Issue 65 - editorial

Use them well

Tena ano tatou

The coming general election will be the 12th I have covered in my journalistic career; and for Maori it looks like being the most interesting. The way things are shaping up, it looks like Maori will play a major part in the result, either because of who we vote for, or because of those who vote against what might be regarded as our interests.

It will be interesting to see what effect racially skewed advertising like the 'Iwi - Kiwi' billboards will have, along with references to 'the treaty industry,' getting rid of the Maori seats and what 'mainstream' New Zealanders want.

It'll also be interesting to see whether we will back ourselves by voting for the Maori Party; or whether we will be swayed by Labours assertion, that 'a vote for the Maori Party is a vote for National.' Already the polls are telling us that some of us appear to be demonstrating a willingness to split our votes, that is, giving our electorate vote to the Maori Party and our Party vote to someone else - mostly to Labour.

Presumably that would give us the best of both worlds, a Maori Party electorate MP, and the return of Labour as the majority party in Parliament; especially as most of the leading Labour Maori MPs are placed high on the Labour list and will get in anyway.

It's clear that in some politicians' minds, Maori are not part of the 'mainstream' of our society, yet an awful lot of people seemed to celebrate Michael Campbell's recent win in the US Open; and there also seemed a fair bit of support for Norm Hewitt and his partner Carol-Ann Hickmore as they danced their way to victory on TV. Both Norm and Michael are on the cover of this issue, and we tell their stories inside.

As always we have many other Maori stories to tell. The 'Magnificent Seven' and seven Maori grandmothers or grandmothers-in-waiting who've challenged themselves to walk this year's New York marathon.

We also have a pre-election feature, telling you who's running in the Maori seats and who to watch our for elsewhere.

I began by saying this was shaping up to be a very interesing election. If the number of you who've enrolled in the Maori seats is anything to go by, you seem pretty interested too. As we go to print, there are nearly 202,000 on the Maori roll, with a week to go to closure. There are a further 165,000 Maori on the general roll. That's combined increase of nearly 27,000 on the last election.

Having take the trouble to enrol, we hope you exercise your two votes, and use them well.

Editor