Maori Archives - Page 2 of 2 -

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.

The author of this article is John Robinson, author of the recently published book, “Who Really Broke the Treaty?” published by Tross Publishing.

“Once when Maori called me racist, I would say “No, I am not.” Then I thought a bit about
what racism is, and I realised that they were the racists. I had entered dangerous grounds, for
it did not take long to see that my country is deeply racist. I do not belong here.”

What is New Zealand? This is a country that has defined itself out of existence. It is no
longer one sovereign nation. Instead, sovereignty rests with many race-based hapu and iwi
scattered across the country, ruled by unexplained tikanga based on the ways of a past
warring tribal society.

Who are these special ones who hold the sovereignty of our lands? This is the Maori, people
whose identity is fundamental to government and laws. The definition of Maori is then basic
to any understanding of the country. Here is, written into law in 1974.

“A Maori is a person of the Maori race: and includes any descendant of such a person.” ¹

Here there is a Maori race. There is no thing as a race, yet here it is written into law. So,
what is this? It is a race consisting of Maori. We are none the wiser – keeping in mind that
key words in legislation and in international treaties must have a clear, well-defined meaning,
leaving no doubt of what is implied. We are back where we started, and can go on round in
circles as long as we like, but will never get anywhere in an effort to find a clear definition of
‘Maori’ in our law. This is nonsense, but it is the basis of much New Zealand law, and of
increasingly divisions in many spheres of government.

Despite the lack of any clarity on the meaning of ‘Maori’, the above definition insists on the
inclusion of all who have any degree of ancestry. This is a wider definition of racial identity
than those of apartheid South Africa (which referred to the full blooded as black, with those
of mixed ethnicity defined as coloured), Nazi Germany (at first requiring half or more
ethnicity for a Jew), being that of the ‘Jim Crow laws’ re-establishing racial segregation in
the American South. ² Here is the affirmation of a very wide definition of race as the basis of
a national ideology, to be written into all law.

In practice these Maori are descendants of some Polynesians who came in the 13 th century
(including now anyone with any degree of such ancestry, no matter how small). Research in
the early twentieth century by the distinguished Maori scholar (doctor, military leader, health
administrator, politician, anthropologist, and museum director) Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi
Hiroa) identified three series of migrations to New Zealand; Buck referred to the first group
as the ‘tangata whenua’. Each new influx of settlers found numerous people living here;
many were killed so that the newcomers could possess the land, often in wars of
extermination, resulting in the practical extinction of the men, while the women and children
were absorbed by the conquerors. The first to come, according to Buck, was around the 9 th
century; later research has suggested a much earlier date for first human settlement. The
canoes bringing the ancestors to today’s Maori were probably the third of these migrations. ³

But all reports of settlers preceding the Maori have been deleted from history, with an
insistence that they only are the first people, tangata whenua’, and the ‘indigenous’ people.
That assumption is then held to support a claim that they are a special race, demanding higher
status and better treatment.

Such division by ancestry or first settlement, with race-based privileges, has been universally
condemned. This is made clear in the introduction to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes a powerful rebuttal of inherent differences between peoples.⁴

“Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating
superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious,
ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientiﬁcally false, legally invalid, morally
condemnable and socially unjust.”

This statement of a condemnation of superior status based on national origin or ethnic
difference and refutes the many claims of that Declaration which demand special race-based
rights for the (undefined) indigenous people. Nonsense is not unique to New Zealand.

There is no such thing as race. Humans cannot be, and should not be, divided by race. To do
so is to reverse the struggle over past centuries in opposition to division by race and the
subsequent racism, a struggle that brought equality to New Zealand when this nation was
founded.

This is the first of four short articles noting the nonsense that is driving New Zealand ever
further into apartheid, with different treatment based on race and two race based governments
and sets of law. Only a ship of fools would sit back and allow this happen.

¹ Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974
² Robinson J 2024. Who really broke the Treaty? Tross Publishing, page 41
³ Buck P (Te Rangi Hiroa) 1938. Vikings of the sunrise. Whitcombe and Tombs, republished
as Vikings of the Pacific in 1959 by University of Chicago; Buck P (Te Rangi Hiroa) 1949.
The coming of the Maori. Reprinted 1982, Whitcoulls Ltd.; and Robinson J 2020.
Unrestrained slaughter, the Maori musket wars 1800-1840 Tross Publishing, page 9
⁴ United Nations 2007. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf

New Zealand Nonsense 2 – Voting by Race: Unequal Maori Seats

New Zealand Nonsense – 1. The Maori Race