Maori tolerance seen as nearing crisis

Press, 27 September 1985, Page 4

Maori tolerance seen as nearing crisis

Maori tolerance of the present “illegal, racial,” system of Government is nearing crisis, the Royal Commission into the Electoral System heard in Christchurch yesterday.

The secretary of the Arahura Maori Committee, Mr James Russell, warned that unless the Government was taken over by Maoris, race relations would deteriorate. Resulting unrest could lead to riots and possibly racial warfare.

The committee draws its members from the West Coast of the South Island. Mr Russell said that British sovereignty over New Zealand was wrested from the Maoris in 1840, in violation of international law. He said the committee tolerated the present system of Government, but did not surrender to or accept it. It was a racial system “suppressing the indigenous people of Aotearoa.” Mr Russell thanked the Government and its predecessors for acting as caretakers, but said it was time to let Maoris govern their own country.

The committee called for the abolition of the 91 pakeha seats in Parliament,

and urged the commission to recommend the adoption of the United Nations principle of national self-deter-mination for New Zealand’s indigenous inhabitants.

Mr Russell said that the system of Government was no better than the apartheid administration in South Africa.

“We wonder why we are here before this commission making a submission on an illegal electoral system for the election of an illegal Government ...” The Arahura Maori Committee’s submission was the most radical of several presented to the five-member commission during a hui at the Rehua marae.

Maori university students belonging to Te Huinga Rangatahi (the gathering of youth) called for the number of Maori seats to be increased from four to 11 to represent properly the Maori proportion of the total population.

Retention of the seats is supported only in the short term. Some of the students advocated their eventual replacement with an apolitical tribal council with powers to ensure that legislation conforms with the

Treaty of Waitangi. They believed tribal groupings should determine Maori electoral boundaries, rather than the numerical criteria used to define general electorates. Auckland students condemned as racist and monocultural attempts to apply general seat criteria to Maori electorates. This view was not shared by the Labour Party’s Maori policy and advisory council. It told the commission that it would be unfeasible and unnecessarily complex to elect Maori reEresentatives on a tribal asis.

The council’s secretary, Mrs Marina Hughes, said there were highly organised groups almost fanatically motivated to get into political decision-making.

“We are down-to-earth realists who claim each progressive step carefully before rushing beyond.”

The council was concerned that the number of Maori seats had remained at four while the number of general seats continued to increase.

There was little evidence to suggest that proportional representation would lead

to more Maori voices in Parliament. It could result in the loss of the four existing seats.

The Southern Maori Labour Committee told the commission that the state of Maori electoral rolls was a disgrace. More than 40,000 Maoris, mostly aged between 18 and 34, were not enrolled in either Maori or general seats.

“If democracy is to be served, this matter screams out for attention,” said the committee’s organiser, Mr Rino Tirikatene. Maoris wanted to retain special Parliamentary representation, but pakeha New Zealanders wanted it abolished because they saw it as unnecessary separatism.

Mr Tirikatene said the only Maori group opposed to Maori seats was the Maori advisory group of the National Party. Yesterday’s marae visit was the first of five planned by the commission during its deliberations throughout New Zealand. The deadline for its report to the Government is September next year.