Although New Zealand’s 1852 constitution was theoretically colour-blind, very few Māori were able to vote in early elections because they owned their lands communally. The wars of the 1860s fuelled debate about Māori representation, and in 1867 four parliamentary seats were set up specifically for Māori.

As a result of this legislation, Māori men achieved ‘universal suffrage’ 12 years before European men – even though their voice in Parliament was minimal, and Māori remained severely disadvantaged in political, economic, legal and social spheres.

Explore the fascinating history of the Māori electoral system, and see how it has evolved over almost 150 years to become a distinctive feature of New Zealand’s political landscape.

Early elections

The electoral franchise established under the 1852 New Zealand Constitution Act was theoretically colour-blind. In reality, though, very few Māori men could qualify under the property requirement because they possessed their lands communally (as iwi, hapu or whanau groups) and not under individual freehold or leasehold title as Europeans did. For the first general elections in 1853 some large areas of the country were not even included in electorates, and polling places were only located in European settlements. Only about 100 Māori voted that year, out of a total electorate of 5849. In 1859 the British Crown Law Office declared that Māori could not register to vote unless they had individual title granted by the Crown.

European colonists generally welcomed this state of affairs because they did not think Māori were yet ‘civilised’ enough to exercise such an important responsibility. They were also worried that if large numbers of Māori were enrolled, they could swamp the votes of settlers in many North Island electorates.

In any case, in the 1850s and 1860s few Māori were interested in the ‘Pakeha Parliament’; they preferred to deal directly with the governor (and the Queen) or, like the Kingitanga, create their own political structures.

During the wars of the early 1860s, some European politicians argued that it was vital to assimilate Māori into the political mainstream to ensure lasting peace between the two races. They were also keen to reward those Māori tribes who had fought alongside the Crown.

The Māori Representation Act 1867

After much debate, in 1867 Parliament agreed to set up four electorates specifically for Māori – three in the North Island and one covering the whole South Island – which were superimposed over all other electorates. This solution was similar to the ‘special representation’ introduced for gold miners earlier that decade.

To avoid difficulties with property ownership, all Māori men over 21 years of age were eligible to vote (and stand for Parliament). The small number of Māori who owned individual freehold land were still allowed to vote in the European electorates. This dual vote would survive until 1893.

Four seats were a modest concession: on a per capita basis at that time, Māori deserved 14 to 16 members (Europeans then had 72). The arrangement was supposed to be temporary, lasting only five years. Most politicians expected that in due course Māori would own or rent land as individuals and the seats could be done away with. It soon became clear that this process – the individualisation of Māori land ownership – would take much longer, especially as it was resisted by many Māori. The experiment was extended in 1872, and in 1876 the Māori seats were established on a permanent basis.

By that time some of the Māori Members of Parliament were pressing for an increase in the number of seats, not only to better represent their population, but also to reduce the size of their huge electorates. It would be more than a century, however, before these efforts were successful.

Māori go to the polls

Very few Māori took part in the first elections, held in 1868, but interest began to grow in the 1870s and 1880s. The first Māori MPs came exclusively from tribes that had fought alongside the Crown or remained neutral during the New Zealand Wars. Over time the government tried to bring all Māori into the system, however, by establishing polling booths in areas such as the King Country and Urewera.

In 1890, for example, the government decided to set up a polling station at Maungapōhatu, deep in the Urewera ranges, an area largely inaccessible to Europeans. After trekking for six days through thick bush and mist, the returning officer, J.T. Large, arrived to find that most of the people had left for Whakatāne. Those that remained told him that he would ‘get no votes except those of the trees standing round’, but he eventually persuaded some men to cast votes. Despite getting lost and injuring his foot, Large declared his 14-day round trip had achieved its aim of ‘maintaining friendly relations’ with ‘this isolated tribe’.

The 1893 Electoral Act extended the vote to all New Zealand women the vote, including Māori. Other law changes in 1893 and 1896 completed the almost total separation of the Māori and European electoral systems. From then until 1975 only so-called ‘half-castes’ (people with one Māori and one European parent) were allowed to choose which seats they wished to vote in.

