when the Maori lived remote from the urban areas and on his ancestral lands in a tribal community.

“This was the

time when separate Maori representation was established and at a time when very few of the Maori people spoke English.” Today, almost 100 years later, said Mr Hanan, the Maori was marching with the European along a road leading inevitably to complete integration. Inter-marriage was already blurring the distinction between legal definitions of who was a Maori and who was not. The law allowed those of half-blood the option of being on either a European roll or a Maori roll. “But as members of the Opposition have so cogently emphasised, many Maoris cannot be certain whether they be a little more

or a little less than halfblood. “For the purposes of the electoral roll, there is no check at all." Mr Hanan said his personal view was that “we have reached the stage when a time should be fixed—say, 10 years hence —for *he abolition of separate representation. “Should this take place. 1 assert that there would be more members of this House with some Maori blood than there are today.” Mr Hanan, who is also Minister of Maori Affairs, told members they should not overlook the possibility that the time would come when the United Nations would indicate that electoral segregation by separate representation was incompatible with the concept of an integrated society. “I, personally, am of the J view that as the river is I greater than its tributaries, I so also will our Parliamentary system of representation be the stronger if we go forward not as two races but as one people." He also said that a fifth Maori seat was not at present justified, even on population comparisons. At the end of 1963. he said, Maoris numbered 184,684 — 72,275 of them adults qualified as electors. Of these, 52,016 were registered on Maori rolls. The Maori population referable to the four Maori seats was thus 133,382 or an average of 33,345 for each constituency, compared with an average in European seats of 32.120. Separate representation in Parliament was the last remaining legal race distinction, said Mr Hanan. “More than anything, this tends to keep people apart.’’ With intermarriage of the races, it was “absurd" that husbands and wives should be separately represented in Parliament. “This is nothing in or. or less than apartheid. The Opposition, in wanting further separate Maori representation is flying in the face of the fact that, sin 3 1961, 16 separate discriminations between Maoris and Europeans have been abolished. Benefit of Merger “A merger of the rolls would mean that almost every member of Parliament would be obliged to take into account Maori views—and that would be a good thing.” said Mr Hanan. “There is no satisfactory legal definition of a Maori and it has become more and more uncertain as time goes on. “It is well known that many people who return themselves

as full Maoris are no such thing. There is no check on statements made by Maori electors. There are, undoubtedly, many people on the Maori roll who are no such thing." Mr N. E Kirk (Opp.. Lyttelton) claimed the Government wanted to mimic the I’policy of the Nationalist Government of South Africa. By talking about the need for integration and the number of Maoris who voted on European rolls. Government members had tried to draw a red herring across the path of the debate. “Let us not be so stupid as to think that integration is promoted everywhere in New Zealand,” he said. "There are still employers who refuse to employ Maoris and landlords who refuse them accommoda|tion." “Two Rules'* The Government's refusal to treat equally with the Maori was inspired by purely political motives. Government members knew that a fifth Maori seat would go to Labour The special problems of the Maori involving such questions as land disposition and health required close separate representation in Parliament. A fifth seat would not cure these problems but would help in their remedy. The Government clearly wanted two rules—one for the Maori and one for the European.