REVISION WANTED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 96, 14 December 1931, Page 6

REVISION WANTED

MAORI YOTING SYSTEM NEEDS COMPLETE REFORM. A petition is shortly to be drawn ip for prcsentation to Parliament askmg for revision of the system under .vhich the Maori elections are coniueted. Messrs. T. A. Pitama and Henare Pohio, prominent Maoris, who vere also nominators of Mr. E. T. lirikatene, the Independent candidate 'or Southern Maori, attacked the s'ysem in an interview with the Christchurch Times. "We believe that the time has come 'or a revision of the system of votmg it Maori elections. The present form s a relic of the dim and almost for?otten past," said Mr. Pitama. "We ire more or less treated as children m he system of voting." He explained hat there was no secrecy of the ballot. The returning ofiicer and his Maori associate asked the voters their lames and clans, read out the names >f the candidates and asked them for diom they voted, filling in papers ac:ordingly. "The law now states that halfxastes and those more than halfxastes are eligible to vote," he conL'inued. "There is no record kept of ;hose who are entitled to vote, with .he result that it is possible. for marter-castes or even an individual mder age to go in and cast his vote."

Advance in Education. At least 95 per cent. of the Maori )opulation in the South Island could ead and write, Mr. Pitama continued Vn change in electoral systems was /itally necessary, and the Maoris as m educated people were entitled to t. To show how education had ad/anced among Maoris, Mr. Pitama oointed out that the standard for ;eachers in Native schools was now is high as that demanded' of teachers 'n pakeha schools. As a result of the loose system of /oting, people who should have vot>d as pakehas had recorded their /otes as Maoris, he declared, and in lonseqqence there was considerable lissatisfaction.