Govt Bill Will Suppress Māori Voters
If you can delay representation, you can dilute it. That’s the warning from Te Pāti Māori, who say the Government’s latest electoral law changes risk locking in the underrepresentation of Māori voters for years to come.
Te Pāti Māori are deeply concerned that the Electoral (District Boundaries) Amendment Bill will restrict the representation of all Māori roll voters until 2032 and beyond if unchanged.
The numbers already justify more Māori seats
There have been enough voters on the Māori roll to warrant an 8th Māori seat since January 2025, but the electoral boundaries were calculated using outdated data from April 2024.
This Bill will delay the next boundary review from 2029 until 2032, fixing the number of Māori seats at seven for the next two election cycles. It will also link all future boundary reviews to every second election cycle (every six years), rather than every five years, ensuring that electoral boundaries will continue to lag behind the growth of the Māori roll indefinitely.
“It is already an injustice that we will only have seven Māori seats at the 2026 election when we have the numbers for eight right now” said Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader and spokesperson for Electoral Justice, Rawiri Waititi
“It will be completely undemocratic for the Government to restrict Māori representation until 2032 when we are projected to have the numbers for nine or 10 Māori seats by then.”
“Not only will this Bill harm our people for the next six years, it will also ensure that we are underrepresented in all future elections.”
“The Māori roll is growing faster than ever, and 40% of the Māori population is under 18 years old.”
“If we allow the Government to delay boundary reviews to once every six years, we will always be playing catch up”
“We should be reviewing these boundaries before every election; my first Member’s Bill (Right to Switch Rolls Freely Amendment Bill) would have made this change”
What Te Pāti Māori is demanding instead
Te Pāti Māori is calling for:
- A boundary review to be conducted before the 2029 election
- A boundary review to be conducted before every subsequent election
“We need to ensure that tangata whenua have a proportionate representation for all future elections. This should be the bare minimum, anything less is voter suppression and a violation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi” concluded Waititi.
Submissions for the Electoral (District Boundaries) Amendment Bill close at 11:59pm Wednesday, 15 April 2026.
Clearly there is no limit to the spite, corruption and lies from this ugly CoC that FAILED long before this fuel crisis! Now they want to bring in a RACIST bill that will suppress Maori voters. Decent Kiwis are so over this DEVIOUS SH&T. Just stop the arrogance; stop the lying; stop the deception; stop the totalitarian behaviour; so we can ALL work together to save NZ as best we can. We are such a small country, but sadly have too many despicable, brain-dead people. We don’t need any more vitriol- we have more than enough to go around and around. Please, pause, and really think about the long term effects.