Toni Boynton: Whakatane Māori Ward councillor voices disappointment with 25 councils voting to scrap Māori

There's disappointment from some after a majority of Māori wards are set to go. 

17 councils have voted to keep them, and 25 have voted to remove them

Whakatane Māori Ward councillor Toni Boynton says those referendums should never have been held.

She says this choice should be up to councils.

"If they're elected by their constituents, that's democracy, right? And they're elected to be able to make those decisions and that decision was taken away from them."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather do for see Allen. Most of the country's Maori
wards are set to be scrapped after local referenda were
held over the weekend. Seventeen of them are going to
remain in place. One of the districts that voted to
actually retain their Maori seat was Fakatani District Council and
Tony Boynton. It's one of the Maori ward councilors, is there, Hi, Tony?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh cure to Heather, mahit to you. Mahit to you
as a working mama as well as a toddler. So
thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Thanks Tony, I appreciate that today, actually very much. I'll
tell you why later on. Do you see this, by
the way, as a good result? Are seventeen of them
staying well?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I think first of all we have to say that
having the referendums in the first place isn't a good thing.
I mean, first off, the reason why it was removed
in twenty twenty one is because it was discriminatory against Marty.
But overall, there were four hundred thousand votes nationally in

(00:53):
favor of Mardi wards compared to two hundred and sixty
thousand that were against so there is a big shift nationally. However,
we have to deal with the tyranny of the majority
when it's divided down into the district.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, but the tyranny of the majority is just democracy,
isn't it. We all we all feel it from time
to time. The minority.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, the thing is is that we know that that
means that the majority gets to decide what happens to
the minority.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, that's democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
The vote anyway, you won the vote.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yet democracy in terms of the of the councils themselves
being able to decide that, and that was quite emphatic.
The councils themselves made that decision, and that decision was
taken off them. I mean, if they're elected by their constituents,
that's democracy, right, and they're elected to be able to
make those decisions, and that decision was taken away from them.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Tony, is am I right in thinking that every six
years councils review what they're which wards they've gotten, whether
they need to add or remove wards. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, that's correct. And so you have situations where you
have rural wards and you might have other urban wars
that might be established. Now none of those Wards, ever,
will face a referendum only Mardi Wards. And that's where
you can say, oh, democracy plays a part in having
a referendum, But however, it's not fear that no other

(02:20):
ward gets to face that, only Mrighty Wards.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
But what I mean is in about six years it
is entirely possible that this could be reviewed and Marti
Wards could make a comeback in some of these council
these council bodies right.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, definitely, But I mean there's a whole process that
has happened within those districts and what we have seen
is that those who won their Marti Wards referendum were
quite emphatic in the amount of difference of numbers that
they won it by. But also those who those districts
who voted against the margins were quite small. And what

(02:55):
that means is that people from the ground, with very
little resource have done a lot of work to be
able to shift a whole community.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
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