THE SESAME STREET SYSTEM

In 1986, the Royal Commission on the Electoral System reported damning disparities between the European / General and the Māori electorates. The Ministry of Justice updated those findings in 2009 and they aren’t any less damning, but they do remind me of a standard Sesame Street song sung by Big Bird.  Can you guess which one before you finish this column?

VOTING RIGHTS:  Europeans were able to vote from the first election in 1853, while Māori had to wait until 1868.  The right to vote in national liquor licensing referenda was granted to European electors in 1911, but Māori electors had to wait a further 38 years until 1949 for that same right.

VOTING METHODS:  Voting by show of hands in the European electorates was discontinued in 1870 in favour of a compulsory secret ballot.  But show of hands voting was continued in the Māori electorates for a further 40 years.  And even then it wasn’t replaced with a compulsory secret ballot but with a declaration to a Returning Officer, which was hardly secret. It wasn’t until the introduction of the 1937 Electoral Amendment Act that Māori were able to finally vote by secret ballot; 67 years after Europeans.

ENROLMENT:  The electoral option which allowed Māori voters to choose to enrol on either the European/General roll or the Māori electoral roll, was introduced in 1975.  The same choice has never been foisted on European voters.

The first European electoral roll was prepared in 1879, but the first Māori electoral roll wasn’t prepared until 1948.  Enrolment/registration of European voters was made compulsory in 1924, three years before my father was born.  For Māori it was finally made compulsory in 1956, the year I was born.

CANDIDATE RIGHTS:  Since 1975, Māori have been able to stand for European electorates and Europeans for Māori electorates.  On the surface this looks equitable, but when placed in context it’s too little, too late.

DETERMINATION OF ELECTORATE BOUNDARIES AND NUMBERS:  Five yearly reviews of electorate boundaries for European electorates were started in 1887.  But it took almost another century before the electorate boundaries of Māori electorates got the same five-yearly review, starting in 1981.

In 1950 the general population (including children) replaced the adult population as the basis for determining European electorate boundaries.  That didn’t happen for Māori electorates until 1975. And between 1950 – 1975, Māori children in the electorates were included in the European population.   From 1950 onwards, the number of European electorates was based on the European population.  In contrast, the number of Māori electorates remained unchanged at four until 1993, regardless of Māori population size.

CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS:  Constititional protection for European / General electoral system provisions was entrenched in law in 1956, and again in 1993.  In contrast, the entrenchment in law and constitutional protection of Māori electoral system provisions still do not exist.

Big Bird is right. One of these things is not like the other.