Grant Duncan writes:
Te Pāti Māori have a policy to “establish a Māori Parliament”. According to the NZ Election Study 2020, however, the proposal for a Māori upper house of parliament is only supported by a minority of Māori, let alone others.*
This made me look up the data from the 2020 NZES. Net support for a Maori Upper House is:
So opposition to a Maori Upper House wasn;t massively different between Maori and Non-Maori. Basically it is favoured by 2020 Green and TPM voters and opposed by all others. Also a large gender difference.
It is a useful reminder that TPM’s views are not shared by most or all Maori. Here is the net favourability of certain politicians by Maori in 2020:
So significantly more Maori in 2020 had a negative view of Tamihere and Ngarewa-Packer than a favourable view.
What legislative powers would a new upper house possess, though? Would it amend, review or veto bills? What method of representation would it use?
I actually could be persuaded to support a Māori Upper House so long as its powers were constitutionally limited to a power to scrutinise, inquire, propose amendments and delay (say up to six months) bills. It is not uncommon for upper houses to not be as democratic as lower houses. The UK House of Lords is a prime example. The former NZ Legislative Chamber. The Australian and US Senates vastly favour smaller states etc.
As I say, the democratically elected lower house would need to be constitutionally supreme and able to progress laws, even when the upper house disagreed. But I could see an upper house of say 30 Maori MPs elected through proportional representation as being a way for there to be democratic Treaty partner for the Crown. In return the Maori seats would go from the lower House.
Based on an exit poll analysis of the 2023 election, a Maori Upper House would have:
And in 2017 it would have been:
Or there’s the model of devolved parliaments, as in the UK (Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales), or the Sami parliaments in Scandinavia, for example Norway’s. Such subordinate parliaments are delegated with wide-ranging but constitutionally limited powers.
The UK model can’t work in NZ. A key thing people often miss is that the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments have a geographical basis, not an ethnic basis. The Scottish Parliament passes laws for everyone living on Scotland, including English. And they have no reach over a Scots living in England.
Maori in NZ do not live in one territory. There are no reservations like in the US or Australia.
The parties opposing Seymour’s bill have not (yet) produced an alternative draft bill, even though principles of te Tiriti have been developed by the courts. Why not try to codify in statute the judicial opinions that they want to uphold? Are they afraid that this would expose those “principles” to public scrutiny and possible defeat?
I strongly agree here. If you don’t like the principles in the Seymour bill, then propose amendments. I would much rather have a parliamentary definition of the principles (even ones I don’t fully agree with) than having decades more of lawsuits and judicial evolution of the principles. Certainty is beneficial.
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