The view from the top table

From the editor Dan Hutchinson

It’s the business end of local elections with just over a week to go to get that vote in and the contest is reaching a bit of a fever pitch.

Local elections tend to get a pretty poor turnout, so despite the fact voting papers have been out and about for weeks, campaigning right to the end is quite important.

Right now, there is likely still well over half of eligible voters who haven’t cast a vote, so if you poke them with a stick hard enough, they might just wake up and run off to the ballot box.

I think what puts people off half the time is they don’t know the candidates, or they don’t understand the issues or what’s at stake.

One of the big issues this year is the referendum on whether to continue with the two Māori seats on the Taupō District Council or scrap them.

The number of Māori seats on council is determined by the percentage of voters who are on the Māori role. In Taupō’s case, 15.3% of voters are on the Maōri roll and 84.7% are on the general roll.

Those of Māori descent can choose to be either on the Māori electoral roll or the general roll, but not both. You don’t have to be Māori to stand in a Māori seat but you need to be nominated by two people who are on the Māori electoral roll.

Either way, you only get to vote in the ward you are in, so nobody gets more than their fair share of votes, although there is a rounding factor to consider, for those particularly anxious about Māori getting more than their fair share of the decision-making process.

Not counting the Mayor, who everyone gets to vote for, there are 11 councillors on the Taupō District Council, therefore there should be 1.7 Māori councillors and 9.3 other councillors.

Rather than doing the whole Solomon thing and start chopping councillors down the middle, the wise ones have decided to round the number of seats up or down. That’s why we have two Māori councillors instead of a whole one plus a seriously injured two-thirds of a councillor.

They have done the same things in other representative wards; Taupō (7), Tūrangi (1), Mangakino/Pouakani (1), Taupō East Rural (1) and Tongariro (1).

People only get to vote on councillors in their ward, plus the Mayor, so essentially if you live in Taupō township you’re onto a bit of a winner when it comes to control of council decisions.

All councillors are expected to represent the whole district but the wards, while not perfect, do ensure communities of interest are represented and a broad range of views are available around the council table.

There are varying views on the wards system – some people would prefer to simply have a set number of councillors that everyone votes on, others would be worried if their unique viewpoint wasn’t heard, whether that is Māori tikanga, rural wards or other specific geographic areas.

Because I don’t have much of a social life, I popped along to a public meeting about Māori wards this week and there were some fascinating observations, which are well worth exploring further at some stage.

One of the speakers was Traceylee Hooton who had done a bit of digging about how many past councillors on the Taupō District Council had Māori whakapapa.

These figures are not specifically recorded, but having canvassed a number of reliable sources, she reckons nine of the 98 councillors to date had Māori whakapapa.

There’s a whole bunch of arguments you could make around that, but in a district where 31% identify as Māori, 9% does tell a story of its own.

Whether that is a reason for Māori wards or there is some other way to ensure everyone is fairly represented, is a decision for voters to make.