Keith Melville

I doubt whether Mawera Karetai, one of the regional council’s Māori ward representatives, understands the absolute irony in her Beacon opinion piece last week when she condemned the Government for its proposals to change the structure of regional councils.

She is clearly outraged at the Government’s plans to abolish regional council-elected representation and replace regional councillors with mayors from the territorial local authorities in the region until decisions are made on the future of regional governance.

Mawera is upset at the lack of consultation and democracy in the government proposal.

I, too, get upset when I see the principles of democracy being ignored and undermined but, in the case of regional councils, I am not convinced the Government is on the wrong track.

After decades of debate on the need for changes to the Resource Management Act, which enabled regional councils, the Government is ushering in sweeping changes.

These are still subject to democratic processes.

“This is alarming, undemocratic, and your vote will be cancelled,” Mawera wrote in the Beacon last Friday.”

She seems totally unaware that about half the Eastern Bay adult population were prevented by law from voting for the ward which she won.

Only those registered on the Māori electoral roll were entitled to vote for her and Māori ward candidates.

I once took a course in political science and I can still remember, after 50-plus years, a lecturer telling my class that one of the definitions of democracy was majority rule tempered by minority rights.

We have turned that definition on its head by excluding a large part of the population, perhaps a majority, from full participation in our democracy.

Mawera occupies her council seat because of privilege through her Māori heritage – her race – not because she was chosen by the wider Eastern Bay community.