Larry Williams Drive

This is a clever move by Nanaia Mahuta to try to essentially force Māori wards on councils, or at least make it very hard for councils to resist introducing Maori wards. Mahuta has slipped a change into a piece of legislation that will make it mandatory for councils every six years to consider whether they should introduce Maori wards. When they meet for their six-yearly Representation Review, the first step councils must take must be a decision about whether to establish Māori wards or constituencies. That makes it very likely, doesn't it, that a lot of councils will opt to introduce Māori wards. Because if they consider the wards and then actively choose not to introduce them, what are they?  They’re racists. And no one wants to be called a racist so they’ll probably just end up taking the easy option and introducing the Māori wards. Clever politics, Nanaia.  And what’s more, because she popped these changes into an omnibus piece of law with a whole bunch of other boring, technical changes for local electio