Keith Melville

On the issue of Māori wards, I can’t say I agree with Chris Bullen in his opinion piece last week that wards for Māori are needed to achieve better balance in local government.

Māori have proved themselves as capable as anyone else to get elected in recent decades, particularly in the multi-cultural Eastern Bay where I see many Māori and mixed heritage ratepayers winning election after election.

Good on them. That was probably not the case in the past, but they certainly don’t need patronisingly woke, and guilt-ridden Pākehā telling them what’s good for them now.

While I don’t pretend that the way Māori or anyone else are represented in local government is perfect, what is critical right now is the skyrocketing cost of local government on all us ratepayers, and the need to bring those costs down.

Our rates in the Whakatāne district have increased by more than a quarter in just two years and no let-up is in sight for those who struggle to pay.

Admittedly, the cost of establishing and maintaining Māori wards would just be a tiny part of our rates bills, but small costs soon add up.

I am also thinking of that silly, frivolous, and unnecessary process our council went through to establish a Diversity Equity and Inclusion policy.

That’s another example of hand-wringing virtue signalling at its worst. I must say ratepayers would hardly feel any sense of inclusion or equity in local government when they can’t afford their rates.

In his opinion piece, my former media colleague recalls a funny moment on the Whakatāne council involving Ted Butt back in the 1990s, I think it was.

What he didn’t mention was that Mr Butt, a popular Māori businessman representing the Ōhope ward was the highest polling councillor in his day.

That, and many other examples I won’t describe right now, show just how people from a truly Kiwi heritage are respected and supported in our elections.

Mr Bullen also mentions the raupatu in the 1860s when the Crown brutally and unjustly confiscated huge tracts of iwi land in the Eastern Bay.

He says those iwi were compensated to some extent in their Treaty settlements but never got a proper voice in local government that the land would have given them.

He should be aware that every citizen is entitled to vote, that local government elections were not a focus in the Treaty settlements, and that the signed settlements were full and final.