M ÄO R I R E P R E S E N TAT I O N I N L O CAL GO VE R N M E N T 37 The future Te wä mua Where to next? The Race Relations Commissioner commented that the first "test" for whether Mäori representation would increase, decrease or stay the same under the current system would be at the local body elections held in October 2010. He noted that many councils will be conducting representation reviews in 2011, which would be the optimal time for them to consider dedicated Mäori representation or an alternative. He recommended that if neither the 2010 elections nor the 2011 representation reviews produced any meaningful progress on the issue, it should be taken up as an issue in the next general election. Since the Local Electoral Amendment Act 2002 came into force, a number of councils have considered the option of establishing Mäori wards or constituencies, but none have as yet done so. Even territorial authorities in the Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s own region have declined to make a decision in this respect, despite support for such a move by local iwi and hapü. The Environment Bay of Plenty model has been cited as good practice in studies of Mäori representation in local government, and has attracted the attention of local authorities and indigenous groups both in New Zealand and overseas. The evidence is overwhelming that the model works well in the Bay of Plenty, so why has it not been adopted elsewhere? Janine Hayward, in her report The Treaty Challenge: Local Government and Mäori, written before the Local Electoral Amendment Bill passed into law at the end of 2002, reflected on the parliamentary debate on the Bay of Plenty legislation as follows: … the current Local Government Bill allows all councils to introduce a similar ward system in order to allow for Mäori representation of Mäori constituencies. The debate played out in the House over the EBOP reforms may, therefore, be played out at the local level in many regions in the future. That each different region may undergo a similar process of debate seems an unnecessary duplication of time and effort. A national debate is required to thrash out the issues surrounding Mäori representation at any level, and to establish a case for Mäori representation, if such a case can be successfully made. If a case is made, then local authorities and local Mäori can negotiate how the model of representation would best work in their own community. To ask every community to decide for itself whether Mäori have a right to representation