Posts by Matthew Poole
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My source at Parliament came back regarding current levels of ethnic diversity on Auckland region's councils. This is gathered from news articles and personal statements, so is far from complete, but it looks roughly like this:
Rodney District Council - 13 councillors
1 MaoriNorth Shore City Council - 16 councillors
Waitakere City Council - 15 councillors
1 ChineseAuckland City Council - 20 councillors
1 Maori,
1 Samoan,
1 half IndianManuaku City Council - 18 councillors
1 Maori
1 Maori/Samoan
1 Samoan/Niuean
1 Polynesian/European/AsianPapakura District Council - 9 councillors
1 MaoriFranklin District Council - 13 councillors
1 IndianAuckland Regional Council - 13 councillors
So whilst rather inconclusive as to overall ethnic diversity, it does at least indicate that non-white councillors can get elected, even in that most-traditional honky enclave, Auckland City. As expected Manukau has the greatest level of diversity, but Auckland's actually far more diverse than one would've guessed.
Not perfect, certainly, and certainly not representative based on population, but also not all white. -
The "big" religions are over-represented in murderous rampage stats?
You're kidding me, right?
I was curious about that one too, actually. Unless you're referring to the Crusades?
One thing that regularly fucks me off is how willing people are to cite the "Religion is responsible for more wars than anything else" line, without actually critically examining what they're saying. WW1 and WW2, both about about land and power. The Jews were a convenient scape-goat for Hitler, and if he hadn't had them he would've found something else - like the homosexuals, or the Gypsies. Vietnam and Korea, both about Communism, though I guess if you really stretched that out it's kind of religious. First and Second Gulf Wars? Land and power. Boer War? I guess you could call that religious, of a sort, but mostly it was about who ran the country. American Civil War? Power. Iran-Iraq War? Land and power, because Saddam sure as hell didn't give a fig about religion.
The closest we've had to a religious war in recent history was Bosnia, and that was, really, about power and land. Religion just defined the teams, and if it hadn't been religion then there would still have been ethnicity, or some other way of picking the sides. -
Mikaere, if we want a bi-cultural governance structure (and I know only enough about traditional Maori models to know that it's something we should at least try) it's not going to be achieved by dumping three Maori into a sea of, very likely, white men. They'll be tied into the same processes and failed mechanisms that we've been using for the last 170 years. Worse, they'll be co-opted, with the old boys pointing to their token non-honky colleagues and talking about how Maori are included in the process.
The lack of consultation on how to do the governance model sucks, it really does. It's a "jobs for the boys" system, and the boys will be quite happy to ignore dissenting voices. Dropping the Maori seats ain't changing a thing about the outcomes, much as the outrage from the Maori Party and others pretends otherwise.
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This article sums up more clearly why I'm so uneasy about the Maori seats as they were proposed, including things of which I was only peripherally aware.
The biggest problem with the entire proposal is that it's geared toward getting rich people into power. That's no less applicable to the proposed Maori seats, which could easily be hijacked by a person of the "correct" political leanings, riding on the same ticket as the rest of the anointed persons. The only seat that would be immune would've been the Mana Whenua seat, and 1/23 may as well not exist at all for all the good it'd do in advancing Maori concerns. Am I that cynical about the process? In a word, yes.
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James, it's not bringing in Maori governance, though. It was also not an either/or proposition to vote for the Maori seats or for the at-large seats. It was both. Making voters on the Maori roll (which is only about 60% of eligible voters) more equal than everyone else, who would only get to vote on the at-large councillors plus their local candidate.
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This is why it is crucial that when people make Aotearoa their home they are educated on bi-culturalism and the role of Te Tiriti in our society.
You mean like the fourth-generation kids from the Chinese workers who came here at the start of the 20th Century? Or the third-generation Tongans whose parents survived the dawn raids? The children of Navtej Singh, maybe?
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No, Giovanni, I haven't answered my own question. At some point, "history" stops being an adequate answer. 170 years is a long time. I want an answer that actually explains just why we should give Maori representation when we don't give representation to ethnic groups that will, in the very foreseeable future, outnumber Maori. It's bad enough that governance is so tightly held in the paws of, largely, white men (though I was impressed at the gender split of North Shore), without attempting to put into law a particular level of representation of a particular ethnicity.
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The way forward is not to harken back to the 1950s, rather we should be integrating a bi-cultural model in our local government to make sure we get better decisions, ones that are cognisant of everyone's interests - including Maori.
Not to be flippant, but what about Asian seats? Or Niuean? After all, more Nieuans live in Auckland than live on Niue. I know that Maori have a place in our history that pre-dates anyone else, but they're not the only disenfranchised ethnicity by any stretch. If we want to break the mould of "white" governance, Maori-only seats won't do it. What it will do is encourage resentment amongst the communities of unrepresented ethnicities that are large, and growing.
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Another way to look at it is that if the Europeans want representation, they can go back to Europe.
Where, pray tell, in Europe? After six generations, New Zealand is no less my family's only home than it is the only home of any Maori person. I don't belong anywhere else.
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haha, and I'm so fastidious about using "Preview". Whoops. Yes, I meant "absence of Maori".
One could also argue that the Treaty doesn't apply to local government, and that the consultation requirements currently followed by councils ensures that Maori don't get ignored when decisions are made.
Roger, that's interesting. Certainly Auckland City is very gentrified, particularly when it comes to the parts that actually vote, so I'm not surprised in the least by suggestions that ACC is lacking ethnic diversity. I mean, this is the city that re-elected Banks.