Of 42 referendums, 17 voted to retain Māori Wards in Aotearoa New Zealand’s local elections yesterday, which suggests something about where we are at as a nation — but you already knew that right?

We all know that it’s only recently that we’ve been attempting to teach New Zealand history in our schools.

As a consequence few people understand it — and even less understand Te Tiriti, and our obligations to it — and things like “active protection” not being based on race, but being based on a constitutional foundation which protects the interests of our indigenous.

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They are not just the same as some other minority.

There’s a special status to this and we would like to think we can independently maintain it in a so called “liberal democracy” but, as you know, the guardrails are shaky and under neoliberal attack.

We know Education Minister Erica Stanford is working with Atlas plants and one-eyed folk to dilute that effort, and we know history and social sciences are under attack under this government.

They pull the funding for the humanities. That’s the fact.

Not always equitable
While the electoral system may be formally equal (one person, one vote), it does not always lead to equitable outcomes for groups with distinct cultural, historical, and political status — such as Māori.

You try to talk fairness to your average rightwing, under-educated Act voter and they will tell you about fairness based on their own victimhood and “equality” not “equity”.

While Māori are guaranteed representation through the Māori electoral roll at the national level — Māori seats in Parliament — Māori wards are the local government equivalent to me.

Without Māori wards, Māori communities often lack meaningful say in local decisions affecting their lands, resources, and wellbeing, especially given the legacy of colonisation and ongoing disparities.

Nobody at Hobson’s Pledge cares much about that because it does not effect them. Self interest is their bottom line.

Without dedicated representation, Māori voices are often sidelined or overruled as we all have seen, many times and here we go again — as Code Brown is rife in Auckland and celebrations begin with no real mandate after such a low turnout.

Code Brown will tell you otherwise that these results are all about the public voting for “doing a good job” and not “just a pretty face” but in reality it’s about disconnection and the cost of living crisis and double digit rates increases in 18 councils, and who bothers to vote?

Many new mayors
In 18 councils which gave ratepayers a double digit rate increase, 13 elected new mayors — just like that!

Overall, out of 66 mayoral races, 31 councils elected a new mayor

Māori wards ensure there are elected representatives directly accountable to Māori constituents, strengthening democracy, but we’ve seen the erosion of it under this government.

We have all seen how they are pushing all things Māori backwards in a dedicated ideological push to clear the way for foreign investment — and that’s the battle.

Act picked up 10 candidates — but much of that is about who votes, and rather than a swing to the right it’s about rates and low turnout.

Ratepayers tend to get out and vote more than renters, according to Code Brown as we stare at voter turnout in 2025 which appears significantly down compared to 2022 in major cities.

Auckland dropped from about 35.5 percent to about 23 percent. Wellington dropped from 45 percent to around 36 percent. Christchurch also dropped, though somewhat less sharply — and while that’s preliminary, it’s a statement.

Nationwide turnout drops
Overall, the nationwide turnout is looking lower — around 36 percent preliminary results for the 2025 local elections, and offical counts will be known on Friday, October 17.

So in the end, we need to vote out the central government which gave us upward pressure on rates with unaffordable water infrastructure reform — while trying to blame councils —  attacked Māori on many fronts; and eroded progress towards a proper constitutional transformation .

After a recent byelection and now this result — there’s a message to people who do not vote . . . and it’s about the outcomes. You either vote or you get screwed.

I’m sure you already can see the need as some suggest voting should be compulsory like in Australia – and we all saw the gerrymandering by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith about enrolment dates.

Gerard Otto is a digital creator and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. Republished with permission.

“So many detractors were saying, ‘no you won’t get it, the Supervisor of Elections won’t allow it’. I said, ‘well let him just do his work’. And I believe in the goodness of the man. We got it and we’re happy.” — Sitiveni Rabuka, CFL/FijiVillage interview. 8 September 2021

The leader of the new People’s Alliance has given Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Kahyum yet another masterclass in how to win friends and influence people in the Fijian political context.

Of course, he doesn’t necessarily “believe in the goodness” of Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneen, who tried to prevent him from contesting the 2018 election and will do his damnedest to try to exclude him from the 2022 election.

Or maybe he does. It doesn’t matter because Sitiveni Rabuka has spoken well of someone who everyone regards as his nemesis and in doing so has presented himself as magnanimous and humble.

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Fijians like that and Rabuka knows it. Which makes it all the more astonishing that Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum still don’t know it after 15 years in power.

It was Rabuka’s humility and forbearance in the face of an ordeal in the courts before the 2018 election that triggered a wave of community sympathy that manifested itself on election day and took the Bai-Kai duo to the brink of defeat.

Readers of my website will know that in the immediate aftermath of the election, I tried and failed to get Bainimarama to realise that the FijiFirst government’s appearance of arrogance — its vei beci, viavialevu attitude to everything — was the prime cause of its electoral collapse.

But they still don’t get it. And having given them a fright in 2018 but still not having learnt their lesson, I suspect that the Rabuka juggernaut is going to bear down on them in the coming months and flatten them like toads on hot bitumen.

Why? Because the Fijian people are fed up with them, not just the usual burden of longevity in government and people tiring of their increasingly tired faces but a visceral distaste for the manner in which they conduct themselves.

Always right. Never wrong. Always contemptuous. Never, ever humble.

Even some of my closest friends say Rabuka cannot win — that the burden of his two coups in 1987 and the hatred and bitterness that lingers — especially among Indo-Fijians – is too much of a cross to bear, let alone such things as the fiasco of the National Bank collapse under his watch when he was eventually elected prime minister.

But politics is more about perception than substance wherever it is practiced in the world. And is equally true that electors have notoriously short memories, never mind that a great many voters weren’t even born when Rabuka held the reins of power.

I am coming to the view that not only can Rabuka win the next election but probably will.

For many Fijians, the events of 1987, let alone Rabuka’s period in government, aren’t a part of their lived experience. In any event, Bainimarama and Khaiyum have yet to learn the most basic lesson of politics — that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

And these two conjoined twins — with their chronic hubris and arrogance — are doing everything they possibly can to lose.

I’ve chosen the accompanying selection of photos to illustrate Rabuka’s extraordinary journey from coup-maker in 1987 to the benign figure that the opinion polls now tell us is set to make the most extraordinary comeback in Fijian political history. Provided of course, that Bainimarama and Khaiyum keep to the election timetable and the people still get their say.

There’s “Rambo” – the smiling tough guy and defender of iTaukei rights who forced thousands of Indo-Fijians to leave Fiji post 1987. And there’s Rabuka as Prime Minister in the 1990s forming a warm partnership with the main Indo-Fijian politician, Jai Ram Reddy, that produced the 1997 Constitution and eventually led to Rabuka’s defeat.

There’s the “treasonous” soldier who abolished the monarchy and took Fiji out of the Commonwealth when it wouldn’t accept his takeover. And there is the barefooted Prime Minister at Buckingham Palace making a formal apology to HM the Queen for his act of lese majeste and it being graciously accepted.

The man has had an incredible journey, that’s for sure. And maybe, just maybe, he is going to cement his place in Fijian history next year with an incredible final twist.

Is it in the stars? It doesn’t matter. It’s already in the opinion polls.

And you can bet your last saqamoli that it’s keeping Frank Bainimarama and his puppet master, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, awake at night with agonising intimations of their own political mortality.

Fiji-born Graham Davis is a Walkley Award and Logie Award-winning Australian-based journalist and media consultant. He is publisher of the Grubsheet blog on Fiji affairs. This commentary is republished with permission.