Predictable gaming

Liam Ratana writes:

But crucially, if a proposed amendment bill linked to the census changes passes as expected later this year, the number of Māori electorates will be set at seven until at least 2032. What’s more, since 2022 voters have been able to switch between the Māori roll and the general roll whenever they like, as long as it’s not in the three months prior to an election. Before this, changing rolls could only take place during a set four-month period once every five years.

This makes switching rolls for this year’s election a much more viable option with few if any negative consequences, Smit says, and it’s easy to move back to the Māori roll at a later date. It’s about thinking strategically, she tells The Spinoff. “Who’s on the field, and where are the levers, where are the gains to be made?”

She suggests many Māori voters wouldn’t mind if it was the Labour, Te Pāti Māori or Green candidate who won the Māori electorate they’re enrolled to vote in, but would have a much clearer preference in the general electorate. Given this, Smit suggests that where it makes sense to, Māori on the Māori roll should consider swapping to the general roll. …

“Take the Wairarapa for example – it is full of Māori people,” says Smit. “If I was living there, I’d ask how many people do I need to make the seat go left? How many people are down at the rugby field on a Saturday morning who could potentially switch? That’s what I’d be thinking about,” says Smit.

For Smit, the decision is an easy one – she is happy with anyone from a left-leaning party winning the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate where she lives (the incumbent, Labour’s Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, is being challenged by Haley Maxwell for Te Pāti Māori and Heather Te Au-Skipworth for the Greens). But she is keen to see the Labour candidate, Ginny Andersen, win in her general electorate of Hutt South, where it’s been a close contest between Andersen and National’s Chris Bishop for the past few elections. Bishop took the seat off Andersen by the slim margin of 1,300 votes in 2023, and with around 4,400 Māori voters on the Māori roll living within the Hutt South boundaries, the outcome could potentially be swayed if they chose to change rolls and vote for the Labour candidate, Smit reckons.

This is exactly what I predicted would happen when the rules were changed to allow Maori to transfer at whim between the general and Maori rolls (rather than only after each census). It means they can swap rolls to the electorate where they can most disadvantage a centre-right candidate. I note this is a power no non-Maori has.

Then just before the period when the number of Maori seats are determined, they can all switch back to the Maori roll, to game the number of seats.

This sort of gaming just makes for a stronger case to abolish the Maori seats. The claim is that they are equal but different to general seats. But non-Maori do not have the power to swap between rolls to target a candidate they don’t like, or to increase the number of seats.