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Maori election petitions to the 1876 Eastern Maori and the 1879 Northern Maori elections were high-stakes political manoeuvres. The outcomes of such challenges were significant in the weighting of political power in Wellington. This was a time in New Zealand politics well before the formation of political parties. Political alignments were defined by a mixture of individual charismatic men with a smattering of provincial sympathies and individual and group economic interests. Larger-than-life Maori and Pakeha political characters were involved in the election petitions, providing a window not only into the complex Maori political relationships involved, but also into the stormy Pakeha political world of the 1870s. And this is the great lesson about election petitions. They involve raw politics, with all the political theatre and power play, which have as much significance in today's politics as they did in the past. Election petitions are much more than legal challenges to electoral races. There are personalities involved, and ideological stances between the contesting individuals and groups that back those individuals. Maori had to navigate both the Pakeha realm of central and provincial politics as well as the realm of Maori kin-group politics at the whanau, hapu and iwi levels of Maoridom. The political complexities of these 1870s Maori election petitions were but a microcosm of dynamic Maori and Pakeha political forces in New Zealand society at the time.

Lower voter turnout and lack of political empowerment sees Māori engaging less than Pākehā (European New Zealanders) with the political system to the detriment of Māori development. This paper explores the potential of social media to enhance Māori development via political engagement. Mana Party Facebook pages are used as a case study to investigate if social media can encourage Māori political awareness and participation. Results found that social media has both positive and negative implications for political engagement and indigenous development. While social media aligns with tikanga Māori (values/customs) through tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) and whanaungatanga (relationships/networks), other aspects such as cultural misappropriation conflict with Māori values. The paper explores tensions in the use of social media for political engagement among indigenous peoples and offers a framework promoting e-whanaungatanga to illustrate how they might use social media in a way that emphasizes the positive and mitigates the negative aspects of the platform.

This article examines references to tikanga Māori (Māori (the Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) values) by New Zealand political parties. The article grounds itself in some of the wider debates relating to the incorporation and application of tikanga, Māori values, across New Zealand in both legal and political contexts, with particular review of legislative references. An analysis of New Zealand political party policies and constitutions from the 2020 General election showed that over half of the political parties who campaigned made some reference to tikanga, but there was great variation in how tikanga was interpreted. This article assesses some of the opportunities and complexities of New Zealand political party engagement with tikanga Māori.

This article investigates the 2005 pre-election print media coverage of the Maori Party and its candidates. It shows that while the reporters and journalists generally represented the Maori Party in a fair and unbiased manner, at times their reporting was undermined by unbalanced or biased editing or subediting.

Different participatory mechanisms for the representation of Indigenous peoples have been proposed across states. Since their creation in 1867, the Māori electorates in the national Parliament have led to dedicated representation for Māori (Indigenous peoples of New Zealand). However, only half of Māori choose to vote on the Māori roll, the remainder choosing to vote on the General roll, illustrating that roll choice is not based simply on group representation. This survey aimed to ask Māori (N = 1,958) in their own words why they made their roll choice. Through a deductive codebook thematic analysis, a range of codes were constructed around the reasoning behind roll choice. Māori on the Māori roll made their choice because they valued Māori representation; as an expression of their identity; to support the electorates; as a strategic choice; or they had been influenced by others or through education. Those on the General roll felt their roll was the default or a more familiar option; the Māori roll had less of an impact; it was a strategic choice, or they appreciated greater candidate variety; or they valued the smaller geographic electorate size. Some felt Māori no longer needed separate representation or felt less connected to their identity as Māori. The results have implications for both Māori and Indigenous representation through dedicated representational mechanisms.

When Jane Mansbridge’s (1999) article was first submitted, more than 80% of the world’s parliaments featured less than 20% women (IPU 2015). Calculating the parliamentary presence of ethnic and cultural minorities and Indigenous peoples has proved more difficult (Protsyk 2010). This is despite the adoption of two United Nations Declarations, on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992) and on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the representation of women and Māori (the Indigenous peoples) was comparatively better than global averages. In 1996, 29% of parliamentarians were women and 14% were Māori. By 2020, these figures had increased to 48% and 21%, respectively, while in the cabinet, women made up 40% of ministers and Māori accounted for 25%. Reported as the country’s historically most diverse parliament and cabinet (Curtin 2020), it appears that both new (proportional representation) and old (reserved seats for Māori) institutional mechanisms had achieved near proportionality, and a heterogeneity of experiences, potentially enhancing opportunities for deliberation.

This is a collection of papers by senior Maori academics who are experts and have considerable mana in their chosen fields. The ten contributing authors, who are academics at Massey University, discuss the Maori language, marae, religion, the Treaty of Waitangi, the State and Maori, citizenship education, mental health, the health workforce, kaitiakitanga and horticulture. The book discusses Maori development and contemporary issues concerning Maori, both from the authors' perspectives and across different disciplines.

By 2051 the ethnic Maori population will almost double in size to close to a million, or twenty-two percent of the total New Zealand population. Even more dramatically, by 2051 thirty-three percent of all children in the country will be Maori?' This substantial change in our society will have major implications for Maori and wider society. Professor Durie discusses traditions and customs and addresses contemporary needs in order to build development strategies for the launch of the Maori population into the new millennium.

Eight current or former Maori politicians from different political parties recount their leadership experiences, and describe the significant events in their journeys from their early lives to Parliament. Paula Bennett, Te Ururoa Flavell, Hone Harawira, Tau Henare, Shane Jones, Nanaia Mahuta, Hekia Parata and Metiria Turei give readers a unique glimpse into their personal and public lives. They share their dreams and aspirations, lessons learned and knowledge gained while making meaningful contributions to Maori development.

Internationally, declining voter turnout is a topic of considerable concern in many liberal democracies. In this article, we investigate whether these similar trends can be discerned in the voter turnout for Māori governance entities. We first explore some of the demographic contexts within which Māori governance entities operate with a specific focus on population, residence, and age. We then provide a detailed descriptive analysis of voting data from one particular entity: Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, with whom we worked to understand how their elections inform their aspirations for continuing connectedness with tribal members. In the final section of the article, we present findings from an analysis of publicly available tribal voting data to see whether the trend of declining voter turnout is observable and whether online voting is shown to impact turnout.

The Local Government Act 2002 explicitly requires Māori contributions to local authority decision-making processes. Seven years on, it is timely to review the outcomes of the new statutory provisions and to consider Māori aspirations in relation to local political participation. This paper describes research that was carried out to investigate Māori participation in local elections and other forms of decision-making. Focus groups were conducted with four main types of Māori electors: urban Māori and rural Māori aged 25 years and over, and 18-24 years old Māori engaged in tertiary education or the workforce. The focus groups were part of a wider project on local political participation which explored linkages between what people know about local government and their participation in local government. Focus groups (hui rangahau) proved to be a particularly valuable vehicle for engaging with Māori youth (rangatahi Māori) about their participation in local authority decision-making. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings on the views of rangatahi Māori about local political participation, and offers reflections on the utility of the focus group methodology. The research highlights a number of strategies that local authorities can deploy to reduce the barriers to voting and other forms of participation experienced by Māori youth. Improved engagement with Māori youth is vital to ensure that Māori contributions to decision-making processes do not remain under-developed in future.