Jail voting ban hits the disadvantaged hardest

Complete this sentence: Ma¯ ori are most likely to . . . If you said own a beach house, own a second beach house, fly a hot-air balloon over Africa while sipping champagne; cycle some vast country to raise charity cash in a midlife-crisis telethon; breed trufflesniffing pigs on a lifestyle farmlet; eat truffles; use the word ‘‘farmlet’’; not die early, not go to prison, not fall victim to crime, not fall victim to poverty – then commiserations, you’re probably choking to death on a pig-sourced truffle chunk and this is all a wonderful, oxygenstarved hallucination. Good luck, Godspeed, run to the light.

The Greens are pushing to have voting rights restored to New Zealand’s prison population of about 11,000. I think this is an excellent idea – and frankly I was shocked to learn that prisoners can’t vote. Similarly, the fact that prisoners can’t vote or register didn’t go down well either with the New Zealand Supreme Court, which found it inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act.

This column started as a way of covering my journey as a Ma¯ ori person this year as I learned te reo in my fulltime immersion course. It has grown into something else.

As the countdown begins to the end of the year and my last column (yup, like my course, it’s all coming to an end), we can perhaps consider some interesting questions. The first is what life is like in general for Ma¯ ori here in Aotearoa. Well, it involves higher-than-average levels of poverty and the problems that poverty and racism cause, like incarceration. I’m not saying Pa¯ keha¯ are privileged, I’m just saying Ma¯ ori ain’t. So given that Ma¯ ori make up about half the prison population, disenfranchisement of prisoners hits our people harder than anyone else.

The implication I’ve read mooted by some is that it is dangerous to allow gangsters and murderers to get the vote – like it’s some kind of crime and safety issue. This puzzles me, because unless there’s a party of sociopaths aside from ACT, then we should be fine. Prisoners have the same limited menu of democratic choices that we all have. You know, vanilla versus vanilla versus NZ First’s man-illa.

The hard question we need to ask ourselves is whether we can stomach the thought of a rapist casting the deciding vote in an electorate in middle New Zealand. I would respond by saying there are undoubtedly plenty of rapists and sex attackers casting votes in every election. They were just never charged, or – given the huge number of unreported sexual assaults in the Western World – never even questioned by police.

A registered-voter rapist might even be reading this now, over a delicious non-prison, nongangster-related latte. Maybe all the uncharged law breakers (less heinous than sexual violence) should hold up their hands and tap out from the electoral process too. After all, criminals can’t be trusted, and I’m talking here about the everyday crooks – you and me. I’m talking about real estate agents tipsy from after-work wines who weave along the southern motorway, menacing motorists. Retail staff wetting their beak in the till. Accountants filching cash from clients to pay for luxury holidays and sex workers. Meth-dealing truck drivers. Dairy farmers.

I’d wager that if all the uncharged crooks didn’t vote, then the next election would be decided by exactly three people: Dame Susan Devoy, the Briscoes Lady and Marj from Shortland Street, and I’m not even sure all three are still alive.

I can’t say I back the Greens’ efforts with the deep gusto I might have for, say, a large slice of chocolate cake. Rather, I do it with the sober understanding of moral ideals and – as the Supreme Court has suggested – a passing respect for the intentions of the law; similar to the begrudging, hard-to-swallow respect I might have for a floret of broccoli or any of the other fibrous, largely unpalatable family of Greens.

Given that many of those in prisons were victims of institutional, intergenerational poverty and the challenges that creates, to kick away one of the few ways to reconnect with democracy is cruel and counterproductive. And just unfair. They’ve already had the state in their ear their whole lives, whispering how worthless they are.

I know, you can trot out names from the gallery of ghouls in our prisons as proof that the entire population shouldn’t get to vote.

But for every high-profile, irredeemable scumbag there are hundreds who might grab a chance at change. Of course, as part of rehabilitation, they should try to understand the impact of their crimes on the people they left without joy and faith and security.

I can’t debate with people if they want life to be harsh for the ones who stole their light. Questions of justice, retribution and humanity ask the most from those who carry the heaviest burden.

I’m not saying Pa¯ keha¯ are privileged, I’m just saying Ma¯ori ain’t.