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

August 22, 2024
, , , Maori

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:

  1. Start with the respondent’s actual response.”2 This is like the old “ethnic Maori” count,
    and is 625,600.
  2. 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.
  3. 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’.
  4. 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.

Book Review: ‘Who Really Broke the Treaty?’

June 30, 2024
, , , , Book Review, Treaty of Waitangi

The answer to the book’s title question has huge implications for New Zealand

By Roger Childs

Waikanae’s John Robinson is one of the country’s best historians. He has written more than ten books on New Zealand history covering various subjects related to the last 200 years and the present scene. They are all based on extensive research with an emphasis on primary sources and the observations of people writing at the time. He rejects Maori oral history as being unreliable, a conclusion endorsed by the great Maori writer Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck)

Basically, John Robinson says that it was Maori who broke the Treaty and he provides copious evidence to back his conclusions, which begs the question what have we got a Waitangi Tribunal for?

Set up in 1975 the Tribunal has been investigating and ruling on breaches of the Treaty by the Crown and European settlers. Maori breaches are not considered – murdering civilians, robbing goods and stock from farmers and other settlers, burning down homesteads and farm buildings, and rebelling against the government.

Personal experience

The author has first-hand experience of the dishonesty of the Tribunal. As an expert in demography (the study of population) some years ago he was asked to provide evidence linking the population decline of Maori after the signing of the Treaty to the introduction of British control and subsequent colonization. After extensive research, John Robinson could find no evidence of such a correlation, but concluded that the slaughter of thousands of women and girls in the pre-1840 inter-tribal wars meant that after 1840 there was a shortage of potential Maori mothers and a consequent decline in population numbers.

The Waitangi Tribunal would not pay him unless he changed his findings. (This also happened to academic Giselle Byrnes.) This patent dishonesty of the Tribunal set John Robinson on a path of writing books that rejected the falsification of our country’s story and set out to tell the truth about New Zealand’s History.

A dishonest and incompetent organization

In examining the breaches of the Treaty, the author highlights the many shortcomings of the Waitangi Tribunal and how it has steadily grown into a self-perpetuating racist body with the goal of dividing the country and promoting the special rights and status of part-Maori.

Robinson covers how the organization:

  • uses a variation of the unauthorized English “Freeman Treaty” to make decisions instead of relying on the only valid agreement: Te Tiriti o Waitangi which was written in Te Reo;
  • fails to acknowledge the manifold breaches of Te Tiriti by Maori:
  • encourages Maori groups to “find” evidence of the Crown and other authorities disadvantaging Maori:
  • has made judgements based on inaccurate evidence, which have given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to tribes, and divided the nation in a New Zealand version of apartheid.

He favours the immediate closing down of the Tribunal and an end to the “Treaty industry” gravy train. He laments the fact that mainstream media support the status quo and will not objectively examine current Tribunal issues.

What lies ahead?

The author is not confident that the present National-led Coalition will turn the tide. He likes the idea of David Seymour’s proposals to enshrine three basic principles about New Zealand in our “constitution” – upholding sovereignty, furthering democracy and supporting equality for all. How could anyone not support such fundamental beliefs?

However, he is dismayed that Prime Minister Luxon is lukewarm on the ideas of having a referendum on the principles, and given a positive majority, passing legislation to embed them in our constitution.

John Robinson is concerned that most of the country’s population are complacent about the current situation – New Zealanders lack an understanding of the shared ideas that bind a nation together. The last two sentences of the book spell out what needs to happen. New Zealand must collectively wake up and turn from separatism, racism and apartheid to equality and unity. Until then, the majority will continue to be subordinate, and the possibility of racial conflict will remain.

An important book to read

Who Really Broke the Treaty is right up to date and amongst several useful appendices are the Coalition Agreements which spell out, among many policy goals, ACT’s and New Zealand First’s wishes related to dealing with the present inequality and division. National has agreed, but is currently dragging its feet on taking action.

John Robinson’s timely 158 page book is fluently written and carefully researched with supporting footnotes and a comprehensive set of references. Ask for it at your local bookshop or library and if, because of political bias, they don’t stock Tross publications, tell them it’s time to stop their boycott on the company’s many excellent books. Alternatively, you can order online at https://www.trosspublishing.com/ and purchase the book for $35, postage paid.

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