Mike's Minute: This Government has restored democracy

In a week in which the Government launched another action plan, the action that counts most for many is the announcement the Prime Minister told us was coming this week and arrived yesterday.  Local councils and Māori seats.  A lot of the overlay around this Government, involving all three parties, is about the Māorification of this country.  It has been shockingly destructive, and councils have led, and been allowed to lead the way when it comes to simple racism.  Policies based on race are racist.  Polices that advance one race over another are racist.  Despite that, they have not only gone ahead, but been encouraged to go ahead.  The law that let the community hold a vote on Māori seats was disbanded. That alone was undemocratic, but it was disbanded because the results were always the same.  When a vote was held no one wanted race-based seats. Why? Because New Zealanders are inherently fair.  This was all predicated on the idea that in a democracy somehow Māori were denied the right to stand, when in fact no such restriction was ever in place.  Like everyone else, Māori can stand for boards and councils and committees and Parliament. Top to bottom, democracy is an open field in this country and that is what needs to be treasured, nurtured, encouraged and preserved.  What made yesterday's announcement even more effective is councils will be made to hold votes on recent seats that they didn’t hold votes on, and if they don’t want to hold a vote the seat gets scrapped.  Brilliant. That was a step I suspect many didn’t think would be coming.  Some councils will gnash their teeth but what councils forget is they represent their community, and, on this issue, they have been wildly out of step.  To get where we have got to democracy has been gerrymandered, the way it is gerrymandered in countries we hold great suspicions about.  We are better than that. And yet the previous Government, in cahoots with ideologues on councils with more important things to deal with, held us to ransom and shoved it down your throats.  When a Government restores democracy, driven by common sense, that’s a Government on the right track. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.