Once established, the Māori electoral system suffered from official neglect. Māori elections were certainly very different. Up until 1951 Māori voted on a different day from Europeans, often several weeks later; from 1919 to 1949 the Māori election was held the day before the general poll.

Although the secret ballot was introduced in European seats in 1870, it was not considered suitable for Māori. They continued to vote under the old verbal system – in which electors told the polling official who they wanted to vote for – until the 1938 election.

There were also no electoral rolls for the Māori seats. Electoral officials had always argued that it would be too difficult to register Māori voters (supposedly because of difficulties with language, literacy and proof of identity). Despite frequent allegations of electoral irregularities in the Māori seats, rolls were not used until the 1949 election.

In the 1950s and 1960s the National government occasionally talked of abolishing the Māori seats. Some politicians described special representation as a form of apartheid, like in South Africa. As most Māori continued to support their existence, no serious attempts were made to eliminate the seats.

In 1967 the law was changed to allow Māori to stand for election in European seats. It was not until 1975, when National’s Ben Couch (for Wairarapa) and Rex Austin (for Awarua) were elected, that Māori were successful in general electorates, as European seats were now known. Prior to this, James Carroll had been the first and last Māori to hold a general seat, from 1893 to 1919.

Earlier in 1975 the Labour government had introduced a ‘Māori electoral option’, to be held alongside (or following) each census. This allowed electors of Māori descent to choose whether they enrolled in general or Māori seats and, depending on the results, could have led to the addition of extra Māori seats. In 1976, however, the newly elected National government decided that the number of Māori seats was to remain fixed at four – whatever the outcome of the subsequent options.

The Māori seats under MMP

The Royal Commission on the Electoral System, established in 1985, gave considerable thought to the future of the Māori seats. Its 1986 report concluded that separate seats had not helped Māori and that they would achieve better representation through a proportional party-list system. The commission therefore recommended that if its favoured mixed member proportional (MMP) system was adopted, the Māori seats should be abolished.

As the prospect of electoral reform became more real from 1992, some Māori began to rally to the defence of their separate system. Eventually, following strong representations from Māori organisations, the seats were retained under the new MMP system. Their number would now increase or decrease according to the results of the regular Māori electoral option.

Before the first MMP election in 1996 the number of Māori seats was increased, for the first time in their 129-year history, to five. Two more were added in 2002, and the total has remained at seven.

The separate electoral system for Māori was essentially an 1860s solution to a supposedly temporary ‘problem’. Its appropriateness and effectiveness have been the subject of debate ever since. Nevertheless, the Māori seats have survived to become one of the most distinctive features of New Zealand’s electoral system.

This web feature was written by Neill Atkinson and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.

Republished from: Māori and the vote

Links

• Dictionary of New Zealand Biography is an award-winning site that contains biographies of over 3000 New Zealanders, including a number of Māori Members of Parliament.

Books and articles

• Neill Atkinson, Adventures in democracy: a history of the vote in New Zealand, University of Otago Press in association with the Electoral Commission, Dunedin, 2003
• Philip A. Joseph, The Maori seats in Parliament, Wellington, 2008
• Alan McRobie, New Zealand electoral atlas, GP Books, Wellington, 1989
• Royal Commission on the Electoral System, Towards a better democracy: report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, Government Printer, Wellington, 1986
• Paerau Warbrick, ‘Dynamic and Interesting Events: The Nineteenth-century Māori Elections’, New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 53, no. 2, 2019, pp. 32-64

Image:

Māori men and women congregate outside the Rotorua courthouse on election day, possibly in 1908. From 1868 right up until 1951, voting in the Māori seats took place on a different day to the election in general (European) seats.

Despite frequent complaints about the conduct of Māori elections and the lack of safeguards against electoral fraud, Pākehā politicians and officials generally showed little interest in reform. As a result, the secret ballot and electoral rolls were not used in Māori elections until 1938 and 1949 respectively.