Local Government NZ now pushing to end equality of suffrage

Don Brash writes:

A recent report issued by the Community Boards’ Executive Committee, on Local Government New Zealand letter-head, urges the creation of “community boards, local boards, and other forms of ‘local community’ or neighbourhood governance”. When doing so “the default membership [of such bodies] should be such that 50% are elected by residents on the Maori roll and 50% by residents on the general roll”.

This is a wild distortion of any concept of democracy. Not only are those with a Maori ancestor (always now with ancestors of other ethnicities as well) only some 16% of our total population, those on the Maori roll are roughly half of that 16%, since there are nearly as many Maori New Zealanders who choose to be on the general electoral roll as choose to be on the Maori roll.

So what we see here is Local Government New Zealand – in theory representing all the local authorities in the country – arguing that 8% of the population should have 50% of the membership of “community boards, local boards, and other forms of ‘local community’ or neighbourhood governance.”

Local Government New Zealand, once again, is off the reservation.