Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

On Monday, the Māori Affairs select committee will consider changes to the laws around Māori wards on local councils, and it seems extremely unlikely at this stage the new proposal won’t be supported and passed into law. If so, it’ll mean any local councils that establish Māori wards won’t be able to scrap them for at least two elections. At just two days, the submission period  for the law change was unreasonably short. But given how few people care enough about local body politics to actually vote in local body elections, it seems extraordinary there’s much opposition to the law change, except of course this issue involves something Māori, and the perception for some people that Māori might be getting special treatment.Of course, both of those points are 100% right. The issue does concern Māori, and Māori don’t just deserve special treatment but are contractually guaranteed a form of special treatment under the Treaty. Martin van Beynan wrote a really thoughtful piece last week in which he asserted that New