You don’t get to vote for these councillors

You’ve seen the hoardings around begging for your vote to put people on council.

But while folk are out there campaigning hard to get a seat around the council table, incumbents of two seats aren't bothering.

They’re not bothering, because the two seats are granted not on the basis of votes gained, they are granted on the basis of racial preference.

The two seats are granted to the so-called Independent Maori Statutory Board, which not only has the statutory power to “advise” Auckland Council—advice which the Auckland Council is statutorily bound to follow—but also has up to two members who participate in Governing Body votes.

Affordable Auckland Mayoral candidate Stephen Berry labels the appointments a “racist affront to liberal democracy.” Mr Berry said today, “I call upon the National Government to abolish the Independent Maori Statutory Board before the appointees begin their tenure on November 1.”

Bad as they are, at least the incumbents of race-based seats in Parliament are voted in.  But good luck getting a National Government dependent on the votes of those incumbents passing a law abolishing their kissing cousins.

  “The Maori Statutory Board creates an entrenchment of racial privilege which voters have no chance to influence or dislodge [continues Berry]. The fact this unelected body has votes reserved for it on an otherwise democratically elected council is truly disturbing.”

It is.

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. That applies to political power as much as it does money.