Ihumatao on MMP did its intended job perfectly PM’s agenda ‘once election dust settles’
EVEN as the results rolled in on election night there were mutterings that a parliamentary majority controlled by one political party is somehow inconsistent with the spirit of MMP.
The magnitude of the Jacinda Ardernled Labour Party’s victory will no doubt encourage that view.
Wrong. In at least three respects the election result is exactly what electoral reform was about.
AUCKLAND: The pressure is on Labour to deliver its promise of settling the dispute at Ihumatao now that ‘‘handbrake’’ New Zealand First is out of the way and there are a record number of Maori MPs in its caucus.
Top Labour Maori MP Peeni Henare said it would be on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s agenda once ‘‘the election dust settles’’.
A deal was rumoured to be near before Waitangi Day this year, which would have meant the land, confiscated from Maori in 1863, was returned to mana whenua, many of whom have been fighting a major Fletcher housing development planned for years.
But Labour’s now departed coalition partner NZ First opposed any intervention at the Mangere site near Auckland Airport.
The landslide election victory means Labour and its Maori caucus now have a record 15 MPs, along with two new Maori MPs in the Greens, and the likely return of the Maori Party through Waiariki candidate Rawiri Waititi.
Pania Newton, a representative for Save Our Unique Landscape, said Labour needed to honour its commitment to return the whenua in favour of mana whenua and ahi kaa (continuous occupation).
With NZ First gone, she also called for a renegotiation of the previous deal.
She said the initial deal involved acquiring and returning the land through the Housing Act, but without properly acknowledging the impacts of the original confiscation and the injustice.
The Waitangi Tribunal has never been given power to hear claims over privately owned land, meaning Ihumatao has not been part of any Treaty settlement.
The Maori Party has long opposed this Crown policy, and the concept of settlements being ‘‘full and final’’.
Labour’s Kelvin Davis says the Government would continue to work to find the right solution. — The New Zealand Herald
❛ MMP was designed to accurately translate people’s votes into parliamentary seats — and that
is exactly what it has done