Te Takawaenga submission

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 30

Te Takawaenga submission

Te Takawaenga Trust wants to see the present electoral system replaced by one that better serves Maori interests.

It believes retention of the Maori seats, coupled with changing over to the proportional representation single transferable vote method, would go some way to achieving Maori political and economic independence.

It told the commission that Maori people had suffered oppression as a result of the assimilative nature of the West-minster-type parliamentary system.

This two-party system had done nothing but undermine Maori political independence and to reinforce and entrench pakeha domination over Maori interests.

Te Takawaenga says it believes the Maori people would benefit greatly from adopting the single transferable vote method of proportional representation.

Separate Maori representation would continue under this system with the whole of New Zealand being designated a multi-member constituency for Maori electoral purposes.

All those on the Maori roll would vote in the one constituency and would vote for however many representatives there might be.

The number of representatives elected from this constituency would be on the basis of one per so many thousand total Maori population.

The trust believes the single transferable vote system encourages consensus and discourages the discord of adversary politics. “Because it is flexible, the system can accommodate Maori thinking and Maori ways of doing things. “Because it is pliable, the system can be moulded to become an expression of Maori character."