The author of this article is John Robinson, author of the recently published book, “Who Really Broke the Treaty?” published by Tross Publishing.
I am a scientist, a mathematician. It always seemed obvious that the aim was to work with
numbers to uncover the truth. That was impossibly naïve; now I know that mathematics is a
way to confuse the layman and hide some very shady goings on, to ‘dazzle them with
numbers’ – all in the service of some demanded dogma, all OK so long as the boss and
paymaster is kept happy. Nowhere do we find integrity in New Zealand.
Seats in the New Zealand Parliament are defined by race; 7 of the 72 electoral seats are Maori
seats. This satisfies the first tenets of racism, a belief in race and separation of people by race
in government.1 The resultant unequal representation, with far fewer votes required for each
Maori Member of Parliament, is undermining a basic tenet of democracy – equality of votes.
When I was analysing statistics through the 1980s and 1990s, I worked with a variety of
measures of one particular group, Maori. Each related to actual persons: sole Maori who
ticked only the Maori box on the census form, ethnic Maori who ticked that and perhaps
some other box, numbers reported by police and health workers based on their judgement or
in answer to a question, and so on. There were many, differing measures, but I understood
how each was gathered; there is no such clarity here.
A several-step process is followed to determine the number of these Maori seats. The
calculations are based on total population numbers (all ages) rather than those of voting age
or on numbers of registered voters (of Maori on the Maori roll). Given the more youthful
Maori population, this introduces a bias in favour of Maori over-representation.
“We used the following steps for each record (whether sourced from 2018 Census response
or admin enumeration (Stats NZ, 2019b), until we obtained a Yes or No for Maori descent:
- Start with the respondent’s actual response.”2 This is like the old “ethnic Maori” count,
and is 625,600. - If response for Maori descent is not ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ use: a. 2013 Census as first priority, and b. DIA birth records as second priority.” This introduces a further 134,300 ‘Maori’ to the count. Nowhere is there any opportunity for choice, where a person may state whether they have any significant Maori identity. The State has defined your ethnicity.
- If response for Maori descent is still not ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, use ‘within household donor’ imputation. Find the person of closest age in the usual residence and copy their Maori descent response as long as the response is a Yes or No value.” It seems that if you live with a Maori, you are held to be a Maori. This introduces a further 56,600 ‘Maori’.
- If response for Maori descent is still not ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, use 2018 Census iwi responses. If there is a valid iwi response in 2018 Census then set Maori descent to Yes. If Maori descent remains as missing or as Don’t Know, Refused to Answer, Response Unidentifiable, Response Outside Scope, or Not Stated then CANCEIS (the CANadian Census Edit and Imputation System) donor imputation was used to set a value of Yes or No.”
These last steps introduce a further 80,000 ‘Maori’. Do you understand what they are doing,
and why? I don’t.
The total “Maori descent electoral population” is then 896,600. The number of these ‘Maori’
has been artificially increased by 43%, from 16.4% to 19.1% of the New Zealand population.
The next step in determining the number of Maori seats is to calculate the “Maori electoral
population (MEP)”, by multiplying “the 2018 Census Maori descent usually resident
population count” (which is the “Maori descent electoral population” noted above) by “the
proportion of enrolled Maori descent electors who choose the Maori electoral roll.”
There is a recognition here that this will take into consideration those who are not of an age to
vote: “This means that the MEP includes people who are not enrolled on the electoral roll
(such as children)”3 , which inflates Maori numbers due to their more youthful population.
The MEP is then 472,397. Take care to not be confused by the very similar words used here
(I was): the “Maori descent electoral population” (also known as the “Census Maori descent
usually resident population count”) is very different from the “Maori electoral population”. If
clarity had been intended, there would have been a better choice of labelling words. None of
these is a count of actual people, a real population of individuals – apart from that first count
of respondents to a census question answering to a question concerning ethnicity.
The number of seats is then based on a South Island quota to suggest that should be a
population of 67,582 for each seat, and thus 7.23 Maori seats, rounded off to 7 Maori seats.
The suggestion here that there is a slightly greater population for each Maori seat than for
general seats is false, being based on that considerably inflated MEP Maori population
calculation, not on real people.
The result in voting power is a considerable inequality. In the 2023 elections there were
39,398 valid votes per general electorate and 25,974 valid votes per Maori general electorate. 4
The ratio is 1.52, and each Maori vote has a 52% greater value than a non-Maori vote. That
discrepancy is largely the consequence of the deliberate and forced set of calculations
summarised above. This is the destruction of true democracy, where all votes must be of
equal value.
The further requirements in my definition of racism have been satisfied: counting, and
exaggerating, race-based numbers, and providing special, extra powers to the chosen race.
There is never any thought of checking the validity of this process. The Government may
claim that: “There are approximately equal electoral populations in each Maori and general
electoral district.” But this is an artificial Maori population, numbers generated through
convoluted calculations and not real people – more nonsense creating race-based inequality.
If votes were of equal value with equal electoral populations, there would be five Maori MPs
elected by race (the ratio of 4.6, rounded up), not seven.
1 Robinson J. New Zealand nonsense (one). Sovereignty and defining Maori. The first note
in this series.
2 NZ Govt., “Deriving the 2018 Maori descent electoral population”,
https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/deriving-the-2018-maori-descent-electoral-populaton.
3 NZ Govt., “The mathematics of electorate allocation in New Zealand based on the outcome
of the 2018 Census and Māori Electoral Option 2018”,
https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/the-mathematics-of-electorate-allocation-in-new-zealand-
based-on-the-outcome-of-the-2018-census-and-maori-electoral-option-
2018/#:~:text=The%20Electoral%20Act%201993%20arose,the%20separate%20M%C4%81
ori%20electoral%20roll.