Mike's Minute: We've proven we like democracy

My favourite quote of the week, and admittedly it is only Tuesday, is from the Governance Services Manager at the Auckland city council.

Submissions have just closed on the council's plan to establish Māori wards. The manager says "most submitters seemed to not want Māori seats".

No kidding.

Now, there are two sorts of democracy; one is what we are in at the moment, the election, where we get to have a vote and that vote counts. The other is the bit where they say they want to hear from people on any given idea, or decision, and they will listen.

The difference in this one is it’s a con. They won't be listening at all. They say you can have a say, so you think you have had a say and that what you say is irrelevant, but if they don’t say you can have a say they worry that a lot of people will say we didn’t have a say.

When it comes to the Māori seats on the council, or indeed any council, what you say will make no difference and, as such, you have wasted your time.

But it does go to show why the likes of ACT are onto it with their co-governance stance. That stance is more popular than any council, or indeed most media, would have you believe. The unfairness of it is not the fact Māori, or indeed any race, should have a say or a voice, because they can and they should.

And they can, through the well-established mechanism they call democracy.

But in that is the danger. In hijacking that mechanism they take democracy away from most of us, but pretend they haven't by deciding to do something they know is not representative of what the people think, but also by lying to us and telling us we can have a say, which technically we can, but under the subterfuge that it actually is representative and means something when it doesn’t.

The old rule when councils decided they wanted Māori seats or wards was if the voter got a petition going and raised enough signatures. They had to hold a vote.

The Government changed that rule because each time we had a vote the councils lost. That is democracy and they didn’t like democracy so they made it so you can't have a petition.

Instead, they do what they want anyway and treat you like a sucker and ask for submissions and pretend your view counts.

Back to the real democracy i.e the election. If this is a big deal to you and you want something done about it there are parties that will change it

And unlike a submission your vote actually counts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.