Helen Clark, Labour Party leader, has said "I don't have any particular difficulty with entrenching those" Maori seats that are created on the basis of the numbers of voters registered on the Maori electoral rolls.
She clarified that she meant entrenching the seats through the electoral option rather than entrenching a set number of seats.
Entrenching the Maori seats means that a 75 percent majority of parliament would be required to abolish the seats.
The Maori Party, likely to play a pivotal role in any coalition or support agreement with a major party post-election, has made it a condition of support for a major party to form a government that the Maori seats be entrenched.
The political problem is less with Labour and more with National since National has declared it will seek to abolish the Maori seats by 2014, although National leader John Key has said during the election campaign that this position is "not the bottom line" on the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment