Option card postage called futile

Press, 8 March 1982, Page 12

Option card postage called futile

PA Hamilton The president of the Mana Motuhake Party. Mr Matin Rata, has condemned the postage of Maori option cards to every New Zealand elector as “wasteful and useless." "When you consider that 90 per cent of the cards sent out will be wasted, it is an exercise in utter futility," he said. A Post Office spokesman agreed that the exercise was costing a lot of money. It was part of the price of a ' democratic system, he said. ■ The law provided for I every Maori elector to have I a choice every five years of i being on either the Maori or ■ the general roll, and the 1 costs of implementing this i. provision had to be a second- ‘ ary consideration, he said. i Mr Rata forecast a low . Maori response to the option, even though many had been > frustrated about being unj able to change from general ‘ to Maori rolls in time for ■ last year’s General Election. It was unlikely that many ■ people would bother now i that the political climate of

an election year had dissipated. The option would have been far more successful and cheaper had it been included with last year’s census. "The Government is planning cost-cutting," he said. “This is one it could have cut.” The full cost of the Maori option was not known, according to the Post Office’s director of. field operations, Mr Thomas Beck. He agreed that the cost of posting cards to all of New Zealand's more than two million registered electors would exceed 5400.000. However, there was no alternative to sending cards to all electors, as there was no way of telling who was of Maori descent by merely looking at names on electoral rolls. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Lawhad recommended a separation of the Maori option from the census to prevent confusion such as that which was widespread in the electoral rolls in 1978. he said.