Scaremongering Maori on the Maori Seats

Helen Clark, in commenting on Nationals policy on the Maori seats, has told the Maori Women's Welfare league that there will only be one more election after this one before the Maori seats go.

She's wrong.

You have my word : under Labour, the Maori electorates will stay as long as Maori want them to stay.Every five years, the Maori electoral option gives Maori that choice. It would be wrong, wrong, wrong for a Pakeha majority to take that choice away. Yet under National Party policy, there would only be one more election with Maori seats after this one.

The next Maori electoral option is in 2011, which is also election year. National's policy is to begin a constitutional process on the Maori seats at the conclusion of the settlement of historic Treaty claims, which is expected to be 2014. That is also election year. So I fail to see how there will not be Maori seats at the 2014 election when this constitutional process is just beginning.

Helen Clark's word doesn't mean much when she does not tell the truth. A little like John Key's views that the Maori seats are linked to the Treaty of Waitangi when they have nothing to do with it.