History of Extra Staff for Large Electorates
te-pati-maori
Tue Mar 17 2009 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
History of Extra Staff for Large Electorates
Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 1:24 pm
Press Release: The Maori Party
‘Size Matters’:
A Historical Perspective on the Provision of Extra Staff for Larger Electorates
Tiopira McDowell
17/03/2009
The recent move to provide an extra staff member for Maori MPs who represent electorates in excess of 20,000 square kilometres has been a long time coming: 142 years to be exact.
The issue actually predates the establishment of the Maori seats. During debates over the Maori Representation Act 1867 and the proposal to set up four Maori seats, critics of the Bill argued the size of the Maori electorates were so unwieldy as to render them unworkable. Member for the Bay Of Islands Mr H. Carleton described the proposed electorates as ‘perfectly unworkable’, while Member for Dunedin City Mr W. Reynolds wondered aloud how the Southern Maori electorate, taking in the tribes of the West Coast, Canterbury, Nelson, Otago and Stewart Island could possibly agree on a candidate ‘unless they were brought together to one spot’.
With the establishment of the four seats, Maori parliamentarians were quick to point out the difficulties inherent in serving such large electorates. In 1871 member for Eastern Maori K. Takamoana moved that the seats be increased from four to 12 to alleviate the problem. Member for Northern Maori W. Katene supported the motion, and clothed his misgivings in metaphor, confiding with his colleagues ‘I think that we four Maoris may be likened to a cap which does not hide all the hairs of the head’. Again in 1876 Southern member H.K. Taiaroa moved that the four seats be increased to seven, complaining the present number of seats were insufficient to represent a population of 45,000, and that his Southern electorate was too large for him to consult with all his constituents. Western Member Hoane Nahe agreed, questioning why it was that Maori had such large districts and such small knowledge of their duties, while Pakeha had greater knowledge but much smaller districts.
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The Southern Maori seat, being the largest electorate in the country, proved the most difficult to serve, and the problems actually increased over the years, with the expansion of the Southern electorate in 1954 to take in parts of the lower North Island. This was compounded by the fact that the number of polling places in the South comparatively declined in the 19th century: In 1868 Southern Maori were assigned 11 polling places, in line with the other Maori electorates; however by 1887 Southern Maori had only 25 polling places, while in comparison Northern Maori had 35, Eastern Maori 61, and Western Maori 86. The Iwi of the South balanced up these difficulties by sending some of the most able members to have held the Maori seats, articulate, outspoken and tireless men and women such as H.K. Taiaroa, Tame Parata, E. Tirikatene, and Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan. In recent times Te Tai Tonga MP and Maori Party member Rahui Katene has described the Southern seats as ‘the biggest electorate in the country’, the repercussion of this being that ‘it’s more difficult for people to access their MP than anywhere else’. Weighing in at some 161, 000 square kilometres, Te Tai Tonga is, for example, roughly 7000 times the size of the Epsom Electorate.
The size of the electorates was only part of the problem: in the Nineteenth century Maori kainga were remote and difficult to access, and this was compounded by the fact the government was only willing to build roads for European settler communities. In one of his first speeches in Parliament in 1868, Western member Mete Kingi Paetahi asked that ‘equal laws may be passed for both races’, complaining on behalf of his constituents that ‘Those roads which lead to places inhabited by Europeans are constantly being repaired, but those which lead to places inhabited by Maoris only are not made’. History records the fate of one Deputy Returning Officer, J. T. Large, who was sent on a 15 day trek from Lake Waikaremoana to record votes in the remote Urewera ranges. After being lost and injured on his journey, he arrived to find that most of the community had left to Whakatane, and was told to count the trees for votes. By the twentieth century many Maori communities remained isolated and difficult for MPs to access. Ngati Hine oral traditions recall that Northern member Tau Henare had to travel four days on horseback to reach his constituents in the Far North. His acquisition of a motorcar in the late 1920s must have seemed a blessing; however his efforts continued to be hampered by the diabolical state of Northland roads.
As history shows, this issue is not a new one. Parliament has been aware of the difficulties faced by Maori MPs serving such large and inaccessible electorates for nearly a century and a half. Offering Maori and Pakeha MPs an extra staff member to help serve New Zealand’s larger electorates is a commendable gesture by the new National Government. It will aid the democratic process and balance up long standing disparities between electorates, and should not be caught up in the petty politics of the day.
…
Tiopira McDowell is a PhD student and researcher in the Department of History at the University Of Auckland, and is currently writing a PhD thesis on the history of Maori Political Representation.
ENDS
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